This article critiques the re-legitimisation of empire evident in recentwriting by Michael Ignatieff It begins by locating his work within thelarger debate on empire emerging today Focusing first on Ignatieffrsquosmore general comments on empire it suggests that his defensive casefor empire is misleading it ignores the extent to which thecircumstances allegedly necessitating lsquonewrsquo empire are themselves aconsequence of older empire and indeed older US empire Focusingnext on Ignatieffrsquos largely consequentialist case for the 2003 attack onIraq it argues that the lsquosuccessrsquo of the imperial project ndash to the extent thatthis requires the cooperation of Iraqis ndash will depend crucially on themotives of the imperialists Without engaging directly with Ignatieffrsquoswork the final section addresses some of the questions that theforegoing critique may have raised In particular it examines criticallythe claim that empires are legitimised by the public goods they provide
There has been a tremendous renewal of interest in lsquoempirersquo as a conceptrelevant to the understanding of contemporary international relationsThis is an entirely welcome development if only because a term that haslong been an epithet deployed by the left and denied by the right seemsto be regaining the status of an analytical category enabling us todescribe the way power is actually exercised in the world todayNevertheless a worrying aspect of this new scholarshipmdashespecially fora reader from the postcolonial developing worldmdashis the insidious returnof normative defences of empire This trend is particularly evident inMichael Ignatieffrsquos recent musings on empire which constitute the focusof this article I begin by locating Ignatieffrsquos work in the context of thelarger debate on empire that is emerging today In the following twosections I focus first on his more general comments on empire and
____________________
Thanks for comments are due to Andrew Hurrell Henry Shue James PaulStamatia Piper Simon Archer and Elizabeth Angell I am also grateful to theeditors and anonymous reviewers of Millennium for their very helpfulsuggestions Apologies for the somewhat presumptuous titlemdashI can do no betterthan to echo Arundhati Roy in speaking lsquoas a [relatively privileged] subject ofthe American Empire as a slave who presumes to criticise [his] kingrsquo
copy Millennium Journal of International Studies 2004 ISSN 0305-8298 Vol33 No1 pp 145-166
146
second on his justification of the 2003 attack on Iraq as empire-in-actionI hope to offer a critique that brings to light the myths and blind spotson which his re-legitimisation of empire depends In the concludingsection I do not engage directly with Ignatieffrsquos work but attempt toaddress some of the questions that my own critique may have raised Inparticular I am keen to address the oft-repeated assertion that empiresare legitimised by the public goods that they provide
Locating Ignatieff
Although the re-legitimisation of empire has been a long time coming1
the debate has acquired a new urgency in the wake of the terroristattacks of September 11 2001 Two broad justifications for the lsquoreturnrsquo ofempire are typically advanced in the recent literature The first is thatdysfunctional states by serving as a locus for terrorism drug traffickinglsquoweapons of mass destruction-related programme activitiesrsquo and a hostof other unsavoury endeavours pose a threat to order and stability theworld over This gives powerful states no choice but to impose moredecent forms of governance on them by force if necessary As SebastianMallaby puts it lsquothe logic of neo-imperialism is too compelling toresistrsquo in such circumstances2 From the point of view of the imperialpower this is a defensive and self-regarding justification empire isjustified as being necessary in the security interests of the metropolis3
The flip side of this argument provides a second justification for empireempire is good for the periphery because it brings good governance tolsquoroguersquo or lsquofailedrsquo states thereby ensuring greater respect for the humanrights of their inhabitants This is an other-regarding justification forempire one that many see as being the contemporary variant of themission civilisatrice
Although commentators typically advance a blend of bothjustifications4 variations of emphasis are evident For Ignatieff it is theother-regarding justifications that clinch the argument for the recent
Millennium
____________________
1 See Frank Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism Renewing the MoralImperative (Boulder Pluto Press 1994)
2 Sebastian Mallaby lsquoThe Reluctant Imperialist Terrorism Failed States andthe Case for American Empirersquo Foreign Affairs 81 no 2 (2002) 6
3 See also Max Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo The Weekly Standard 7no 5 (2001) wwwweeklystandardcom
4 See Robert Kagan lsquoThe Benevolent Empirersquo Foreign Policy 111 (Summer1998) 24-35 Richard N Haass lsquoImperial Americarsquo paper at the AtlantaConference Puerto Rico (November 11 2000) httpwwwbrookingsedudybdocrootviewsarticleshaass2000imperialhtm Robert D Kaplan Warrior
147
attack on Iraq (and empire more broadly) In his latest piece (which isincidentally an attempt to seriously qualify many of his earlier Iraq-specific claims in light of the deteriorating situation in that country) he says
While I thought the case for preventive war [based on self-regarding justifications] was strong it wasnrsquot decisive It wasstill possible to argue that the threat was not imminent andthat the risks of combat were too great What tipped me infavour of taking these risks was the belief that Hussein ran anespecially odious regime and that war offered the only realchance of overthrowing him5
I want to focus here on Ignatieffrsquos other-regarding case for empire Indoing this I concur with Eric Hobsbawmrsquos judgment that the lsquoimperialismof human rightsrsquo advocated by lsquoa minority of influential intellectualsincluding Michael Ignatieff in the USrsquo is lsquomore dangerousrsquo than the self-interested arguments for empire advanced by the right because of theveneer of legitimacy that it gives this project6 The liberal human rights-based case for a revival of empire is powerfully reinforced by the moralrehabilitation of old empire for which no one has done more in recenttimes than Niall Ferguson His magnum opus Empire How Britain Madethe Modern World makes for fascinating reading particularly in his listingof what he takes to be the credit side of British imperial achievement7
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
Politics Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (New York Random House2002) 147 Dinesh DrsquoSouza lsquoIn praise of American empirersquo The Christian ScienceMonitor (April 26 2002)
5 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Now The Year of Living DangerouslyrsquoThe New York Times Magazine (March 14 2004) wwwnytimescom
6 Eric Hobsbawm lsquoAfter the Winning of the WarmdashUnited States wider stilland wider rsquo Le Monde diplomatique (June 2003) httpmondediplocom20030602hobsbawm
7 Niall Ferguson Empire How Britain Made the Modern World (LondonPenguin 2003) xxv These are (i) the triumph of capitalism as the optimalsystem of economic organisation (ii) the Anglicisation of North America andAustralasia (iii) the internationalisation of the English language (iv) theenduring influence of the Protestant version of Christianity and (v) the survivalof parliamentary institutions No consideration is given to the fact that lsquothetriumph of capitalismrsquo often involved resource plunder and the destruction oflocal manufacturing capacity or that the lsquoAnglicisation of North America andAustralasiarsquo were achieved at the cost of genocide of the indigenous inhabitantsof those continents or that there is nothing self-evidently superior aboutAnglicisation English and Protestantism (at least to the vast majority ofhumanity who share few or none of these identities)
148
Further reinforcement was provided at a recent conference on lsquofailingstates and benevolent empiresrsquo where a leading academic noted withsatisfaction that developing countries had finally stopped blamingcolonialism for all their problems and started taking responsibility fortheir own development or lack thereof8 When western academics expressimpatience at imputations of historical responsibility for colonialism theyin effect arbitrarily impose a statute of limitation on discussions of oldempire even as others in the academymdashlike Ignatieffmdashopen new chaptersin this evolving story The convergence of this whitewashing of oldimperialism limitation of its moral responsibility and advocacy of newimperialism has fuelled a profoundly disturbing renewal of enthusiasmfor empire in the western academy today
Nevertheless even within the western academy the case for empirehas been fiercely contested A number of commentators have advancedself-regarding arguments against empire emphasising the dangers thatthe imperial project poses to the metropolis These range from ChalmersJohnsonrsquos astonishingly prescient warning of lsquoblowbackrsquo9 to traditionalRealist predictions of self-encirclement by counter-balancing coalitionsof hostile powers as well as the possibility of imperial overstretch10
Johnson also laments the implications of the imperial project for politicalculture in the metropolis enhanced militarism loss of democracy andconstitutional rights and an increased role for propaganda11 Othervoices have drawn attention to the profound ironies inherent in other-regarding justifications for empire the claim of empire to bring lsquorule oflawrsquo when it is itself a violation of law the challenge of simultaneouslypresenting the imperial project as a philanthropic mission (to aninternational audience) and as being in the national interest (to adomestic audience)12 as well as the very oxymoronic character of lsquoliberalimperialismrsquo13
Millennium
____________________
8 The Boston Melbourne Oxford Conversazione 2003 lsquoMaking States WorkFailing States and Benevolent Empiresrsquo University of Oxford (September 4-6 2003)
9 Chalmers Johnson Blowback The Costs and Consequences of American Empire(London Time Warner 2002)
10 G John Ikenberry lsquoAmericarsquos Imperial Ambitionrsquo Foreign Affairs 81 no 5(2002) 44-60 Ivan Eland lsquoThe Empire Strikes Out The ldquoNew Imperialismrdquo andIts Fatal Flawsrsquo Policy Analysis no 459 (2002)
11 Chalmers Johnson The Sorrows of Empire Militarism Secrecy and the End ofthe Republic (New York Metropolitan Books 2004) For a combination of theabove arguments see Clyde Prestowitz Rogue Nation American Unilateralism andthe Failure of Good Intentions (New York Basic Books 2003)
12 Pratap Bhanu Mehta lsquoEmpire and Moral Identityrsquo Ethics and InternationalAffairs 17 no 2 (2003) 49-62
13 Edward Rhodes lsquoThe Imperial Logic of Bushrsquos Liberal Agendarsquo Survival
149
Finally there is a growing body of work that employs the categorylsquoempirersquo in an ostensibly value-neutral sense (although subtle normativeslants are evident) highlighting the different sorts of analytical purchasethat this enables For Barkawi and Laffey the concept lsquooffers a way outof the ldquoterritorial traprdquo set by Westphalia and alerts us to a range ofphenomena occluded by IRrsquos central categoriesrsquo (such as the Realistfiction of an anarchical international system)14 For Michael Cox iteffectively dispels the myth of US exceptionalism and enablescomparisons between the US and other great powers in history15 ForMartin Shaw it forces us to acknowledge the post-imperial character ofthe West and the quasi-imperial character of politics in much of the non-Western world (a useful insight that he then goes on to employ veryproblematically as I later suggest)16 Notwithstanding the analyticalutility of this literature it has its own blind spots With the possibleexception of Barkawi and Laffey these writers are not very interested inthe peripheries of imperial systems and more specifically with howempire looks from below Among other things I attempt to explore thelsquopoints of impactrsquo where imperial powers and local collaboratorsmdashorresistorsmdashinteract for it is here that the viability of imperialarrangements will ultimately be revealed17
Ignatieff on Empire
It is worth spelling out why Ignatieffrsquos use of lsquoempirersquo is more thansimply descriptive or analytical His book Empire Lite begins with anintroductory caveat seeking to characterise the project as value-neutraldescription (lsquoI am not interested in using the world imperial as an epithetI would prefer to use it as a description and to explore how Americanimperial power is actually exercisedrsquo18) Nevertheless prescription isfrequently smuggled in lsquonobody likes empires but there are someproblems for which there are only imperial solutionsrsquo19 and elsewheremdash
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
45 no 1 (2003) 131-154 For a critique of both self- and other-regardingarguments for empire see Jedediah Purdy lsquoLiberal Empire Assessing theArgumentsrsquo Ethics and International Affairs 17 no 2 (2003) 35-47
14 Tarak Barkawi amp Mark Laffey lsquoRetrieving the Imperial Empire and InternationalRelationsrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 1 (2002) 109
15 Michael Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Town Or Americarsquos Imperial TemptationmdashAgainrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 32 no 1 (2003) 23
16 Martin Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperial State and Empire in theGlobal Erarsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 2 (2002) 327-336
17 Stephen Howe lsquoAmerican Empire the history and future of an idearsquohttpwwwopendemocracynetdebatesarticle-6-27-1279jsp
18 Michael Ignatieff Empire Lite (London Vintage 2003) 3
150
lsquoimperialism doesnrsquot stop being necessary just because it becomespolitically incorrectrsquo20 Indeed lsquothe key questionrsquo as he sees it lsquois whetherempire lite is heavy enough to get the job donersquo21
The framing of this question is noteworthy particularly for the wayit leaves undisturbed the assumption that lsquoempirersquo is the way lsquoto get thejob donersquo All that remains to quibble over is how coercive it needs to bein order to do so lsquoThe jobrsquo as Ignatieff goes on to explain involvesdealing with the threats and insecurities generated by lsquofailedrsquo lsquofailingrsquo orlsquoroguersquo states22 lsquoNations sometimes fail and when they do only outsidehelp ndash imperial power ndash can get them back on their feetrsquo23 Note also howfor Ignatieff lsquoimperial powerrsquo seems to be the only form that lsquooutsidehelprsquo can take Perhaps we should not be surprised at the essentialsynonymity of these ideas from the perspective of the rulers butIgnatieff also claims to speak for the ruled thus lsquoAfghans understand the difficult truth that their best hope for freedom lies in atemporary experience of imperial rulersquo24 (For a sense of how littledivides in practice and rhetoric self-regarding from other-regardingjustification or conservative from liberal one has only to listen to MaxBoot lsquoAfghanistan and other troubled lands cry out for the sort ofenlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confidentEnglishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmetsrsquo25) Troubled lands in thepostcolonial world have been crying out for many forms of lsquooutsidehelprsquo26mdashfairer terms of trade technology transfer debt forgiveness moreaid to provide just a sample ndash but one is hard pressed to find voices thatenjoy any sort of legitimacy in the Third World expressing lsquoempirenostalgiarsquo
Millennium
____________________
19 Ibid 1120 Ibid 10621 Ibid 322 Ignatieff does not distinguish very clearly between these quite distinct
phenomena It is now commonly accepted that failed states are characterised bya collapse of governmental authority and a resulting state of anarchy (egSomalia in 1991-92) In lsquoroguersquo states there is usually a functioning governmentwhich is perceived as behaving aggressively in its external relations with otherstates andor abusing the human rights of its citizens internally There is apossible (but by no means inevitable) overlap between the two and it seemsreasonable to suppose that they demand distinct policy approaches
23 Ignatieff Empire Lite 10624 Ibid 10725 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo26 For an excellent survey of these demands and the reactions they elicited at
a time when they were given possibly their most institutionalised expression seeRobert W Cox lsquoIdeologies and the New International Economic Orderreflections on some recent literaturersquo International Organisation 33 no 2 (1979)257-302
151
Closer attention to the causes of state failure reveals that many of thesehad their roots in an older era of empire The risks of state failure aregreatest in those former colonial possessions in which the processes ofstate-and nation-building have not sufficiently advanced MohammedAyoob reminds us that most developing countries have had to telescopethese dual tasks into a combined and drastically shortened processwithout the luxury of time and agency that western European stateshave enjoyed Further they have had to do so under extremely difficultconditions having inherited arbitrary boundaries and ethnicallyheterogeneous populations from their imperial predecessors they sufferfrom a lack of internal cohesiveness and state legitimacy This hascondemned many of them to a postcolonial lifetime of civil war andsecessionist strifemdashusually precursors to complete state failure27
The egregious exploits of the corrupt venal elites that rule many ofthese states are frequently cited as justification for the revival of empireYet only by looking at the more critical-historical scholarship ofAlexander Wendt and Michael Barnett do we get a sense of the extent towhich these elites are themselves creatures of older lsquobenevolentrsquoempire28 Wendt and Barnett explain how colonial patterns of skewedeconomic development resulted in a situation of disarticulation ordualism whereby colonial economies tended to spawn a modern sector(usually closely integrated with the metropolitan and world economies)in addition to the existing traditional sector Colonial governments cameto rely heavily on native elites associated with the modern sector for thepurposes of maintaining order and extracting revenue from the colonyThis arrangement benefited native elites materially and in doing sobound them closely to the metropolitan state while breaking down theirties to the mass of the native population In most cases decolonisationmerely handed over the reins of power to local elites who thenconsolidated their internal security position vis-agrave-vis the lsquothreatrsquo posedby the masses by continuing to rely on external economic and politicalties In the situation of lsquoinformal empirersquo29 that characterised the ColdWar these ties took the form of lsquosecurity assistancersquo provided by thesuperpowers to Third World elites in return for their cooperation in thepursuit of Cold War objectives The illegitimate regimes inherited from
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
27 Mohammed Ayoob The Third World Security Predicament (London LynneRienner 1995)
28 Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett lsquoDependent State formation andThird World militarisationrsquo Review of International Studies 19 no 4 (1993) 321-347
29 Wendt and Barnett define informal empire as a socially structured systemof interaction among juridically sovereign states in which one the lsquodominantrsquostate has a significant degree of de facto political authority over the securitypolicies of another lsquosubordinatersquo state
152
colonialism therefore reproduced themselves with external patronagecontinuing to obviate the need for native elites to obtain the consent ofthe governed or to arrive at the sort of labour-capital compromises thatcharacterise western welfare states
To locate the roots of contemporary state failure in earlier eras ofEuropean and US empire is not to engage in some self-congratulatoryblame game Nor should it provide any measure of comfort to ThirdWorld elites who as the preceding account suggests have proved onlytoo willing to collude with metropolitan elites in their self-interestRather it is to affirm in the words of Edward Said lsquothe interdependenceof various histories on one another and the necessary interaction ofcontemporary societies with one anotherrsquo30 with a view to avoiding arepetition of the injustices of the past To be fair Ignatieff alludes to theidea of failing states as legacies of em-pires past but the connections areleft exceedingly vague and ill-defined
Being an imperial power means carrying out imperialfunctions in places America has inherited from the failedempires of the 20th century America has inherited this crisisof self-determination from the empires of the past Americahas inherited a world scarred not just by the failures ofempires past but also by the failure of nationalist movementsto create and secure free states31
More problematically Ignatieff sees the failures of past empires andnationalist movements not as reason to adopt fundamentally newapproaches to the resulting problems but rather to revive the notion ofimperial rule This view is tantamount to arguing that crises of statefailure are a result not of too much imperialism but too little
This nostalgic view of empire is surprisingly widely held RobertJackson for example argues that hasty and premature decolonisationwas more detrimental to the well-being of Third World states than thecolonial encounter itself32 Contrasting the different developmentaltrajectories of the lsquowhitersquo dominions and colonies in the British empireFerguson says lsquoThat [the British empire] didnrsquot deliver Canadian-stylegrowth rates in India isnrsquot explicable in terms of ruthless Britishexploitation Itrsquos explicable in that there wasnrsquot quite enough
Millennium
____________________
30 Edward Said Culture and Imperialism (London Vintage 1994) 4331 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo The New York Times Magazine (January 5
2003) 24 53 5432 Robert H Jackson Quasi-States Sovereignty International Relations and the
Third World (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1996) 198-202
153
imperialism the British didnrsquot do quite enough to achieve that kind ofgrowthrsquo33 (But wasnrsquot lsquodoing enoughrsquo in Canada and the other dominionspremised on ruthless exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants) Thelsquonot enough imperialismrsquo thesis is argued forcefully by Max Boot in hisdiscussion of US intervention in Hispaniola lsquoThe marines had tried hardto plant constitutional government but found that it would not take rootin the inhospitable soil of Hispaniola The only thing that could have kepta Trujillo or Duvalier from seizing power was renewed US intervention [T]he only thing more unsavoury than US intervention it turned outwas US non-interventionrsquo34 And elsewhere in a discussion of Nicaragualsquodictatorship [in Nicaragua] was indigenous democracy was a foreigntransplant that did not take in part because America would not stickaround long enough to cultivate itrsquo35
Thus economic political and military crises in the postcolonialThird World have begun to serve as a retrospective justification forimperialism There is a virtual consensus among the above writers thatthe roots of these crises are to be found not in the colonial but in thenationalist era (In saying lsquobothrsquo Ignatieff is usefully ambiguous on thispoint) But as Frank Furedi argues this is the contested question and wecannot begin by assuming we know the answers36 In this contextJedediah Purdy usefully reminds us that lsquothe failure of many postcolonialregimes does not in itself mean that the preceding colonial rule was agood thing whose passing was to be regretted Nor more pertinentlydoes such failure indicate that independence was inherently unviable forthose countries While those countries faced severe disadvantages apartfrom the Cold War we will never know whether some might have donemuch better free of the proxy battles of those decadesrsquo37
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
33 Niall Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and Demise of the British World Orderand Lessons for Global Power rsquo Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast(September 16 2003) httpwwwcarnegiecouncilorgviewMediaphpprmID1033
34 Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of AmericanPower (New York Basic Books 2002) 181 Contrast this with John F Kennedyrsquosown admission lsquoThere are three possibilities in descending order of preferencea decent democratic regime a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castroregime We ought to aim at the first but we cant really renounce the second until weare sure we can avoid the thirdrsquo Cited in Abraham F Lowenthal lsquoThe UnitedStates and Latin American Democracy Learning from Historyrsquo in ExportingDemocracy The United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal(Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 388
35 Boot The Savage Wars of Peace 25136 Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 100 10637 Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 39 For a contrary view arguing that colonialism
was preferable to the situation of lsquoquasi-statehoodrsquo in which many postcolonial
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
Millennium
____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
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____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
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____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
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____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
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____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
146
second on his justification of the 2003 attack on Iraq as empire-in-actionI hope to offer a critique that brings to light the myths and blind spotson which his re-legitimisation of empire depends In the concludingsection I do not engage directly with Ignatieffrsquos work but attempt toaddress some of the questions that my own critique may have raised Inparticular I am keen to address the oft-repeated assertion that empiresare legitimised by the public goods that they provide
Locating Ignatieff
Although the re-legitimisation of empire has been a long time coming1
the debate has acquired a new urgency in the wake of the terroristattacks of September 11 2001 Two broad justifications for the lsquoreturnrsquo ofempire are typically advanced in the recent literature The first is thatdysfunctional states by serving as a locus for terrorism drug traffickinglsquoweapons of mass destruction-related programme activitiesrsquo and a hostof other unsavoury endeavours pose a threat to order and stability theworld over This gives powerful states no choice but to impose moredecent forms of governance on them by force if necessary As SebastianMallaby puts it lsquothe logic of neo-imperialism is too compelling toresistrsquo in such circumstances2 From the point of view of the imperialpower this is a defensive and self-regarding justification empire isjustified as being necessary in the security interests of the metropolis3
The flip side of this argument provides a second justification for empireempire is good for the periphery because it brings good governance tolsquoroguersquo or lsquofailedrsquo states thereby ensuring greater respect for the humanrights of their inhabitants This is an other-regarding justification forempire one that many see as being the contemporary variant of themission civilisatrice
Although commentators typically advance a blend of bothjustifications4 variations of emphasis are evident For Ignatieff it is theother-regarding justifications that clinch the argument for the recent
Millennium
____________________
1 See Frank Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism Renewing the MoralImperative (Boulder Pluto Press 1994)
2 Sebastian Mallaby lsquoThe Reluctant Imperialist Terrorism Failed States andthe Case for American Empirersquo Foreign Affairs 81 no 2 (2002) 6
3 See also Max Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo The Weekly Standard 7no 5 (2001) wwwweeklystandardcom
4 See Robert Kagan lsquoThe Benevolent Empirersquo Foreign Policy 111 (Summer1998) 24-35 Richard N Haass lsquoImperial Americarsquo paper at the AtlantaConference Puerto Rico (November 11 2000) httpwwwbrookingsedudybdocrootviewsarticleshaass2000imperialhtm Robert D Kaplan Warrior
147
attack on Iraq (and empire more broadly) In his latest piece (which isincidentally an attempt to seriously qualify many of his earlier Iraq-specific claims in light of the deteriorating situation in that country) he says
While I thought the case for preventive war [based on self-regarding justifications] was strong it wasnrsquot decisive It wasstill possible to argue that the threat was not imminent andthat the risks of combat were too great What tipped me infavour of taking these risks was the belief that Hussein ran anespecially odious regime and that war offered the only realchance of overthrowing him5
I want to focus here on Ignatieffrsquos other-regarding case for empire Indoing this I concur with Eric Hobsbawmrsquos judgment that the lsquoimperialismof human rightsrsquo advocated by lsquoa minority of influential intellectualsincluding Michael Ignatieff in the USrsquo is lsquomore dangerousrsquo than the self-interested arguments for empire advanced by the right because of theveneer of legitimacy that it gives this project6 The liberal human rights-based case for a revival of empire is powerfully reinforced by the moralrehabilitation of old empire for which no one has done more in recenttimes than Niall Ferguson His magnum opus Empire How Britain Madethe Modern World makes for fascinating reading particularly in his listingof what he takes to be the credit side of British imperial achievement7
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
Politics Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (New York Random House2002) 147 Dinesh DrsquoSouza lsquoIn praise of American empirersquo The Christian ScienceMonitor (April 26 2002)
5 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Now The Year of Living DangerouslyrsquoThe New York Times Magazine (March 14 2004) wwwnytimescom
6 Eric Hobsbawm lsquoAfter the Winning of the WarmdashUnited States wider stilland wider rsquo Le Monde diplomatique (June 2003) httpmondediplocom20030602hobsbawm
7 Niall Ferguson Empire How Britain Made the Modern World (LondonPenguin 2003) xxv These are (i) the triumph of capitalism as the optimalsystem of economic organisation (ii) the Anglicisation of North America andAustralasia (iii) the internationalisation of the English language (iv) theenduring influence of the Protestant version of Christianity and (v) the survivalof parliamentary institutions No consideration is given to the fact that lsquothetriumph of capitalismrsquo often involved resource plunder and the destruction oflocal manufacturing capacity or that the lsquoAnglicisation of North America andAustralasiarsquo were achieved at the cost of genocide of the indigenous inhabitantsof those continents or that there is nothing self-evidently superior aboutAnglicisation English and Protestantism (at least to the vast majority ofhumanity who share few or none of these identities)
148
Further reinforcement was provided at a recent conference on lsquofailingstates and benevolent empiresrsquo where a leading academic noted withsatisfaction that developing countries had finally stopped blamingcolonialism for all their problems and started taking responsibility fortheir own development or lack thereof8 When western academics expressimpatience at imputations of historical responsibility for colonialism theyin effect arbitrarily impose a statute of limitation on discussions of oldempire even as others in the academymdashlike Ignatieffmdashopen new chaptersin this evolving story The convergence of this whitewashing of oldimperialism limitation of its moral responsibility and advocacy of newimperialism has fuelled a profoundly disturbing renewal of enthusiasmfor empire in the western academy today
Nevertheless even within the western academy the case for empirehas been fiercely contested A number of commentators have advancedself-regarding arguments against empire emphasising the dangers thatthe imperial project poses to the metropolis These range from ChalmersJohnsonrsquos astonishingly prescient warning of lsquoblowbackrsquo9 to traditionalRealist predictions of self-encirclement by counter-balancing coalitionsof hostile powers as well as the possibility of imperial overstretch10
Johnson also laments the implications of the imperial project for politicalculture in the metropolis enhanced militarism loss of democracy andconstitutional rights and an increased role for propaganda11 Othervoices have drawn attention to the profound ironies inherent in other-regarding justifications for empire the claim of empire to bring lsquorule oflawrsquo when it is itself a violation of law the challenge of simultaneouslypresenting the imperial project as a philanthropic mission (to aninternational audience) and as being in the national interest (to adomestic audience)12 as well as the very oxymoronic character of lsquoliberalimperialismrsquo13
Millennium
____________________
8 The Boston Melbourne Oxford Conversazione 2003 lsquoMaking States WorkFailing States and Benevolent Empiresrsquo University of Oxford (September 4-6 2003)
9 Chalmers Johnson Blowback The Costs and Consequences of American Empire(London Time Warner 2002)
10 G John Ikenberry lsquoAmericarsquos Imperial Ambitionrsquo Foreign Affairs 81 no 5(2002) 44-60 Ivan Eland lsquoThe Empire Strikes Out The ldquoNew Imperialismrdquo andIts Fatal Flawsrsquo Policy Analysis no 459 (2002)
11 Chalmers Johnson The Sorrows of Empire Militarism Secrecy and the End ofthe Republic (New York Metropolitan Books 2004) For a combination of theabove arguments see Clyde Prestowitz Rogue Nation American Unilateralism andthe Failure of Good Intentions (New York Basic Books 2003)
12 Pratap Bhanu Mehta lsquoEmpire and Moral Identityrsquo Ethics and InternationalAffairs 17 no 2 (2003) 49-62
13 Edward Rhodes lsquoThe Imperial Logic of Bushrsquos Liberal Agendarsquo Survival
149
Finally there is a growing body of work that employs the categorylsquoempirersquo in an ostensibly value-neutral sense (although subtle normativeslants are evident) highlighting the different sorts of analytical purchasethat this enables For Barkawi and Laffey the concept lsquooffers a way outof the ldquoterritorial traprdquo set by Westphalia and alerts us to a range ofphenomena occluded by IRrsquos central categoriesrsquo (such as the Realistfiction of an anarchical international system)14 For Michael Cox iteffectively dispels the myth of US exceptionalism and enablescomparisons between the US and other great powers in history15 ForMartin Shaw it forces us to acknowledge the post-imperial character ofthe West and the quasi-imperial character of politics in much of the non-Western world (a useful insight that he then goes on to employ veryproblematically as I later suggest)16 Notwithstanding the analyticalutility of this literature it has its own blind spots With the possibleexception of Barkawi and Laffey these writers are not very interested inthe peripheries of imperial systems and more specifically with howempire looks from below Among other things I attempt to explore thelsquopoints of impactrsquo where imperial powers and local collaboratorsmdashorresistorsmdashinteract for it is here that the viability of imperialarrangements will ultimately be revealed17
Ignatieff on Empire
It is worth spelling out why Ignatieffrsquos use of lsquoempirersquo is more thansimply descriptive or analytical His book Empire Lite begins with anintroductory caveat seeking to characterise the project as value-neutraldescription (lsquoI am not interested in using the world imperial as an epithetI would prefer to use it as a description and to explore how Americanimperial power is actually exercisedrsquo18) Nevertheless prescription isfrequently smuggled in lsquonobody likes empires but there are someproblems for which there are only imperial solutionsrsquo19 and elsewheremdash
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
45 no 1 (2003) 131-154 For a critique of both self- and other-regardingarguments for empire see Jedediah Purdy lsquoLiberal Empire Assessing theArgumentsrsquo Ethics and International Affairs 17 no 2 (2003) 35-47
14 Tarak Barkawi amp Mark Laffey lsquoRetrieving the Imperial Empire and InternationalRelationsrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 1 (2002) 109
15 Michael Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Town Or Americarsquos Imperial TemptationmdashAgainrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 32 no 1 (2003) 23
16 Martin Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperial State and Empire in theGlobal Erarsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 2 (2002) 327-336
17 Stephen Howe lsquoAmerican Empire the history and future of an idearsquohttpwwwopendemocracynetdebatesarticle-6-27-1279jsp
18 Michael Ignatieff Empire Lite (London Vintage 2003) 3
150
lsquoimperialism doesnrsquot stop being necessary just because it becomespolitically incorrectrsquo20 Indeed lsquothe key questionrsquo as he sees it lsquois whetherempire lite is heavy enough to get the job donersquo21
The framing of this question is noteworthy particularly for the wayit leaves undisturbed the assumption that lsquoempirersquo is the way lsquoto get thejob donersquo All that remains to quibble over is how coercive it needs to bein order to do so lsquoThe jobrsquo as Ignatieff goes on to explain involvesdealing with the threats and insecurities generated by lsquofailedrsquo lsquofailingrsquo orlsquoroguersquo states22 lsquoNations sometimes fail and when they do only outsidehelp ndash imperial power ndash can get them back on their feetrsquo23 Note also howfor Ignatieff lsquoimperial powerrsquo seems to be the only form that lsquooutsidehelprsquo can take Perhaps we should not be surprised at the essentialsynonymity of these ideas from the perspective of the rulers butIgnatieff also claims to speak for the ruled thus lsquoAfghans understand the difficult truth that their best hope for freedom lies in atemporary experience of imperial rulersquo24 (For a sense of how littledivides in practice and rhetoric self-regarding from other-regardingjustification or conservative from liberal one has only to listen to MaxBoot lsquoAfghanistan and other troubled lands cry out for the sort ofenlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confidentEnglishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmetsrsquo25) Troubled lands in thepostcolonial world have been crying out for many forms of lsquooutsidehelprsquo26mdashfairer terms of trade technology transfer debt forgiveness moreaid to provide just a sample ndash but one is hard pressed to find voices thatenjoy any sort of legitimacy in the Third World expressing lsquoempirenostalgiarsquo
Millennium
____________________
19 Ibid 1120 Ibid 10621 Ibid 322 Ignatieff does not distinguish very clearly between these quite distinct
phenomena It is now commonly accepted that failed states are characterised bya collapse of governmental authority and a resulting state of anarchy (egSomalia in 1991-92) In lsquoroguersquo states there is usually a functioning governmentwhich is perceived as behaving aggressively in its external relations with otherstates andor abusing the human rights of its citizens internally There is apossible (but by no means inevitable) overlap between the two and it seemsreasonable to suppose that they demand distinct policy approaches
23 Ignatieff Empire Lite 10624 Ibid 10725 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo26 For an excellent survey of these demands and the reactions they elicited at
a time when they were given possibly their most institutionalised expression seeRobert W Cox lsquoIdeologies and the New International Economic Orderreflections on some recent literaturersquo International Organisation 33 no 2 (1979)257-302
151
Closer attention to the causes of state failure reveals that many of thesehad their roots in an older era of empire The risks of state failure aregreatest in those former colonial possessions in which the processes ofstate-and nation-building have not sufficiently advanced MohammedAyoob reminds us that most developing countries have had to telescopethese dual tasks into a combined and drastically shortened processwithout the luxury of time and agency that western European stateshave enjoyed Further they have had to do so under extremely difficultconditions having inherited arbitrary boundaries and ethnicallyheterogeneous populations from their imperial predecessors they sufferfrom a lack of internal cohesiveness and state legitimacy This hascondemned many of them to a postcolonial lifetime of civil war andsecessionist strifemdashusually precursors to complete state failure27
The egregious exploits of the corrupt venal elites that rule many ofthese states are frequently cited as justification for the revival of empireYet only by looking at the more critical-historical scholarship ofAlexander Wendt and Michael Barnett do we get a sense of the extent towhich these elites are themselves creatures of older lsquobenevolentrsquoempire28 Wendt and Barnett explain how colonial patterns of skewedeconomic development resulted in a situation of disarticulation ordualism whereby colonial economies tended to spawn a modern sector(usually closely integrated with the metropolitan and world economies)in addition to the existing traditional sector Colonial governments cameto rely heavily on native elites associated with the modern sector for thepurposes of maintaining order and extracting revenue from the colonyThis arrangement benefited native elites materially and in doing sobound them closely to the metropolitan state while breaking down theirties to the mass of the native population In most cases decolonisationmerely handed over the reins of power to local elites who thenconsolidated their internal security position vis-agrave-vis the lsquothreatrsquo posedby the masses by continuing to rely on external economic and politicalties In the situation of lsquoinformal empirersquo29 that characterised the ColdWar these ties took the form of lsquosecurity assistancersquo provided by thesuperpowers to Third World elites in return for their cooperation in thepursuit of Cold War objectives The illegitimate regimes inherited from
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
27 Mohammed Ayoob The Third World Security Predicament (London LynneRienner 1995)
28 Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett lsquoDependent State formation andThird World militarisationrsquo Review of International Studies 19 no 4 (1993) 321-347
29 Wendt and Barnett define informal empire as a socially structured systemof interaction among juridically sovereign states in which one the lsquodominantrsquostate has a significant degree of de facto political authority over the securitypolicies of another lsquosubordinatersquo state
152
colonialism therefore reproduced themselves with external patronagecontinuing to obviate the need for native elites to obtain the consent ofthe governed or to arrive at the sort of labour-capital compromises thatcharacterise western welfare states
To locate the roots of contemporary state failure in earlier eras ofEuropean and US empire is not to engage in some self-congratulatoryblame game Nor should it provide any measure of comfort to ThirdWorld elites who as the preceding account suggests have proved onlytoo willing to collude with metropolitan elites in their self-interestRather it is to affirm in the words of Edward Said lsquothe interdependenceof various histories on one another and the necessary interaction ofcontemporary societies with one anotherrsquo30 with a view to avoiding arepetition of the injustices of the past To be fair Ignatieff alludes to theidea of failing states as legacies of em-pires past but the connections areleft exceedingly vague and ill-defined
Being an imperial power means carrying out imperialfunctions in places America has inherited from the failedempires of the 20th century America has inherited this crisisof self-determination from the empires of the past Americahas inherited a world scarred not just by the failures ofempires past but also by the failure of nationalist movementsto create and secure free states31
More problematically Ignatieff sees the failures of past empires andnationalist movements not as reason to adopt fundamentally newapproaches to the resulting problems but rather to revive the notion ofimperial rule This view is tantamount to arguing that crises of statefailure are a result not of too much imperialism but too little
This nostalgic view of empire is surprisingly widely held RobertJackson for example argues that hasty and premature decolonisationwas more detrimental to the well-being of Third World states than thecolonial encounter itself32 Contrasting the different developmentaltrajectories of the lsquowhitersquo dominions and colonies in the British empireFerguson says lsquoThat [the British empire] didnrsquot deliver Canadian-stylegrowth rates in India isnrsquot explicable in terms of ruthless Britishexploitation Itrsquos explicable in that there wasnrsquot quite enough
Millennium
____________________
30 Edward Said Culture and Imperialism (London Vintage 1994) 4331 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo The New York Times Magazine (January 5
2003) 24 53 5432 Robert H Jackson Quasi-States Sovereignty International Relations and the
Third World (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1996) 198-202
153
imperialism the British didnrsquot do quite enough to achieve that kind ofgrowthrsquo33 (But wasnrsquot lsquodoing enoughrsquo in Canada and the other dominionspremised on ruthless exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants) Thelsquonot enough imperialismrsquo thesis is argued forcefully by Max Boot in hisdiscussion of US intervention in Hispaniola lsquoThe marines had tried hardto plant constitutional government but found that it would not take rootin the inhospitable soil of Hispaniola The only thing that could have kepta Trujillo or Duvalier from seizing power was renewed US intervention [T]he only thing more unsavoury than US intervention it turned outwas US non-interventionrsquo34 And elsewhere in a discussion of Nicaragualsquodictatorship [in Nicaragua] was indigenous democracy was a foreigntransplant that did not take in part because America would not stickaround long enough to cultivate itrsquo35
Thus economic political and military crises in the postcolonialThird World have begun to serve as a retrospective justification forimperialism There is a virtual consensus among the above writers thatthe roots of these crises are to be found not in the colonial but in thenationalist era (In saying lsquobothrsquo Ignatieff is usefully ambiguous on thispoint) But as Frank Furedi argues this is the contested question and wecannot begin by assuming we know the answers36 In this contextJedediah Purdy usefully reminds us that lsquothe failure of many postcolonialregimes does not in itself mean that the preceding colonial rule was agood thing whose passing was to be regretted Nor more pertinentlydoes such failure indicate that independence was inherently unviable forthose countries While those countries faced severe disadvantages apartfrom the Cold War we will never know whether some might have donemuch better free of the proxy battles of those decadesrsquo37
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
33 Niall Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and Demise of the British World Orderand Lessons for Global Power rsquo Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast(September 16 2003) httpwwwcarnegiecouncilorgviewMediaphpprmID1033
34 Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of AmericanPower (New York Basic Books 2002) 181 Contrast this with John F Kennedyrsquosown admission lsquoThere are three possibilities in descending order of preferencea decent democratic regime a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castroregime We ought to aim at the first but we cant really renounce the second until weare sure we can avoid the thirdrsquo Cited in Abraham F Lowenthal lsquoThe UnitedStates and Latin American Democracy Learning from Historyrsquo in ExportingDemocracy The United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal(Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 388
35 Boot The Savage Wars of Peace 25136 Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 100 10637 Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 39 For a contrary view arguing that colonialism
was preferable to the situation of lsquoquasi-statehoodrsquo in which many postcolonial
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
Millennium
____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
Millennium
____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
147
attack on Iraq (and empire more broadly) In his latest piece (which isincidentally an attempt to seriously qualify many of his earlier Iraq-specific claims in light of the deteriorating situation in that country) he says
While I thought the case for preventive war [based on self-regarding justifications] was strong it wasnrsquot decisive It wasstill possible to argue that the threat was not imminent andthat the risks of combat were too great What tipped me infavour of taking these risks was the belief that Hussein ran anespecially odious regime and that war offered the only realchance of overthrowing him5
I want to focus here on Ignatieffrsquos other-regarding case for empire Indoing this I concur with Eric Hobsbawmrsquos judgment that the lsquoimperialismof human rightsrsquo advocated by lsquoa minority of influential intellectualsincluding Michael Ignatieff in the USrsquo is lsquomore dangerousrsquo than the self-interested arguments for empire advanced by the right because of theveneer of legitimacy that it gives this project6 The liberal human rights-based case for a revival of empire is powerfully reinforced by the moralrehabilitation of old empire for which no one has done more in recenttimes than Niall Ferguson His magnum opus Empire How Britain Madethe Modern World makes for fascinating reading particularly in his listingof what he takes to be the credit side of British imperial achievement7
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
Politics Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (New York Random House2002) 147 Dinesh DrsquoSouza lsquoIn praise of American empirersquo The Christian ScienceMonitor (April 26 2002)
5 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Now The Year of Living DangerouslyrsquoThe New York Times Magazine (March 14 2004) wwwnytimescom
6 Eric Hobsbawm lsquoAfter the Winning of the WarmdashUnited States wider stilland wider rsquo Le Monde diplomatique (June 2003) httpmondediplocom20030602hobsbawm
7 Niall Ferguson Empire How Britain Made the Modern World (LondonPenguin 2003) xxv These are (i) the triumph of capitalism as the optimalsystem of economic organisation (ii) the Anglicisation of North America andAustralasia (iii) the internationalisation of the English language (iv) theenduring influence of the Protestant version of Christianity and (v) the survivalof parliamentary institutions No consideration is given to the fact that lsquothetriumph of capitalismrsquo often involved resource plunder and the destruction oflocal manufacturing capacity or that the lsquoAnglicisation of North America andAustralasiarsquo were achieved at the cost of genocide of the indigenous inhabitantsof those continents or that there is nothing self-evidently superior aboutAnglicisation English and Protestantism (at least to the vast majority ofhumanity who share few or none of these identities)
148
Further reinforcement was provided at a recent conference on lsquofailingstates and benevolent empiresrsquo where a leading academic noted withsatisfaction that developing countries had finally stopped blamingcolonialism for all their problems and started taking responsibility fortheir own development or lack thereof8 When western academics expressimpatience at imputations of historical responsibility for colonialism theyin effect arbitrarily impose a statute of limitation on discussions of oldempire even as others in the academymdashlike Ignatieffmdashopen new chaptersin this evolving story The convergence of this whitewashing of oldimperialism limitation of its moral responsibility and advocacy of newimperialism has fuelled a profoundly disturbing renewal of enthusiasmfor empire in the western academy today
Nevertheless even within the western academy the case for empirehas been fiercely contested A number of commentators have advancedself-regarding arguments against empire emphasising the dangers thatthe imperial project poses to the metropolis These range from ChalmersJohnsonrsquos astonishingly prescient warning of lsquoblowbackrsquo9 to traditionalRealist predictions of self-encirclement by counter-balancing coalitionsof hostile powers as well as the possibility of imperial overstretch10
Johnson also laments the implications of the imperial project for politicalculture in the metropolis enhanced militarism loss of democracy andconstitutional rights and an increased role for propaganda11 Othervoices have drawn attention to the profound ironies inherent in other-regarding justifications for empire the claim of empire to bring lsquorule oflawrsquo when it is itself a violation of law the challenge of simultaneouslypresenting the imperial project as a philanthropic mission (to aninternational audience) and as being in the national interest (to adomestic audience)12 as well as the very oxymoronic character of lsquoliberalimperialismrsquo13
Millennium
____________________
8 The Boston Melbourne Oxford Conversazione 2003 lsquoMaking States WorkFailing States and Benevolent Empiresrsquo University of Oxford (September 4-6 2003)
9 Chalmers Johnson Blowback The Costs and Consequences of American Empire(London Time Warner 2002)
10 G John Ikenberry lsquoAmericarsquos Imperial Ambitionrsquo Foreign Affairs 81 no 5(2002) 44-60 Ivan Eland lsquoThe Empire Strikes Out The ldquoNew Imperialismrdquo andIts Fatal Flawsrsquo Policy Analysis no 459 (2002)
11 Chalmers Johnson The Sorrows of Empire Militarism Secrecy and the End ofthe Republic (New York Metropolitan Books 2004) For a combination of theabove arguments see Clyde Prestowitz Rogue Nation American Unilateralism andthe Failure of Good Intentions (New York Basic Books 2003)
12 Pratap Bhanu Mehta lsquoEmpire and Moral Identityrsquo Ethics and InternationalAffairs 17 no 2 (2003) 49-62
13 Edward Rhodes lsquoThe Imperial Logic of Bushrsquos Liberal Agendarsquo Survival
149
Finally there is a growing body of work that employs the categorylsquoempirersquo in an ostensibly value-neutral sense (although subtle normativeslants are evident) highlighting the different sorts of analytical purchasethat this enables For Barkawi and Laffey the concept lsquooffers a way outof the ldquoterritorial traprdquo set by Westphalia and alerts us to a range ofphenomena occluded by IRrsquos central categoriesrsquo (such as the Realistfiction of an anarchical international system)14 For Michael Cox iteffectively dispels the myth of US exceptionalism and enablescomparisons between the US and other great powers in history15 ForMartin Shaw it forces us to acknowledge the post-imperial character ofthe West and the quasi-imperial character of politics in much of the non-Western world (a useful insight that he then goes on to employ veryproblematically as I later suggest)16 Notwithstanding the analyticalutility of this literature it has its own blind spots With the possibleexception of Barkawi and Laffey these writers are not very interested inthe peripheries of imperial systems and more specifically with howempire looks from below Among other things I attempt to explore thelsquopoints of impactrsquo where imperial powers and local collaboratorsmdashorresistorsmdashinteract for it is here that the viability of imperialarrangements will ultimately be revealed17
Ignatieff on Empire
It is worth spelling out why Ignatieffrsquos use of lsquoempirersquo is more thansimply descriptive or analytical His book Empire Lite begins with anintroductory caveat seeking to characterise the project as value-neutraldescription (lsquoI am not interested in using the world imperial as an epithetI would prefer to use it as a description and to explore how Americanimperial power is actually exercisedrsquo18) Nevertheless prescription isfrequently smuggled in lsquonobody likes empires but there are someproblems for which there are only imperial solutionsrsquo19 and elsewheremdash
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
45 no 1 (2003) 131-154 For a critique of both self- and other-regardingarguments for empire see Jedediah Purdy lsquoLiberal Empire Assessing theArgumentsrsquo Ethics and International Affairs 17 no 2 (2003) 35-47
14 Tarak Barkawi amp Mark Laffey lsquoRetrieving the Imperial Empire and InternationalRelationsrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 1 (2002) 109
15 Michael Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Town Or Americarsquos Imperial TemptationmdashAgainrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 32 no 1 (2003) 23
16 Martin Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperial State and Empire in theGlobal Erarsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 2 (2002) 327-336
17 Stephen Howe lsquoAmerican Empire the history and future of an idearsquohttpwwwopendemocracynetdebatesarticle-6-27-1279jsp
18 Michael Ignatieff Empire Lite (London Vintage 2003) 3
150
lsquoimperialism doesnrsquot stop being necessary just because it becomespolitically incorrectrsquo20 Indeed lsquothe key questionrsquo as he sees it lsquois whetherempire lite is heavy enough to get the job donersquo21
The framing of this question is noteworthy particularly for the wayit leaves undisturbed the assumption that lsquoempirersquo is the way lsquoto get thejob donersquo All that remains to quibble over is how coercive it needs to bein order to do so lsquoThe jobrsquo as Ignatieff goes on to explain involvesdealing with the threats and insecurities generated by lsquofailedrsquo lsquofailingrsquo orlsquoroguersquo states22 lsquoNations sometimes fail and when they do only outsidehelp ndash imperial power ndash can get them back on their feetrsquo23 Note also howfor Ignatieff lsquoimperial powerrsquo seems to be the only form that lsquooutsidehelprsquo can take Perhaps we should not be surprised at the essentialsynonymity of these ideas from the perspective of the rulers butIgnatieff also claims to speak for the ruled thus lsquoAfghans understand the difficult truth that their best hope for freedom lies in atemporary experience of imperial rulersquo24 (For a sense of how littledivides in practice and rhetoric self-regarding from other-regardingjustification or conservative from liberal one has only to listen to MaxBoot lsquoAfghanistan and other troubled lands cry out for the sort ofenlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confidentEnglishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmetsrsquo25) Troubled lands in thepostcolonial world have been crying out for many forms of lsquooutsidehelprsquo26mdashfairer terms of trade technology transfer debt forgiveness moreaid to provide just a sample ndash but one is hard pressed to find voices thatenjoy any sort of legitimacy in the Third World expressing lsquoempirenostalgiarsquo
Millennium
____________________
19 Ibid 1120 Ibid 10621 Ibid 322 Ignatieff does not distinguish very clearly between these quite distinct
phenomena It is now commonly accepted that failed states are characterised bya collapse of governmental authority and a resulting state of anarchy (egSomalia in 1991-92) In lsquoroguersquo states there is usually a functioning governmentwhich is perceived as behaving aggressively in its external relations with otherstates andor abusing the human rights of its citizens internally There is apossible (but by no means inevitable) overlap between the two and it seemsreasonable to suppose that they demand distinct policy approaches
23 Ignatieff Empire Lite 10624 Ibid 10725 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo26 For an excellent survey of these demands and the reactions they elicited at
a time when they were given possibly their most institutionalised expression seeRobert W Cox lsquoIdeologies and the New International Economic Orderreflections on some recent literaturersquo International Organisation 33 no 2 (1979)257-302
151
Closer attention to the causes of state failure reveals that many of thesehad their roots in an older era of empire The risks of state failure aregreatest in those former colonial possessions in which the processes ofstate-and nation-building have not sufficiently advanced MohammedAyoob reminds us that most developing countries have had to telescopethese dual tasks into a combined and drastically shortened processwithout the luxury of time and agency that western European stateshave enjoyed Further they have had to do so under extremely difficultconditions having inherited arbitrary boundaries and ethnicallyheterogeneous populations from their imperial predecessors they sufferfrom a lack of internal cohesiveness and state legitimacy This hascondemned many of them to a postcolonial lifetime of civil war andsecessionist strifemdashusually precursors to complete state failure27
The egregious exploits of the corrupt venal elites that rule many ofthese states are frequently cited as justification for the revival of empireYet only by looking at the more critical-historical scholarship ofAlexander Wendt and Michael Barnett do we get a sense of the extent towhich these elites are themselves creatures of older lsquobenevolentrsquoempire28 Wendt and Barnett explain how colonial patterns of skewedeconomic development resulted in a situation of disarticulation ordualism whereby colonial economies tended to spawn a modern sector(usually closely integrated with the metropolitan and world economies)in addition to the existing traditional sector Colonial governments cameto rely heavily on native elites associated with the modern sector for thepurposes of maintaining order and extracting revenue from the colonyThis arrangement benefited native elites materially and in doing sobound them closely to the metropolitan state while breaking down theirties to the mass of the native population In most cases decolonisationmerely handed over the reins of power to local elites who thenconsolidated their internal security position vis-agrave-vis the lsquothreatrsquo posedby the masses by continuing to rely on external economic and politicalties In the situation of lsquoinformal empirersquo29 that characterised the ColdWar these ties took the form of lsquosecurity assistancersquo provided by thesuperpowers to Third World elites in return for their cooperation in thepursuit of Cold War objectives The illegitimate regimes inherited from
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
27 Mohammed Ayoob The Third World Security Predicament (London LynneRienner 1995)
28 Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett lsquoDependent State formation andThird World militarisationrsquo Review of International Studies 19 no 4 (1993) 321-347
29 Wendt and Barnett define informal empire as a socially structured systemof interaction among juridically sovereign states in which one the lsquodominantrsquostate has a significant degree of de facto political authority over the securitypolicies of another lsquosubordinatersquo state
152
colonialism therefore reproduced themselves with external patronagecontinuing to obviate the need for native elites to obtain the consent ofthe governed or to arrive at the sort of labour-capital compromises thatcharacterise western welfare states
To locate the roots of contemporary state failure in earlier eras ofEuropean and US empire is not to engage in some self-congratulatoryblame game Nor should it provide any measure of comfort to ThirdWorld elites who as the preceding account suggests have proved onlytoo willing to collude with metropolitan elites in their self-interestRather it is to affirm in the words of Edward Said lsquothe interdependenceof various histories on one another and the necessary interaction ofcontemporary societies with one anotherrsquo30 with a view to avoiding arepetition of the injustices of the past To be fair Ignatieff alludes to theidea of failing states as legacies of em-pires past but the connections areleft exceedingly vague and ill-defined
Being an imperial power means carrying out imperialfunctions in places America has inherited from the failedempires of the 20th century America has inherited this crisisof self-determination from the empires of the past Americahas inherited a world scarred not just by the failures ofempires past but also by the failure of nationalist movementsto create and secure free states31
More problematically Ignatieff sees the failures of past empires andnationalist movements not as reason to adopt fundamentally newapproaches to the resulting problems but rather to revive the notion ofimperial rule This view is tantamount to arguing that crises of statefailure are a result not of too much imperialism but too little
This nostalgic view of empire is surprisingly widely held RobertJackson for example argues that hasty and premature decolonisationwas more detrimental to the well-being of Third World states than thecolonial encounter itself32 Contrasting the different developmentaltrajectories of the lsquowhitersquo dominions and colonies in the British empireFerguson says lsquoThat [the British empire] didnrsquot deliver Canadian-stylegrowth rates in India isnrsquot explicable in terms of ruthless Britishexploitation Itrsquos explicable in that there wasnrsquot quite enough
Millennium
____________________
30 Edward Said Culture and Imperialism (London Vintage 1994) 4331 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo The New York Times Magazine (January 5
2003) 24 53 5432 Robert H Jackson Quasi-States Sovereignty International Relations and the
Third World (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1996) 198-202
153
imperialism the British didnrsquot do quite enough to achieve that kind ofgrowthrsquo33 (But wasnrsquot lsquodoing enoughrsquo in Canada and the other dominionspremised on ruthless exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants) Thelsquonot enough imperialismrsquo thesis is argued forcefully by Max Boot in hisdiscussion of US intervention in Hispaniola lsquoThe marines had tried hardto plant constitutional government but found that it would not take rootin the inhospitable soil of Hispaniola The only thing that could have kepta Trujillo or Duvalier from seizing power was renewed US intervention [T]he only thing more unsavoury than US intervention it turned outwas US non-interventionrsquo34 And elsewhere in a discussion of Nicaragualsquodictatorship [in Nicaragua] was indigenous democracy was a foreigntransplant that did not take in part because America would not stickaround long enough to cultivate itrsquo35
Thus economic political and military crises in the postcolonialThird World have begun to serve as a retrospective justification forimperialism There is a virtual consensus among the above writers thatthe roots of these crises are to be found not in the colonial but in thenationalist era (In saying lsquobothrsquo Ignatieff is usefully ambiguous on thispoint) But as Frank Furedi argues this is the contested question and wecannot begin by assuming we know the answers36 In this contextJedediah Purdy usefully reminds us that lsquothe failure of many postcolonialregimes does not in itself mean that the preceding colonial rule was agood thing whose passing was to be regretted Nor more pertinentlydoes such failure indicate that independence was inherently unviable forthose countries While those countries faced severe disadvantages apartfrom the Cold War we will never know whether some might have donemuch better free of the proxy battles of those decadesrsquo37
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
33 Niall Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and Demise of the British World Orderand Lessons for Global Power rsquo Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast(September 16 2003) httpwwwcarnegiecouncilorgviewMediaphpprmID1033
34 Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of AmericanPower (New York Basic Books 2002) 181 Contrast this with John F Kennedyrsquosown admission lsquoThere are three possibilities in descending order of preferencea decent democratic regime a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castroregime We ought to aim at the first but we cant really renounce the second until weare sure we can avoid the thirdrsquo Cited in Abraham F Lowenthal lsquoThe UnitedStates and Latin American Democracy Learning from Historyrsquo in ExportingDemocracy The United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal(Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 388
35 Boot The Savage Wars of Peace 25136 Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 100 10637 Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 39 For a contrary view arguing that colonialism
was preferable to the situation of lsquoquasi-statehoodrsquo in which many postcolonial
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
Millennium
____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
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____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
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____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
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____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
148
Further reinforcement was provided at a recent conference on lsquofailingstates and benevolent empiresrsquo where a leading academic noted withsatisfaction that developing countries had finally stopped blamingcolonialism for all their problems and started taking responsibility fortheir own development or lack thereof8 When western academics expressimpatience at imputations of historical responsibility for colonialism theyin effect arbitrarily impose a statute of limitation on discussions of oldempire even as others in the academymdashlike Ignatieffmdashopen new chaptersin this evolving story The convergence of this whitewashing of oldimperialism limitation of its moral responsibility and advocacy of newimperialism has fuelled a profoundly disturbing renewal of enthusiasmfor empire in the western academy today
Nevertheless even within the western academy the case for empirehas been fiercely contested A number of commentators have advancedself-regarding arguments against empire emphasising the dangers thatthe imperial project poses to the metropolis These range from ChalmersJohnsonrsquos astonishingly prescient warning of lsquoblowbackrsquo9 to traditionalRealist predictions of self-encirclement by counter-balancing coalitionsof hostile powers as well as the possibility of imperial overstretch10
Johnson also laments the implications of the imperial project for politicalculture in the metropolis enhanced militarism loss of democracy andconstitutional rights and an increased role for propaganda11 Othervoices have drawn attention to the profound ironies inherent in other-regarding justifications for empire the claim of empire to bring lsquorule oflawrsquo when it is itself a violation of law the challenge of simultaneouslypresenting the imperial project as a philanthropic mission (to aninternational audience) and as being in the national interest (to adomestic audience)12 as well as the very oxymoronic character of lsquoliberalimperialismrsquo13
Millennium
____________________
8 The Boston Melbourne Oxford Conversazione 2003 lsquoMaking States WorkFailing States and Benevolent Empiresrsquo University of Oxford (September 4-6 2003)
9 Chalmers Johnson Blowback The Costs and Consequences of American Empire(London Time Warner 2002)
10 G John Ikenberry lsquoAmericarsquos Imperial Ambitionrsquo Foreign Affairs 81 no 5(2002) 44-60 Ivan Eland lsquoThe Empire Strikes Out The ldquoNew Imperialismrdquo andIts Fatal Flawsrsquo Policy Analysis no 459 (2002)
11 Chalmers Johnson The Sorrows of Empire Militarism Secrecy and the End ofthe Republic (New York Metropolitan Books 2004) For a combination of theabove arguments see Clyde Prestowitz Rogue Nation American Unilateralism andthe Failure of Good Intentions (New York Basic Books 2003)
12 Pratap Bhanu Mehta lsquoEmpire and Moral Identityrsquo Ethics and InternationalAffairs 17 no 2 (2003) 49-62
13 Edward Rhodes lsquoThe Imperial Logic of Bushrsquos Liberal Agendarsquo Survival
149
Finally there is a growing body of work that employs the categorylsquoempirersquo in an ostensibly value-neutral sense (although subtle normativeslants are evident) highlighting the different sorts of analytical purchasethat this enables For Barkawi and Laffey the concept lsquooffers a way outof the ldquoterritorial traprdquo set by Westphalia and alerts us to a range ofphenomena occluded by IRrsquos central categoriesrsquo (such as the Realistfiction of an anarchical international system)14 For Michael Cox iteffectively dispels the myth of US exceptionalism and enablescomparisons between the US and other great powers in history15 ForMartin Shaw it forces us to acknowledge the post-imperial character ofthe West and the quasi-imperial character of politics in much of the non-Western world (a useful insight that he then goes on to employ veryproblematically as I later suggest)16 Notwithstanding the analyticalutility of this literature it has its own blind spots With the possibleexception of Barkawi and Laffey these writers are not very interested inthe peripheries of imperial systems and more specifically with howempire looks from below Among other things I attempt to explore thelsquopoints of impactrsquo where imperial powers and local collaboratorsmdashorresistorsmdashinteract for it is here that the viability of imperialarrangements will ultimately be revealed17
Ignatieff on Empire
It is worth spelling out why Ignatieffrsquos use of lsquoempirersquo is more thansimply descriptive or analytical His book Empire Lite begins with anintroductory caveat seeking to characterise the project as value-neutraldescription (lsquoI am not interested in using the world imperial as an epithetI would prefer to use it as a description and to explore how Americanimperial power is actually exercisedrsquo18) Nevertheless prescription isfrequently smuggled in lsquonobody likes empires but there are someproblems for which there are only imperial solutionsrsquo19 and elsewheremdash
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
45 no 1 (2003) 131-154 For a critique of both self- and other-regardingarguments for empire see Jedediah Purdy lsquoLiberal Empire Assessing theArgumentsrsquo Ethics and International Affairs 17 no 2 (2003) 35-47
14 Tarak Barkawi amp Mark Laffey lsquoRetrieving the Imperial Empire and InternationalRelationsrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 1 (2002) 109
15 Michael Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Town Or Americarsquos Imperial TemptationmdashAgainrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 32 no 1 (2003) 23
16 Martin Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperial State and Empire in theGlobal Erarsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 2 (2002) 327-336
17 Stephen Howe lsquoAmerican Empire the history and future of an idearsquohttpwwwopendemocracynetdebatesarticle-6-27-1279jsp
18 Michael Ignatieff Empire Lite (London Vintage 2003) 3
150
lsquoimperialism doesnrsquot stop being necessary just because it becomespolitically incorrectrsquo20 Indeed lsquothe key questionrsquo as he sees it lsquois whetherempire lite is heavy enough to get the job donersquo21
The framing of this question is noteworthy particularly for the wayit leaves undisturbed the assumption that lsquoempirersquo is the way lsquoto get thejob donersquo All that remains to quibble over is how coercive it needs to bein order to do so lsquoThe jobrsquo as Ignatieff goes on to explain involvesdealing with the threats and insecurities generated by lsquofailedrsquo lsquofailingrsquo orlsquoroguersquo states22 lsquoNations sometimes fail and when they do only outsidehelp ndash imperial power ndash can get them back on their feetrsquo23 Note also howfor Ignatieff lsquoimperial powerrsquo seems to be the only form that lsquooutsidehelprsquo can take Perhaps we should not be surprised at the essentialsynonymity of these ideas from the perspective of the rulers butIgnatieff also claims to speak for the ruled thus lsquoAfghans understand the difficult truth that their best hope for freedom lies in atemporary experience of imperial rulersquo24 (For a sense of how littledivides in practice and rhetoric self-regarding from other-regardingjustification or conservative from liberal one has only to listen to MaxBoot lsquoAfghanistan and other troubled lands cry out for the sort ofenlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confidentEnglishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmetsrsquo25) Troubled lands in thepostcolonial world have been crying out for many forms of lsquooutsidehelprsquo26mdashfairer terms of trade technology transfer debt forgiveness moreaid to provide just a sample ndash but one is hard pressed to find voices thatenjoy any sort of legitimacy in the Third World expressing lsquoempirenostalgiarsquo
Millennium
____________________
19 Ibid 1120 Ibid 10621 Ibid 322 Ignatieff does not distinguish very clearly between these quite distinct
phenomena It is now commonly accepted that failed states are characterised bya collapse of governmental authority and a resulting state of anarchy (egSomalia in 1991-92) In lsquoroguersquo states there is usually a functioning governmentwhich is perceived as behaving aggressively in its external relations with otherstates andor abusing the human rights of its citizens internally There is apossible (but by no means inevitable) overlap between the two and it seemsreasonable to suppose that they demand distinct policy approaches
23 Ignatieff Empire Lite 10624 Ibid 10725 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo26 For an excellent survey of these demands and the reactions they elicited at
a time when they were given possibly their most institutionalised expression seeRobert W Cox lsquoIdeologies and the New International Economic Orderreflections on some recent literaturersquo International Organisation 33 no 2 (1979)257-302
151
Closer attention to the causes of state failure reveals that many of thesehad their roots in an older era of empire The risks of state failure aregreatest in those former colonial possessions in which the processes ofstate-and nation-building have not sufficiently advanced MohammedAyoob reminds us that most developing countries have had to telescopethese dual tasks into a combined and drastically shortened processwithout the luxury of time and agency that western European stateshave enjoyed Further they have had to do so under extremely difficultconditions having inherited arbitrary boundaries and ethnicallyheterogeneous populations from their imperial predecessors they sufferfrom a lack of internal cohesiveness and state legitimacy This hascondemned many of them to a postcolonial lifetime of civil war andsecessionist strifemdashusually precursors to complete state failure27
The egregious exploits of the corrupt venal elites that rule many ofthese states are frequently cited as justification for the revival of empireYet only by looking at the more critical-historical scholarship ofAlexander Wendt and Michael Barnett do we get a sense of the extent towhich these elites are themselves creatures of older lsquobenevolentrsquoempire28 Wendt and Barnett explain how colonial patterns of skewedeconomic development resulted in a situation of disarticulation ordualism whereby colonial economies tended to spawn a modern sector(usually closely integrated with the metropolitan and world economies)in addition to the existing traditional sector Colonial governments cameto rely heavily on native elites associated with the modern sector for thepurposes of maintaining order and extracting revenue from the colonyThis arrangement benefited native elites materially and in doing sobound them closely to the metropolitan state while breaking down theirties to the mass of the native population In most cases decolonisationmerely handed over the reins of power to local elites who thenconsolidated their internal security position vis-agrave-vis the lsquothreatrsquo posedby the masses by continuing to rely on external economic and politicalties In the situation of lsquoinformal empirersquo29 that characterised the ColdWar these ties took the form of lsquosecurity assistancersquo provided by thesuperpowers to Third World elites in return for their cooperation in thepursuit of Cold War objectives The illegitimate regimes inherited from
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
27 Mohammed Ayoob The Third World Security Predicament (London LynneRienner 1995)
28 Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett lsquoDependent State formation andThird World militarisationrsquo Review of International Studies 19 no 4 (1993) 321-347
29 Wendt and Barnett define informal empire as a socially structured systemof interaction among juridically sovereign states in which one the lsquodominantrsquostate has a significant degree of de facto political authority over the securitypolicies of another lsquosubordinatersquo state
152
colonialism therefore reproduced themselves with external patronagecontinuing to obviate the need for native elites to obtain the consent ofthe governed or to arrive at the sort of labour-capital compromises thatcharacterise western welfare states
To locate the roots of contemporary state failure in earlier eras ofEuropean and US empire is not to engage in some self-congratulatoryblame game Nor should it provide any measure of comfort to ThirdWorld elites who as the preceding account suggests have proved onlytoo willing to collude with metropolitan elites in their self-interestRather it is to affirm in the words of Edward Said lsquothe interdependenceof various histories on one another and the necessary interaction ofcontemporary societies with one anotherrsquo30 with a view to avoiding arepetition of the injustices of the past To be fair Ignatieff alludes to theidea of failing states as legacies of em-pires past but the connections areleft exceedingly vague and ill-defined
Being an imperial power means carrying out imperialfunctions in places America has inherited from the failedempires of the 20th century America has inherited this crisisof self-determination from the empires of the past Americahas inherited a world scarred not just by the failures ofempires past but also by the failure of nationalist movementsto create and secure free states31
More problematically Ignatieff sees the failures of past empires andnationalist movements not as reason to adopt fundamentally newapproaches to the resulting problems but rather to revive the notion ofimperial rule This view is tantamount to arguing that crises of statefailure are a result not of too much imperialism but too little
This nostalgic view of empire is surprisingly widely held RobertJackson for example argues that hasty and premature decolonisationwas more detrimental to the well-being of Third World states than thecolonial encounter itself32 Contrasting the different developmentaltrajectories of the lsquowhitersquo dominions and colonies in the British empireFerguson says lsquoThat [the British empire] didnrsquot deliver Canadian-stylegrowth rates in India isnrsquot explicable in terms of ruthless Britishexploitation Itrsquos explicable in that there wasnrsquot quite enough
Millennium
____________________
30 Edward Said Culture and Imperialism (London Vintage 1994) 4331 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo The New York Times Magazine (January 5
2003) 24 53 5432 Robert H Jackson Quasi-States Sovereignty International Relations and the
Third World (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1996) 198-202
153
imperialism the British didnrsquot do quite enough to achieve that kind ofgrowthrsquo33 (But wasnrsquot lsquodoing enoughrsquo in Canada and the other dominionspremised on ruthless exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants) Thelsquonot enough imperialismrsquo thesis is argued forcefully by Max Boot in hisdiscussion of US intervention in Hispaniola lsquoThe marines had tried hardto plant constitutional government but found that it would not take rootin the inhospitable soil of Hispaniola The only thing that could have kepta Trujillo or Duvalier from seizing power was renewed US intervention [T]he only thing more unsavoury than US intervention it turned outwas US non-interventionrsquo34 And elsewhere in a discussion of Nicaragualsquodictatorship [in Nicaragua] was indigenous democracy was a foreigntransplant that did not take in part because America would not stickaround long enough to cultivate itrsquo35
Thus economic political and military crises in the postcolonialThird World have begun to serve as a retrospective justification forimperialism There is a virtual consensus among the above writers thatthe roots of these crises are to be found not in the colonial but in thenationalist era (In saying lsquobothrsquo Ignatieff is usefully ambiguous on thispoint) But as Frank Furedi argues this is the contested question and wecannot begin by assuming we know the answers36 In this contextJedediah Purdy usefully reminds us that lsquothe failure of many postcolonialregimes does not in itself mean that the preceding colonial rule was agood thing whose passing was to be regretted Nor more pertinentlydoes such failure indicate that independence was inherently unviable forthose countries While those countries faced severe disadvantages apartfrom the Cold War we will never know whether some might have donemuch better free of the proxy battles of those decadesrsquo37
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
33 Niall Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and Demise of the British World Orderand Lessons for Global Power rsquo Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast(September 16 2003) httpwwwcarnegiecouncilorgviewMediaphpprmID1033
34 Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of AmericanPower (New York Basic Books 2002) 181 Contrast this with John F Kennedyrsquosown admission lsquoThere are three possibilities in descending order of preferencea decent democratic regime a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castroregime We ought to aim at the first but we cant really renounce the second until weare sure we can avoid the thirdrsquo Cited in Abraham F Lowenthal lsquoThe UnitedStates and Latin American Democracy Learning from Historyrsquo in ExportingDemocracy The United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal(Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 388
35 Boot The Savage Wars of Peace 25136 Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 100 10637 Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 39 For a contrary view arguing that colonialism
was preferable to the situation of lsquoquasi-statehoodrsquo in which many postcolonial
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
Millennium
____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
Millennium
____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
149
Finally there is a growing body of work that employs the categorylsquoempirersquo in an ostensibly value-neutral sense (although subtle normativeslants are evident) highlighting the different sorts of analytical purchasethat this enables For Barkawi and Laffey the concept lsquooffers a way outof the ldquoterritorial traprdquo set by Westphalia and alerts us to a range ofphenomena occluded by IRrsquos central categoriesrsquo (such as the Realistfiction of an anarchical international system)14 For Michael Cox iteffectively dispels the myth of US exceptionalism and enablescomparisons between the US and other great powers in history15 ForMartin Shaw it forces us to acknowledge the post-imperial character ofthe West and the quasi-imperial character of politics in much of the non-Western world (a useful insight that he then goes on to employ veryproblematically as I later suggest)16 Notwithstanding the analyticalutility of this literature it has its own blind spots With the possibleexception of Barkawi and Laffey these writers are not very interested inthe peripheries of imperial systems and more specifically with howempire looks from below Among other things I attempt to explore thelsquopoints of impactrsquo where imperial powers and local collaboratorsmdashorresistorsmdashinteract for it is here that the viability of imperialarrangements will ultimately be revealed17
Ignatieff on Empire
It is worth spelling out why Ignatieffrsquos use of lsquoempirersquo is more thansimply descriptive or analytical His book Empire Lite begins with anintroductory caveat seeking to characterise the project as value-neutraldescription (lsquoI am not interested in using the world imperial as an epithetI would prefer to use it as a description and to explore how Americanimperial power is actually exercisedrsquo18) Nevertheless prescription isfrequently smuggled in lsquonobody likes empires but there are someproblems for which there are only imperial solutionsrsquo19 and elsewheremdash
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
45 no 1 (2003) 131-154 For a critique of both self- and other-regardingarguments for empire see Jedediah Purdy lsquoLiberal Empire Assessing theArgumentsrsquo Ethics and International Affairs 17 no 2 (2003) 35-47
14 Tarak Barkawi amp Mark Laffey lsquoRetrieving the Imperial Empire and InternationalRelationsrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 1 (2002) 109
15 Michael Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Town Or Americarsquos Imperial TemptationmdashAgainrsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 32 no 1 (2003) 23
16 Martin Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperial State and Empire in theGlobal Erarsquo Millennium Journal of International Studies 31 no 2 (2002) 327-336
17 Stephen Howe lsquoAmerican Empire the history and future of an idearsquohttpwwwopendemocracynetdebatesarticle-6-27-1279jsp
18 Michael Ignatieff Empire Lite (London Vintage 2003) 3
150
lsquoimperialism doesnrsquot stop being necessary just because it becomespolitically incorrectrsquo20 Indeed lsquothe key questionrsquo as he sees it lsquois whetherempire lite is heavy enough to get the job donersquo21
The framing of this question is noteworthy particularly for the wayit leaves undisturbed the assumption that lsquoempirersquo is the way lsquoto get thejob donersquo All that remains to quibble over is how coercive it needs to bein order to do so lsquoThe jobrsquo as Ignatieff goes on to explain involvesdealing with the threats and insecurities generated by lsquofailedrsquo lsquofailingrsquo orlsquoroguersquo states22 lsquoNations sometimes fail and when they do only outsidehelp ndash imperial power ndash can get them back on their feetrsquo23 Note also howfor Ignatieff lsquoimperial powerrsquo seems to be the only form that lsquooutsidehelprsquo can take Perhaps we should not be surprised at the essentialsynonymity of these ideas from the perspective of the rulers butIgnatieff also claims to speak for the ruled thus lsquoAfghans understand the difficult truth that their best hope for freedom lies in atemporary experience of imperial rulersquo24 (For a sense of how littledivides in practice and rhetoric self-regarding from other-regardingjustification or conservative from liberal one has only to listen to MaxBoot lsquoAfghanistan and other troubled lands cry out for the sort ofenlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confidentEnglishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmetsrsquo25) Troubled lands in thepostcolonial world have been crying out for many forms of lsquooutsidehelprsquo26mdashfairer terms of trade technology transfer debt forgiveness moreaid to provide just a sample ndash but one is hard pressed to find voices thatenjoy any sort of legitimacy in the Third World expressing lsquoempirenostalgiarsquo
Millennium
____________________
19 Ibid 1120 Ibid 10621 Ibid 322 Ignatieff does not distinguish very clearly between these quite distinct
phenomena It is now commonly accepted that failed states are characterised bya collapse of governmental authority and a resulting state of anarchy (egSomalia in 1991-92) In lsquoroguersquo states there is usually a functioning governmentwhich is perceived as behaving aggressively in its external relations with otherstates andor abusing the human rights of its citizens internally There is apossible (but by no means inevitable) overlap between the two and it seemsreasonable to suppose that they demand distinct policy approaches
23 Ignatieff Empire Lite 10624 Ibid 10725 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo26 For an excellent survey of these demands and the reactions they elicited at
a time when they were given possibly their most institutionalised expression seeRobert W Cox lsquoIdeologies and the New International Economic Orderreflections on some recent literaturersquo International Organisation 33 no 2 (1979)257-302
151
Closer attention to the causes of state failure reveals that many of thesehad their roots in an older era of empire The risks of state failure aregreatest in those former colonial possessions in which the processes ofstate-and nation-building have not sufficiently advanced MohammedAyoob reminds us that most developing countries have had to telescopethese dual tasks into a combined and drastically shortened processwithout the luxury of time and agency that western European stateshave enjoyed Further they have had to do so under extremely difficultconditions having inherited arbitrary boundaries and ethnicallyheterogeneous populations from their imperial predecessors they sufferfrom a lack of internal cohesiveness and state legitimacy This hascondemned many of them to a postcolonial lifetime of civil war andsecessionist strifemdashusually precursors to complete state failure27
The egregious exploits of the corrupt venal elites that rule many ofthese states are frequently cited as justification for the revival of empireYet only by looking at the more critical-historical scholarship ofAlexander Wendt and Michael Barnett do we get a sense of the extent towhich these elites are themselves creatures of older lsquobenevolentrsquoempire28 Wendt and Barnett explain how colonial patterns of skewedeconomic development resulted in a situation of disarticulation ordualism whereby colonial economies tended to spawn a modern sector(usually closely integrated with the metropolitan and world economies)in addition to the existing traditional sector Colonial governments cameto rely heavily on native elites associated with the modern sector for thepurposes of maintaining order and extracting revenue from the colonyThis arrangement benefited native elites materially and in doing sobound them closely to the metropolitan state while breaking down theirties to the mass of the native population In most cases decolonisationmerely handed over the reins of power to local elites who thenconsolidated their internal security position vis-agrave-vis the lsquothreatrsquo posedby the masses by continuing to rely on external economic and politicalties In the situation of lsquoinformal empirersquo29 that characterised the ColdWar these ties took the form of lsquosecurity assistancersquo provided by thesuperpowers to Third World elites in return for their cooperation in thepursuit of Cold War objectives The illegitimate regimes inherited from
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
27 Mohammed Ayoob The Third World Security Predicament (London LynneRienner 1995)
28 Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett lsquoDependent State formation andThird World militarisationrsquo Review of International Studies 19 no 4 (1993) 321-347
29 Wendt and Barnett define informal empire as a socially structured systemof interaction among juridically sovereign states in which one the lsquodominantrsquostate has a significant degree of de facto political authority over the securitypolicies of another lsquosubordinatersquo state
152
colonialism therefore reproduced themselves with external patronagecontinuing to obviate the need for native elites to obtain the consent ofthe governed or to arrive at the sort of labour-capital compromises thatcharacterise western welfare states
To locate the roots of contemporary state failure in earlier eras ofEuropean and US empire is not to engage in some self-congratulatoryblame game Nor should it provide any measure of comfort to ThirdWorld elites who as the preceding account suggests have proved onlytoo willing to collude with metropolitan elites in their self-interestRather it is to affirm in the words of Edward Said lsquothe interdependenceof various histories on one another and the necessary interaction ofcontemporary societies with one anotherrsquo30 with a view to avoiding arepetition of the injustices of the past To be fair Ignatieff alludes to theidea of failing states as legacies of em-pires past but the connections areleft exceedingly vague and ill-defined
Being an imperial power means carrying out imperialfunctions in places America has inherited from the failedempires of the 20th century America has inherited this crisisof self-determination from the empires of the past Americahas inherited a world scarred not just by the failures ofempires past but also by the failure of nationalist movementsto create and secure free states31
More problematically Ignatieff sees the failures of past empires andnationalist movements not as reason to adopt fundamentally newapproaches to the resulting problems but rather to revive the notion ofimperial rule This view is tantamount to arguing that crises of statefailure are a result not of too much imperialism but too little
This nostalgic view of empire is surprisingly widely held RobertJackson for example argues that hasty and premature decolonisationwas more detrimental to the well-being of Third World states than thecolonial encounter itself32 Contrasting the different developmentaltrajectories of the lsquowhitersquo dominions and colonies in the British empireFerguson says lsquoThat [the British empire] didnrsquot deliver Canadian-stylegrowth rates in India isnrsquot explicable in terms of ruthless Britishexploitation Itrsquos explicable in that there wasnrsquot quite enough
Millennium
____________________
30 Edward Said Culture and Imperialism (London Vintage 1994) 4331 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo The New York Times Magazine (January 5
2003) 24 53 5432 Robert H Jackson Quasi-States Sovereignty International Relations and the
Third World (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1996) 198-202
153
imperialism the British didnrsquot do quite enough to achieve that kind ofgrowthrsquo33 (But wasnrsquot lsquodoing enoughrsquo in Canada and the other dominionspremised on ruthless exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants) Thelsquonot enough imperialismrsquo thesis is argued forcefully by Max Boot in hisdiscussion of US intervention in Hispaniola lsquoThe marines had tried hardto plant constitutional government but found that it would not take rootin the inhospitable soil of Hispaniola The only thing that could have kepta Trujillo or Duvalier from seizing power was renewed US intervention [T]he only thing more unsavoury than US intervention it turned outwas US non-interventionrsquo34 And elsewhere in a discussion of Nicaragualsquodictatorship [in Nicaragua] was indigenous democracy was a foreigntransplant that did not take in part because America would not stickaround long enough to cultivate itrsquo35
Thus economic political and military crises in the postcolonialThird World have begun to serve as a retrospective justification forimperialism There is a virtual consensus among the above writers thatthe roots of these crises are to be found not in the colonial but in thenationalist era (In saying lsquobothrsquo Ignatieff is usefully ambiguous on thispoint) But as Frank Furedi argues this is the contested question and wecannot begin by assuming we know the answers36 In this contextJedediah Purdy usefully reminds us that lsquothe failure of many postcolonialregimes does not in itself mean that the preceding colonial rule was agood thing whose passing was to be regretted Nor more pertinentlydoes such failure indicate that independence was inherently unviable forthose countries While those countries faced severe disadvantages apartfrom the Cold War we will never know whether some might have donemuch better free of the proxy battles of those decadesrsquo37
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
33 Niall Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and Demise of the British World Orderand Lessons for Global Power rsquo Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast(September 16 2003) httpwwwcarnegiecouncilorgviewMediaphpprmID1033
34 Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of AmericanPower (New York Basic Books 2002) 181 Contrast this with John F Kennedyrsquosown admission lsquoThere are three possibilities in descending order of preferencea decent democratic regime a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castroregime We ought to aim at the first but we cant really renounce the second until weare sure we can avoid the thirdrsquo Cited in Abraham F Lowenthal lsquoThe UnitedStates and Latin American Democracy Learning from Historyrsquo in ExportingDemocracy The United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal(Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 388
35 Boot The Savage Wars of Peace 25136 Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 100 10637 Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 39 For a contrary view arguing that colonialism
was preferable to the situation of lsquoquasi-statehoodrsquo in which many postcolonial
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
Millennium
____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
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____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
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____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
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____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
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____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
150
lsquoimperialism doesnrsquot stop being necessary just because it becomespolitically incorrectrsquo20 Indeed lsquothe key questionrsquo as he sees it lsquois whetherempire lite is heavy enough to get the job donersquo21
The framing of this question is noteworthy particularly for the wayit leaves undisturbed the assumption that lsquoempirersquo is the way lsquoto get thejob donersquo All that remains to quibble over is how coercive it needs to bein order to do so lsquoThe jobrsquo as Ignatieff goes on to explain involvesdealing with the threats and insecurities generated by lsquofailedrsquo lsquofailingrsquo orlsquoroguersquo states22 lsquoNations sometimes fail and when they do only outsidehelp ndash imperial power ndash can get them back on their feetrsquo23 Note also howfor Ignatieff lsquoimperial powerrsquo seems to be the only form that lsquooutsidehelprsquo can take Perhaps we should not be surprised at the essentialsynonymity of these ideas from the perspective of the rulers butIgnatieff also claims to speak for the ruled thus lsquoAfghans understand the difficult truth that their best hope for freedom lies in atemporary experience of imperial rulersquo24 (For a sense of how littledivides in practice and rhetoric self-regarding from other-regardingjustification or conservative from liberal one has only to listen to MaxBoot lsquoAfghanistan and other troubled lands cry out for the sort ofenlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confidentEnglishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmetsrsquo25) Troubled lands in thepostcolonial world have been crying out for many forms of lsquooutsidehelprsquo26mdashfairer terms of trade technology transfer debt forgiveness moreaid to provide just a sample ndash but one is hard pressed to find voices thatenjoy any sort of legitimacy in the Third World expressing lsquoempirenostalgiarsquo
Millennium
____________________
19 Ibid 1120 Ibid 10621 Ibid 322 Ignatieff does not distinguish very clearly between these quite distinct
phenomena It is now commonly accepted that failed states are characterised bya collapse of governmental authority and a resulting state of anarchy (egSomalia in 1991-92) In lsquoroguersquo states there is usually a functioning governmentwhich is perceived as behaving aggressively in its external relations with otherstates andor abusing the human rights of its citizens internally There is apossible (but by no means inevitable) overlap between the two and it seemsreasonable to suppose that they demand distinct policy approaches
23 Ignatieff Empire Lite 10624 Ibid 10725 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo26 For an excellent survey of these demands and the reactions they elicited at
a time when they were given possibly their most institutionalised expression seeRobert W Cox lsquoIdeologies and the New International Economic Orderreflections on some recent literaturersquo International Organisation 33 no 2 (1979)257-302
151
Closer attention to the causes of state failure reveals that many of thesehad their roots in an older era of empire The risks of state failure aregreatest in those former colonial possessions in which the processes ofstate-and nation-building have not sufficiently advanced MohammedAyoob reminds us that most developing countries have had to telescopethese dual tasks into a combined and drastically shortened processwithout the luxury of time and agency that western European stateshave enjoyed Further they have had to do so under extremely difficultconditions having inherited arbitrary boundaries and ethnicallyheterogeneous populations from their imperial predecessors they sufferfrom a lack of internal cohesiveness and state legitimacy This hascondemned many of them to a postcolonial lifetime of civil war andsecessionist strifemdashusually precursors to complete state failure27
The egregious exploits of the corrupt venal elites that rule many ofthese states are frequently cited as justification for the revival of empireYet only by looking at the more critical-historical scholarship ofAlexander Wendt and Michael Barnett do we get a sense of the extent towhich these elites are themselves creatures of older lsquobenevolentrsquoempire28 Wendt and Barnett explain how colonial patterns of skewedeconomic development resulted in a situation of disarticulation ordualism whereby colonial economies tended to spawn a modern sector(usually closely integrated with the metropolitan and world economies)in addition to the existing traditional sector Colonial governments cameto rely heavily on native elites associated with the modern sector for thepurposes of maintaining order and extracting revenue from the colonyThis arrangement benefited native elites materially and in doing sobound them closely to the metropolitan state while breaking down theirties to the mass of the native population In most cases decolonisationmerely handed over the reins of power to local elites who thenconsolidated their internal security position vis-agrave-vis the lsquothreatrsquo posedby the masses by continuing to rely on external economic and politicalties In the situation of lsquoinformal empirersquo29 that characterised the ColdWar these ties took the form of lsquosecurity assistancersquo provided by thesuperpowers to Third World elites in return for their cooperation in thepursuit of Cold War objectives The illegitimate regimes inherited from
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
27 Mohammed Ayoob The Third World Security Predicament (London LynneRienner 1995)
28 Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett lsquoDependent State formation andThird World militarisationrsquo Review of International Studies 19 no 4 (1993) 321-347
29 Wendt and Barnett define informal empire as a socially structured systemof interaction among juridically sovereign states in which one the lsquodominantrsquostate has a significant degree of de facto political authority over the securitypolicies of another lsquosubordinatersquo state
152
colonialism therefore reproduced themselves with external patronagecontinuing to obviate the need for native elites to obtain the consent ofthe governed or to arrive at the sort of labour-capital compromises thatcharacterise western welfare states
To locate the roots of contemporary state failure in earlier eras ofEuropean and US empire is not to engage in some self-congratulatoryblame game Nor should it provide any measure of comfort to ThirdWorld elites who as the preceding account suggests have proved onlytoo willing to collude with metropolitan elites in their self-interestRather it is to affirm in the words of Edward Said lsquothe interdependenceof various histories on one another and the necessary interaction ofcontemporary societies with one anotherrsquo30 with a view to avoiding arepetition of the injustices of the past To be fair Ignatieff alludes to theidea of failing states as legacies of em-pires past but the connections areleft exceedingly vague and ill-defined
Being an imperial power means carrying out imperialfunctions in places America has inherited from the failedempires of the 20th century America has inherited this crisisof self-determination from the empires of the past Americahas inherited a world scarred not just by the failures ofempires past but also by the failure of nationalist movementsto create and secure free states31
More problematically Ignatieff sees the failures of past empires andnationalist movements not as reason to adopt fundamentally newapproaches to the resulting problems but rather to revive the notion ofimperial rule This view is tantamount to arguing that crises of statefailure are a result not of too much imperialism but too little
This nostalgic view of empire is surprisingly widely held RobertJackson for example argues that hasty and premature decolonisationwas more detrimental to the well-being of Third World states than thecolonial encounter itself32 Contrasting the different developmentaltrajectories of the lsquowhitersquo dominions and colonies in the British empireFerguson says lsquoThat [the British empire] didnrsquot deliver Canadian-stylegrowth rates in India isnrsquot explicable in terms of ruthless Britishexploitation Itrsquos explicable in that there wasnrsquot quite enough
Millennium
____________________
30 Edward Said Culture and Imperialism (London Vintage 1994) 4331 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo The New York Times Magazine (January 5
2003) 24 53 5432 Robert H Jackson Quasi-States Sovereignty International Relations and the
Third World (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1996) 198-202
153
imperialism the British didnrsquot do quite enough to achieve that kind ofgrowthrsquo33 (But wasnrsquot lsquodoing enoughrsquo in Canada and the other dominionspremised on ruthless exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants) Thelsquonot enough imperialismrsquo thesis is argued forcefully by Max Boot in hisdiscussion of US intervention in Hispaniola lsquoThe marines had tried hardto plant constitutional government but found that it would not take rootin the inhospitable soil of Hispaniola The only thing that could have kepta Trujillo or Duvalier from seizing power was renewed US intervention [T]he only thing more unsavoury than US intervention it turned outwas US non-interventionrsquo34 And elsewhere in a discussion of Nicaragualsquodictatorship [in Nicaragua] was indigenous democracy was a foreigntransplant that did not take in part because America would not stickaround long enough to cultivate itrsquo35
Thus economic political and military crises in the postcolonialThird World have begun to serve as a retrospective justification forimperialism There is a virtual consensus among the above writers thatthe roots of these crises are to be found not in the colonial but in thenationalist era (In saying lsquobothrsquo Ignatieff is usefully ambiguous on thispoint) But as Frank Furedi argues this is the contested question and wecannot begin by assuming we know the answers36 In this contextJedediah Purdy usefully reminds us that lsquothe failure of many postcolonialregimes does not in itself mean that the preceding colonial rule was agood thing whose passing was to be regretted Nor more pertinentlydoes such failure indicate that independence was inherently unviable forthose countries While those countries faced severe disadvantages apartfrom the Cold War we will never know whether some might have donemuch better free of the proxy battles of those decadesrsquo37
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
33 Niall Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and Demise of the British World Orderand Lessons for Global Power rsquo Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast(September 16 2003) httpwwwcarnegiecouncilorgviewMediaphpprmID1033
34 Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of AmericanPower (New York Basic Books 2002) 181 Contrast this with John F Kennedyrsquosown admission lsquoThere are three possibilities in descending order of preferencea decent democratic regime a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castroregime We ought to aim at the first but we cant really renounce the second until weare sure we can avoid the thirdrsquo Cited in Abraham F Lowenthal lsquoThe UnitedStates and Latin American Democracy Learning from Historyrsquo in ExportingDemocracy The United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal(Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 388
35 Boot The Savage Wars of Peace 25136 Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 100 10637 Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 39 For a contrary view arguing that colonialism
was preferable to the situation of lsquoquasi-statehoodrsquo in which many postcolonial
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
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____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
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____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
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____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
151
Closer attention to the causes of state failure reveals that many of thesehad their roots in an older era of empire The risks of state failure aregreatest in those former colonial possessions in which the processes ofstate-and nation-building have not sufficiently advanced MohammedAyoob reminds us that most developing countries have had to telescopethese dual tasks into a combined and drastically shortened processwithout the luxury of time and agency that western European stateshave enjoyed Further they have had to do so under extremely difficultconditions having inherited arbitrary boundaries and ethnicallyheterogeneous populations from their imperial predecessors they sufferfrom a lack of internal cohesiveness and state legitimacy This hascondemned many of them to a postcolonial lifetime of civil war andsecessionist strifemdashusually precursors to complete state failure27
The egregious exploits of the corrupt venal elites that rule many ofthese states are frequently cited as justification for the revival of empireYet only by looking at the more critical-historical scholarship ofAlexander Wendt and Michael Barnett do we get a sense of the extent towhich these elites are themselves creatures of older lsquobenevolentrsquoempire28 Wendt and Barnett explain how colonial patterns of skewedeconomic development resulted in a situation of disarticulation ordualism whereby colonial economies tended to spawn a modern sector(usually closely integrated with the metropolitan and world economies)in addition to the existing traditional sector Colonial governments cameto rely heavily on native elites associated with the modern sector for thepurposes of maintaining order and extracting revenue from the colonyThis arrangement benefited native elites materially and in doing sobound them closely to the metropolitan state while breaking down theirties to the mass of the native population In most cases decolonisationmerely handed over the reins of power to local elites who thenconsolidated their internal security position vis-agrave-vis the lsquothreatrsquo posedby the masses by continuing to rely on external economic and politicalties In the situation of lsquoinformal empirersquo29 that characterised the ColdWar these ties took the form of lsquosecurity assistancersquo provided by thesuperpowers to Third World elites in return for their cooperation in thepursuit of Cold War objectives The illegitimate regimes inherited from
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
27 Mohammed Ayoob The Third World Security Predicament (London LynneRienner 1995)
28 Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett lsquoDependent State formation andThird World militarisationrsquo Review of International Studies 19 no 4 (1993) 321-347
29 Wendt and Barnett define informal empire as a socially structured systemof interaction among juridically sovereign states in which one the lsquodominantrsquostate has a significant degree of de facto political authority over the securitypolicies of another lsquosubordinatersquo state
152
colonialism therefore reproduced themselves with external patronagecontinuing to obviate the need for native elites to obtain the consent ofthe governed or to arrive at the sort of labour-capital compromises thatcharacterise western welfare states
To locate the roots of contemporary state failure in earlier eras ofEuropean and US empire is not to engage in some self-congratulatoryblame game Nor should it provide any measure of comfort to ThirdWorld elites who as the preceding account suggests have proved onlytoo willing to collude with metropolitan elites in their self-interestRather it is to affirm in the words of Edward Said lsquothe interdependenceof various histories on one another and the necessary interaction ofcontemporary societies with one anotherrsquo30 with a view to avoiding arepetition of the injustices of the past To be fair Ignatieff alludes to theidea of failing states as legacies of em-pires past but the connections areleft exceedingly vague and ill-defined
Being an imperial power means carrying out imperialfunctions in places America has inherited from the failedempires of the 20th century America has inherited this crisisof self-determination from the empires of the past Americahas inherited a world scarred not just by the failures ofempires past but also by the failure of nationalist movementsto create and secure free states31
More problematically Ignatieff sees the failures of past empires andnationalist movements not as reason to adopt fundamentally newapproaches to the resulting problems but rather to revive the notion ofimperial rule This view is tantamount to arguing that crises of statefailure are a result not of too much imperialism but too little
This nostalgic view of empire is surprisingly widely held RobertJackson for example argues that hasty and premature decolonisationwas more detrimental to the well-being of Third World states than thecolonial encounter itself32 Contrasting the different developmentaltrajectories of the lsquowhitersquo dominions and colonies in the British empireFerguson says lsquoThat [the British empire] didnrsquot deliver Canadian-stylegrowth rates in India isnrsquot explicable in terms of ruthless Britishexploitation Itrsquos explicable in that there wasnrsquot quite enough
Millennium
____________________
30 Edward Said Culture and Imperialism (London Vintage 1994) 4331 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo The New York Times Magazine (January 5
2003) 24 53 5432 Robert H Jackson Quasi-States Sovereignty International Relations and the
Third World (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1996) 198-202
153
imperialism the British didnrsquot do quite enough to achieve that kind ofgrowthrsquo33 (But wasnrsquot lsquodoing enoughrsquo in Canada and the other dominionspremised on ruthless exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants) Thelsquonot enough imperialismrsquo thesis is argued forcefully by Max Boot in hisdiscussion of US intervention in Hispaniola lsquoThe marines had tried hardto plant constitutional government but found that it would not take rootin the inhospitable soil of Hispaniola The only thing that could have kepta Trujillo or Duvalier from seizing power was renewed US intervention [T]he only thing more unsavoury than US intervention it turned outwas US non-interventionrsquo34 And elsewhere in a discussion of Nicaragualsquodictatorship [in Nicaragua] was indigenous democracy was a foreigntransplant that did not take in part because America would not stickaround long enough to cultivate itrsquo35
Thus economic political and military crises in the postcolonialThird World have begun to serve as a retrospective justification forimperialism There is a virtual consensus among the above writers thatthe roots of these crises are to be found not in the colonial but in thenationalist era (In saying lsquobothrsquo Ignatieff is usefully ambiguous on thispoint) But as Frank Furedi argues this is the contested question and wecannot begin by assuming we know the answers36 In this contextJedediah Purdy usefully reminds us that lsquothe failure of many postcolonialregimes does not in itself mean that the preceding colonial rule was agood thing whose passing was to be regretted Nor more pertinentlydoes such failure indicate that independence was inherently unviable forthose countries While those countries faced severe disadvantages apartfrom the Cold War we will never know whether some might have donemuch better free of the proxy battles of those decadesrsquo37
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
33 Niall Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and Demise of the British World Orderand Lessons for Global Power rsquo Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast(September 16 2003) httpwwwcarnegiecouncilorgviewMediaphpprmID1033
34 Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of AmericanPower (New York Basic Books 2002) 181 Contrast this with John F Kennedyrsquosown admission lsquoThere are three possibilities in descending order of preferencea decent democratic regime a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castroregime We ought to aim at the first but we cant really renounce the second until weare sure we can avoid the thirdrsquo Cited in Abraham F Lowenthal lsquoThe UnitedStates and Latin American Democracy Learning from Historyrsquo in ExportingDemocracy The United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal(Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 388
35 Boot The Savage Wars of Peace 25136 Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 100 10637 Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 39 For a contrary view arguing that colonialism
was preferable to the situation of lsquoquasi-statehoodrsquo in which many postcolonial
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
Millennium
____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
Millennium
____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
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____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
152
colonialism therefore reproduced themselves with external patronagecontinuing to obviate the need for native elites to obtain the consent ofthe governed or to arrive at the sort of labour-capital compromises thatcharacterise western welfare states
To locate the roots of contemporary state failure in earlier eras ofEuropean and US empire is not to engage in some self-congratulatoryblame game Nor should it provide any measure of comfort to ThirdWorld elites who as the preceding account suggests have proved onlytoo willing to collude with metropolitan elites in their self-interestRather it is to affirm in the words of Edward Said lsquothe interdependenceof various histories on one another and the necessary interaction ofcontemporary societies with one anotherrsquo30 with a view to avoiding arepetition of the injustices of the past To be fair Ignatieff alludes to theidea of failing states as legacies of em-pires past but the connections areleft exceedingly vague and ill-defined
Being an imperial power means carrying out imperialfunctions in places America has inherited from the failedempires of the 20th century America has inherited this crisisof self-determination from the empires of the past Americahas inherited a world scarred not just by the failures ofempires past but also by the failure of nationalist movementsto create and secure free states31
More problematically Ignatieff sees the failures of past empires andnationalist movements not as reason to adopt fundamentally newapproaches to the resulting problems but rather to revive the notion ofimperial rule This view is tantamount to arguing that crises of statefailure are a result not of too much imperialism but too little
This nostalgic view of empire is surprisingly widely held RobertJackson for example argues that hasty and premature decolonisationwas more detrimental to the well-being of Third World states than thecolonial encounter itself32 Contrasting the different developmentaltrajectories of the lsquowhitersquo dominions and colonies in the British empireFerguson says lsquoThat [the British empire] didnrsquot deliver Canadian-stylegrowth rates in India isnrsquot explicable in terms of ruthless Britishexploitation Itrsquos explicable in that there wasnrsquot quite enough
Millennium
____________________
30 Edward Said Culture and Imperialism (London Vintage 1994) 4331 Michael Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo The New York Times Magazine (January 5
2003) 24 53 5432 Robert H Jackson Quasi-States Sovereignty International Relations and the
Third World (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1996) 198-202
153
imperialism the British didnrsquot do quite enough to achieve that kind ofgrowthrsquo33 (But wasnrsquot lsquodoing enoughrsquo in Canada and the other dominionspremised on ruthless exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants) Thelsquonot enough imperialismrsquo thesis is argued forcefully by Max Boot in hisdiscussion of US intervention in Hispaniola lsquoThe marines had tried hardto plant constitutional government but found that it would not take rootin the inhospitable soil of Hispaniola The only thing that could have kepta Trujillo or Duvalier from seizing power was renewed US intervention [T]he only thing more unsavoury than US intervention it turned outwas US non-interventionrsquo34 And elsewhere in a discussion of Nicaragualsquodictatorship [in Nicaragua] was indigenous democracy was a foreigntransplant that did not take in part because America would not stickaround long enough to cultivate itrsquo35
Thus economic political and military crises in the postcolonialThird World have begun to serve as a retrospective justification forimperialism There is a virtual consensus among the above writers thatthe roots of these crises are to be found not in the colonial but in thenationalist era (In saying lsquobothrsquo Ignatieff is usefully ambiguous on thispoint) But as Frank Furedi argues this is the contested question and wecannot begin by assuming we know the answers36 In this contextJedediah Purdy usefully reminds us that lsquothe failure of many postcolonialregimes does not in itself mean that the preceding colonial rule was agood thing whose passing was to be regretted Nor more pertinentlydoes such failure indicate that independence was inherently unviable forthose countries While those countries faced severe disadvantages apartfrom the Cold War we will never know whether some might have donemuch better free of the proxy battles of those decadesrsquo37
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
33 Niall Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and Demise of the British World Orderand Lessons for Global Power rsquo Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast(September 16 2003) httpwwwcarnegiecouncilorgviewMediaphpprmID1033
34 Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of AmericanPower (New York Basic Books 2002) 181 Contrast this with John F Kennedyrsquosown admission lsquoThere are three possibilities in descending order of preferencea decent democratic regime a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castroregime We ought to aim at the first but we cant really renounce the second until weare sure we can avoid the thirdrsquo Cited in Abraham F Lowenthal lsquoThe UnitedStates and Latin American Democracy Learning from Historyrsquo in ExportingDemocracy The United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal(Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 388
35 Boot The Savage Wars of Peace 25136 Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 100 10637 Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 39 For a contrary view arguing that colonialism
was preferable to the situation of lsquoquasi-statehoodrsquo in which many postcolonial
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
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____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
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____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
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____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
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____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
153
imperialism the British didnrsquot do quite enough to achieve that kind ofgrowthrsquo33 (But wasnrsquot lsquodoing enoughrsquo in Canada and the other dominionspremised on ruthless exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants) Thelsquonot enough imperialismrsquo thesis is argued forcefully by Max Boot in hisdiscussion of US intervention in Hispaniola lsquoThe marines had tried hardto plant constitutional government but found that it would not take rootin the inhospitable soil of Hispaniola The only thing that could have kepta Trujillo or Duvalier from seizing power was renewed US intervention [T]he only thing more unsavoury than US intervention it turned outwas US non-interventionrsquo34 And elsewhere in a discussion of Nicaragualsquodictatorship [in Nicaragua] was indigenous democracy was a foreigntransplant that did not take in part because America would not stickaround long enough to cultivate itrsquo35
Thus economic political and military crises in the postcolonialThird World have begun to serve as a retrospective justification forimperialism There is a virtual consensus among the above writers thatthe roots of these crises are to be found not in the colonial but in thenationalist era (In saying lsquobothrsquo Ignatieff is usefully ambiguous on thispoint) But as Frank Furedi argues this is the contested question and wecannot begin by assuming we know the answers36 In this contextJedediah Purdy usefully reminds us that lsquothe failure of many postcolonialregimes does not in itself mean that the preceding colonial rule was agood thing whose passing was to be regretted Nor more pertinentlydoes such failure indicate that independence was inherently unviable forthose countries While those countries faced severe disadvantages apartfrom the Cold War we will never know whether some might have donemuch better free of the proxy battles of those decadesrsquo37
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
33 Niall Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and Demise of the British World Orderand Lessons for Global Power rsquo Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast(September 16 2003) httpwwwcarnegiecouncilorgviewMediaphpprmID1033
34 Max Boot The Savage Wars of Peace Small Wars and the Rise of AmericanPower (New York Basic Books 2002) 181 Contrast this with John F Kennedyrsquosown admission lsquoThere are three possibilities in descending order of preferencea decent democratic regime a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castroregime We ought to aim at the first but we cant really renounce the second until weare sure we can avoid the thirdrsquo Cited in Abraham F Lowenthal lsquoThe UnitedStates and Latin American Democracy Learning from Historyrsquo in ExportingDemocracy The United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal(Baltimore The Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 388
35 Boot The Savage Wars of Peace 25136 Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 100 10637 Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 39 For a contrary view arguing that colonialism
was preferable to the situation of lsquoquasi-statehoodrsquo in which many postcolonial
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
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____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
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____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
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Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
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____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
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____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
154
Paying attention to those proxy battles reminds us of how deeply the US(together with the former USSR) is implicated in the production oflsquoroguersquo and lsquofailedrsquo statesmdashsomething we are likely to forget readingIgnatieff38 In his work the US is presented as the lsquoreluctant republicrsquo thathas had imperial responsibility thrust upon it The myth of reluctanceallows the imperialist project to present itself as a primarily defensiveenterprise By obscuring or discounting the material motives drivingnew empire the notion that the US has asserted itself only underextreme duress and then always for the noblest purposes has become themaster narrative explaining and justifying the USrsquo exercise of globalpower39 In this vein Ignatieff frequently reiterates the theme ofinheritance as if the USmdasharguably the single most powerful actor in theinternational system since the end of the First World Warmdashhas exercisedno agency in bringing about the state of affairs in which it now findsitself In his latest article Ignatieff hasmdashto his creditmdashexplicitlyacknowledged that lsquolike Osama bin Laden whom the US bankrolledthrough the 1980s [Saddam] Hussein was a monster partly of Americarsquosmakingrsquo40 One wonders first why these vital admissions have been solate in coming (these are not new facts that have emerged after the 2003attack on Iraq) and second whymdashif previously knownmdashthey didnothing to change his mind Surely to recognise that the imperial poweritself bears significant responsibility for producing the circumstancesthat now occasion its intervention is to suggest that new empire issomething of a protection racket41
Finally it is worth interrogating the central assumption running throughIgnatieffrsquos work namely that empire can put failing states back on their feet
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____________________
states found themselves upon decolonisation see Jackson Quasi-States 146-151
38 Wendt and Barnett describe how illegitimate governance structures createdby colonialism and imperialism endured during the Cold War because thesuperpowers found it convenient to exploit them for the pursuit of their globalobjectives See Wendt and Barnett lsquoDependent State formation and Third Worldmilitarisationrsquo For an account of how the Cold War frustrated challenges to thelegacies of empire throughout the world also see Mark N Katz lsquoThe Legacy ofEmpire in International Relationsrsquo Comparative Strategy 12 (1993) 365-383
39 Andrew J Bacevich American Empire The Realities and Consequences of USDiplomacy (Cambridge Harvard University Press 2002) 8 87
40 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo For a brief account of the CIA role inbringing the Barsquoath party to power in Iraq and the subsequent US arming ofSaddam Hussein see Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 223-224
41 For an account of the state as protection racket see V Spike PetersonlsquoSecurity and Sovereign States What is at Stake in Taking Feminism Seriouslyrsquoin Gendered States Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (BoulderLynne Rienner 1992) 49-54
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
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____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
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____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
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____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
155
by assisting in nation-building Perhaps what he really means is state-building42 Empires have certainly shown themselves to be capable ofbuilding states where there were none before but can they build nations Tobe sure the vast majority of postcolonial nationalisms today owe theirexistence in some measure however indirectly to empire Thecrystallisation of an Indian national identity for example was greatlyfacilitated by the establishment of a subcontinent-wide network ofcommunication facilities (particularly railways and telegraph) theintroduction of an elite link language (English) and the infusion of newconcepts into political discourse thanks to the initiation of westerneducation In this sense empire may be said to have provided the hardwareof nationalism But the software of nationalismmdasha shared sense ofgrievance and resistance to the imperialist invaders as well as the historicaland cultural resources that provided an endless stream of hoary nationalistmythsmdashdeveloped in opposition to or independently of empire43 Empireprovided the foil against which nationalisms and nations were constructedSo while Ignatieff may be right to think that empire has a role to play innation-building this role may evolvemdashas it has done beforemdashin ways thatultimately prove deeply subversive of the imperialist project
If empires cannot impart a sense of national identity except in theindirect and inadvertent way described above perhaps they have a roleto play in lsquodemocracy promotionrsquomdashan endeavour in which the US hasbeen engaged for decades with less than encouraging results44 Whilethere are many examples of democratic regimes originating from an actof external imposition45 successful democracy promotion lsquoassumes theprior existence of a well-defined nation-state in which no majorproblems of national identity remain pendingrsquo46 This factor might
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
42 For a classic instance of this sort of confusion see Ignatieff Empire Lite 79lsquoTerror canrsquot be controlled unless order is built in the anarchic zones whereterrorists find shelter In Afghanistan this means nation-building creating astate strong enough to keep al-Qaeda from returningrsquo
43 For a piercing analysis of the tendency in much of the British literature onempire to minimise the role of anti-imperialist protest in the process ofdecolonisation andor to portray nationalism as entirely a conscious creation ofempire see Furedi The New Ideology of Imperialism 10
44 See the extremely sobering conclusions of Lowenthal lsquoThe United Statesand Latin American Democracyrsquo 383 lsquoRecurrent efforts by the government ofthe United States to promote democracy in Latin America have rarely beensuccessful and then only in a narrow range of circumstancesrsquo
45 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThree International Dimensions of Democratisationrsquoin The International Dimensions of Democratisation ed Laurence Whitehead(Oxford Oxford University Press 1999) 8-15
46 Laurence Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo in Exporting DemocracyThe United States and Latin America ed Abraham F Lowenthal (Baltimore The
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
Millennium
____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
156
explain both the triumph of US efforts in Germany and Japan followingthe Second World War as well as the essential irrelevance of thoseprecedents to the current situation in the Middle East As Anatol Lievenpoints out with the exception of Iran none of the states in this region lsquoisa truly national one and their sense of real common national purpose isweak Where state nationalism does exist the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand US support for Israel mean it is hard to mobilise it on the side of thewestrsquo47 To answer Ignatieffrsquos initial question then if democracypromotion is unlikely to be successful without a pre-existing sense ofnational identity and if empire can do little to precipitate such anidentity (except in a thoroughly antagonistic way) it is difficult to seehow empiremdashhowever heavymdashcan accomplish the task of puttingfailing states back on their feet
Ignatieff on Iraq
In the debate on the 2003 war on Iraq some liberal proponents of empirejumped onto a fundamentally neo-conservative bandwagon That thereare differences of agenda between these two groups is hardly a secretIgnatieff himself is candid about the lack of humanitarian motivationamong the neo-con warmongers despite their frequent use of liberalrhetoric to justify the war lsquoThe Iraq intervention was the work ofconservative radicals who believed that the status quo in the MiddleEast was untenablemdashfor strategic reasons security reasons andeconomic reasons They wanted intervention to bring about a revolutionin American power in the entire regionrsquo48 Of late he has been even moreexplicit on this point lsquoI knew that the administration did not see freeingIraq from tyranny as anything but a secondary objectiversquo and elsewherelsquosupporting the war meant supporting an administration whose motivesI did not fully trust for the sake of consequences I believed inrsquo49
Notwithstanding his recognition of the wide gulf separating neo-conservative motivations from his own Ignatieff seems to believe in theeventual reconcilability of these very different objectives Writing withevident approval of the neo-con master plan he says that the new pillarof US interests in the Middle East would be lsquoa democratic Iraq at peacewith Israel Turkey and Iran harbouring no terrorists pumping oil forthe world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on
Millennium
____________________
Johns Hopkins University Press 1991) 35647 Anatol Lieven lsquoLessons for Bushrsquos Mideast Visionrsquo Financial Times (March
1 2004)48 Michael Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraq (And Liberia And Afghanistan)rsquo
The New York Times Magazine (September 7 2003) 7149 Ignatieff lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
Millennium
____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
157
its neighboursrsquo50 There is not even the barest acknowledgement ofpotential contradictions in this deep and intrusive agenda far frompumping oil for the world economy at the lsquorightrsquo price a democratic Iraqmight very well decide that it needed to extract maximum revenue fromits natural resources or that it ought to strongly support Palestinian self-determination51 The historical record suggests that US democracypromotion efforts have often floundered precisely on this unwarrantedassumption that all lsquogoodrsquo things (free markets free peoples) gotogether Where democracy promotion has clashed with the imperativesof stability containment or a climate conducive to powerful businessinterests democracy has almost always been given short shrift52
Nevertheless the insistence on the absolute harmony of all goodthings in much US public rhetoric is by no means accidental or carelessit is vital to the justification of the entire project To the extent thatmaterial interests figure at all in publicly offered justifications for newempire policy makers typically insist that US interests and US ideals arecongruent that US ideals in turn are universal ideals53 and thereforethat there is an almost perfect correspondence between US interests anduniversal ideals These inarticulate premises allow US National SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice to proclaim lsquoAmericarsquos pursuit of thenational interest will create conditions that promote freedom marketsand peace the triumph of these values is most assuredly easier whenthe international balance of power favours those who believe in them Americarsquos military power must be secure because the US is the onlyguarantor of global peace and stabilityrsquo54 Ignatieff does nothing tointerrogate these clicheacutes of US foreign policy Instead he plays along bygrafting his human rights agenda on to what he knows to be the lessaltruistic game plan of the current US administration
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
50 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We In Iraqrsquo 7151 Or it might conclude that recent decrees passed by the US-UK Coalition
Provisional Authority permitting foreigners to own up to 100 of all sectorsexcept natural resources and imposing a flat tax rate of 15 are not conduciveto the imperatives of reconstruction and development See Naomi Klein lsquoBringHalliburton Homersquo The Nation (November 6 2003)
52 Whitehead lsquoThe Imposition of Democracyrsquo 358 Steven W HooklsquoInconsistent US Efforts to Promote Democracy Abroadrsquo in Exporting DemocracyRhetoric vs Reality ed Peter J Schraeder (Boulder Lynne Rienner Publishers2002) 121-123
53 For a devastating critique of this tendency see E H Carr The Twenty YearsrsquoCrisis 1919-1939 (London Macmillan 1949) 87
54 Condoleezza Rice lsquoPromoting the National Interestrsquo Foreign Affairs 79 no 1 (2000) 47 49 50
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
Millennium
____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
158
Ignatieff advises liberals to support the war on Iraq because he sees it aslsquobound to improve the human rights of Iraqisrsquo55 Any misgivings wemight have about neo-conservative motivations for intervention areassuaged with the argument that such concerns seem to value goodintentions more than good consequences56 This attempt to justify theintervention through a strictly consequentialist lens is untenable Forone thing Ignatieff recognises the need to acknowledge the anti-imperialist norms of the postwar era Towards this end he is keen todistinguish the new US empire from the empires of oldmdashbut in doing sohe can only point to good intentions lsquoThe twenty-first century imperiumis a new invention in the annals of political science an empire lite aglobal hegemony whose grace notes are free markets human rights anddemocracyrsquo57 By Ignatieffrsquos own admission vital elements of theselsquograce notesrsquo are missing in the neo-con decision-making calculusmdashsohow different really is new empire from old
Further the success of the intervention (from both neo-con andliberal perspectives) seems to rest crucially on good intentions58 Oneimportant insight of Fergusonrsquos Empire is that without the collaborationof indigenous elites Britain would not have had the human or financialresources to lsquorulersquo a quarter of the worldrsquos population59 US empire haslearnt this lesson well and also depends significantly on the cooperationand assistance of native elites60 There will never be a shortage ofopportunistic collaborators (native elites whose motivation forcollaboration derives primarily from the personal material gains onoffer rather than any sense of mission or duty to resuscitate their failingstates) But opportunistic collaborators are Frankensteinrsquos monstersthey have precipitated precisely those problems that new empire hasbeen called upon to deal with Max Boot seems unconcerned by thispossibility writing lsquoOnce we have deposed Saddam we can impose anAmerican-led international regency in Baghdad to go along with theone in Kabul With American seriousness and credibility thus restoredwe will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the regionrsquos many opportunistswho will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of
Millennium
____________________
55 Ignatieff lsquoWhy Are We in Iraqrsquo 4356 Ibid57 Ignatieff lsquoThe Burdenrsquo 2458 Ignatieff does finally come around to this position though for entirely
different reasons See lsquoThe Way We Live Nowrsquo 59 Ferguson Empire 188 189 See also Ferguson lsquoEmpire The Rise and
Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Powerrsquo 60 Bacevich argues that the US has found functional equivalents for both
gunboats and gurkhasmdashkey tools of British imperial expansion and control SeeAmerican Empire ch 6 See also Johnson The Sorrows of Empire ch 5
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
159
rolling up the international terror network that threatens usrsquo61 Bootrsquosvision reads like a recipe for more blowback Even from a self-regardingperspective it should be obvious that opportunistic collaborators arenotoriously unreliable their cooperation ebbing and flowing inproportion to the patronage they receive From an other-regardingperspective opportunistic collaborators are hardly likely to run the sortsof governments that respect the human rights of their peoples Thusopportunistic collaborators are unlikely to facilitate the success of theintervention (except in the very short-term) whether lsquosuccessrsquo is definedas security for the metropolis or the periphery
What sorts of collaborators new empire needs and attracts willdepend crucially on the motives of the new imperialists If the neo-imperialist project is animated even partly by a desire to bring humanrights and democracy to dangerous and unstable peripheral zones itwill need principled native collaboratorsmdashindividuals whose primaryallegiance is to securing good governance for their peoples lsquoPrincipledcollaborationrsquo may sound like a contradiction in terms but it capturesbetter than anything else the dilemma in which native elites62 with anycommitment to good governance are likely to find themselveslsquoCollaborationrsquo has the loathsome connotation of lsquotraitorous cooperationwith the enemyrsquo but it can also be used in the value-neutral sense ofparticipation in a joint endeavour63 What connotation it carries dependsvery much on the agenda of the (more powerful) external actor withwhom one is called upon to collaboratemdashin other words on theintentions and motives of the intervener The legitimacy of native elitesin the eyes of their people will in turn be determined by the nature ofcollaboration (mutually beneficial partnership or traitorouscooperation) that they are perceived to be engaging in
It is only within such a framework that we can understand suchunexpected events as the decision of Siham Hattab not to stand in council
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
61 Boot lsquoThe Case for American Empirersquo62 The very use of the term lsquoelitersquo is problematic from the perspective of a
radical commitment to democracy I use the term loosely to refer to people inpre-intervention positions of authority Whether or not that authority islegitimate (in the eyes of insiders and outsiders) poses further problematic issuesthat I cannot adequately deal with here For the argument that the genius andtragedy of US democracy promotion efforts has been that they have always triedto introduce political innovations while working with and through the existingsocio-economic elite see Tony Smith Americarsquos Mission The United States and theWorldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton PrincetonUniversity Press 1994) 18
63 Oxford English Dictionary Online (2004)
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
160
elections in Baghdad As an educated young woman from a conservativeShia family a lecturer in English literature by profession representingone of the most deprived districts of Baghdad this lsquorising star of Iraqipoliticsrsquo is potentially a model collaborator in every sense of the word (orat least from the perspective of the Coalition Provisional Authority) Yether reluctance to declare her candidature in a high-profile election stemsfrom a fundamental ambivalence over the ethics of cooperation with theCPA64 Principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward (or to enjoyany legitimacy if they do) if the US intervention is perceived to beprimarily about consolidating its dominance in the region (This asIgnatieff informs us is principally what the neo-cons had in mind)Indeed I would go so far as to say that in this post-imperial age in whichlsquothere are far too many politicised people on earth today for any nationreadily to accept the finality of Americarsquos historical mission to lead theworldrsquo65 principled collaborators are unlikely to step forward at all ifthey perceive that what they are collaborating with is empire66
The Immorality of Empire
Even shorn of its exploitative and racist historical baggage lsquoempirersquo as aform of political organisation remains deeply objectionable because it ispremised on the complete denial of agency of those ruled withoutrepresentation This normative objection applies to all exercises ofimperial power wherever they occurmdashnot merely to modern Europeanlsquosaltwaterrsquo empires In this context Martin Shaw is right to draw ourattention to the lsquoquasi-imperialrsquo character of political relations in muchof the non-Western world67 Even in a democratic polity such as India tothe extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a civilising mission vis-agrave-vis its tribalpopulation for example the imperial quality of political life is palpable68
Shaw is much less convincing when he goes on to argue first that theWest has become post-imperial and second that lsquothe reassertion of post-
Millennium
____________________
64 Rory McCarthy lsquoDoubts hold back rising star of Iraqi politicsrsquo The Guardian(February 10 2004)
65 Said Culture and Imperialism 348 66 See also Purdy lsquoLiberal Empirersquo 44 lsquoThe universality and power of
nationalism as a political motivation is perhaps the most salient single differencebetween the circumstances of previous imperial powers and the situation of theUS todayrsquo
67 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 33368 In permitting the resumption of construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam
notwithstanding its displacement of tens of thousands of tribal people theSupreme Court of India in Narmada Bachao Andolan v Union of India (2000) 10SCC 664 was eerily reminiscent of a colonial civil servant or proselytising
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
161
imperial Western power has been in turn a response to crises in thequasi-imperial states of the non-Westrsquo69 Again we are presented withthe image of the West as benign public-spirited fire-fighter rushing tothe rescue of victims in messy quasi-imperial non-Western states
This imagery is odd because most of the changes that Shawdescribes in the way Western power is exercised suggest that it hasbecome post-imperialmdashif at allmdashin its intra-bloc relations (ie within thedeveloped capitalist world comprising the US Europe and East Asia) Itis here that elements of hierarchy have been mitigated not least bygreater economic parity but also through more extensive andmeaningful consultation and partnership in such fora as the G8 NATOetc But while the West may have become post-imperial in its internalrelations its frequent assertions of power in the non-Western worldcannot be considered post-imperial unless we adopt the unwarrantedassumption that such intervention occurs purely for altruistic reasonsand always at the behest of the putative beneficiaries If Westernintervention in the non-Western world continues to be imperial thenShawrsquos suggestion that this is a justifiable response to crises in the quasi-imperial states of the non-West is deeply problematic As I have arguedabove many of these crises (arbitrary boundaries and self-determinationstruggles exploitive class structures and tyrannical elites) are ahangover from older periods of empire To argue that they can only bedealt with by a renewed exercise of Western imperial power risksperpetuating a vicious cycle
The normative objection to empire as a form of rule withoutrepresentation applies even if as many have argued empires supplypublic goods70 From the perspective of the smaller actors in the systemeven in a best-case scenario where genuine public goods were providedfree of charge the provision of goods that the hegemon would haveproduced anyway (because it is in its private interest to do so) whether or
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
missionary lsquoThe displacement of the tribals would not per se result in theviolation of their fundamental or other rights At the rehabilitation sites theywill have more and better amenities than which they enjoyed in their tribalhamlets The gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society will lead tobetterment and progressrsquo (Justice Kirpal)
69 Shaw lsquoPost-Imperial and Quasi-Imperialrsquo 331 332 33570 There is a vast amount of literature justifying hierarchy from a public
goods argument For a brilliantly argued liberal perspective see Lea BrilmayerAmerican Hegemony Political Morality in a One-Superpower World (New HavenYale University press 1994) especially ch 6 For a sampling of hegemonicstability theory see Charles Kindleberger lsquoDominance and Leadership in theInternational Economy Exploitation Public Goods and Free Ridesrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 25 no 2 (1981) 242-254 Charles Kindleberger lsquoHierarchy
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
162
not these smaller actors existed essentially renders those actorsirrelevant It carries all the offensive paternalistic connotations of beingtreated as a ward of the state lacking in mental (or physical) capacityand therefore being told what is lsquogood for yoursquo with no meaningfulautonomy or participation in your own governance71 But perhaps thisargument is unappealing to those not of a liberal persuasion So let ussuppose for the sake of argument that empire would not be morallyproblematic if it provided genuine public goods In that case therelevant question becomes whether this (US) empire at this point in timeis providing the public goods that it claims to There has been a greatdeal of careless piggybacking on hegemonic stability theory (HST) inrecent work on empire72 without more careful consideration of DuncanSnidalrsquos warning that lsquothe range of the theory is limited to very specialconditionsrsquo and that lsquowhile some international issue-areas may possiblymeet these conditions they do so far less frequently than the wideapplication of the theory might suggestrsquo73 Although a rigorous analysisof this problem is beyond the scope of this article I want to outlinebriefly the contours of a possible counter-response to the public goodsargument
If security is allegedly the principal public good supplied by the USempire74 the first question to ask is whether security is a public goodPublic goods are defined as non-excludable (it is impossible to preventnon-contributors from enjoying the good) and joint (a number of actorsare able simultaneously to consume the same produced unit of the good
Millennium
____________________
Versus Inertial Cooperationrsquo International Organisation 40 no 4 (1986) 841-847Robert O Keohane lsquoThe Theory of Hegemonic Stability and Changes inInternational Economic Regimes 1967-1977rsquo in Change in the InternationalSystem eds Ole R Holsti Randolph M Siverson amp Alexander L George(Boulder Westview Press 1980) 131-162 See also Joseph Nye The Paradox ofAmerican Power Why the Worldrsquos Only Superpower Canrsquot go it Alone (OxfordOxford University Press 2002) 142-147
71 If this sounds like I am anthropomorphising the state for an account of thefamilial religious and other metaphors on which hegemonic stability theoryintuitively relies for its persuasiveness see Isabelle Grunberg lsquoExploring theldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo International Organisation 44 no 4 (1990) 431-477
72 Cox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 26 Charles S Maier lsquoAn AmericanEmpirersquo Harvard Magazine 105 no 2 (2002) 29 Eyal Benvenisti lsquoThe US andthe Use of Force Double Edged Hegemony and the Management of GlobalEmergenciesrsquo httpusersoxacuk~magd1538benvenistipdf (whohowever does not use the term lsquoempirersquo)
73 Duncan Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo InternationalOrganisation 39 no 4 (1985) 579
74 Maier lsquoAn American Empirersquo 29 Benvenisti lsquoThe US and the Use of Forcersquo 7
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
163
without detracting from each otherrsquos enjoyment) While some idealisedversion of lsquoworld peacersquo might satisfy this definition security ascurrently envisaged by the US does not First security is not non-excludablemdashas Snidal points out alliances and defence pacts arepremised on providing peace and security benefits to some but notothers75 Bruce Russett argues that even for lsquopeacersquo by dominance onecan choose boundaries to the areas one pacifies excluding strategicallyinsignificant or uncooperative governments from onersquos defensive ordeterrent umbrella76 The US National Security Strategy speaks oflsquoprevent[ing] our enemies from threatening us our allies and our friendswith WMDrsquo77 Further the concept of the lsquosecurity dilemmarsquo suggeststhat making some secure requires rendering others insecure therebyundermining the lsquojointnessrsquo of security As many have emphasised thisis true even of (apparently) wholly defensive measures such as BallisticMissile Defence78 (which is precisely why they have evoked such ahostile reaction from China and others) If the criteria of non-excludability and joint-ness are not satisfied then security cannot beconsidered a public good79
Second if the means by which the US provides security rousehostility and resentment in much of the non-Western world and inviteretaliation on a worldwide scalemdashagainst not only the US itself but alsoits friends allies collaborators and anyone in the waymdashthen there arevery sound reasons for doubting whether US-imposed lsquosecurityrsquo is apublic good Johnson writes that lsquoworld politics in the twenty-first centurywill in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the secondhalf of the twentieth centurymdashthat is from the unintended [foreseeable]consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision tomaintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War worldrsquo80 To this mightbe added the obvious codicil that world politics for a long time to comewill be driven by blowback from the US-led lsquowar on terrorrsquo If this is truethen the US may be said to be producing public lsquobadsrsquo both for itself andothers One way of reconciling my scepticism of lsquopublic-nessrsquo with my
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
75 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 59676 Bruce Russett lsquoThe Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony or is Mark
Twain Really Deadrsquo International Organisation 39 no 2 (1985) 224-22577 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America
(Washington DC The White House September 2002) 13 (emphasis mine) 78 Johnson The Sorrows of Empire 84-8579 For an argument that free trade is not a public good because it exhibits the
properties of excludability and rivalry see John A C Conybeare lsquoPublic GoodsPrisonerrsquos Dilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo InternationalStudies Quarterly 28 no 1 (1984) 5-22
80 Johnson Blowback 237-238
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
164
scepticism of lsquogood-nessrsquo is to suggest that while the goods (if any) of USsecurity-imposition are privatised the bads are well and truly shared (orworse externalised) This is another way of telling the story of the ColdWar pacification in the core and proxy war in the periphery
Third proponents of HST argue that the theory is legitimised bythe implicit quid pro quo on which it rests in return for foregoingrepresentation in decisions concerning what public goods are to beproduced and how lesser actors are able to free-ride (ie consume publicgoods without paying for them) When asked why a rational hegemonwould permit free-riding it is argued that the very nature of the goodssupplied (ie their non-excludability and joint-ness) makes it impossiblefor the hegemon to tax their use But having seen that the goods are oftenprivate or only imperfectly public at best HSTrsquos built-in assumption ofbenevolence turns out to be unwarranted or exaggerated Further unlesshegemony is defined purely in absolute and not at all in relative termsthe hegemon is likely to be much more powerful than other actors in thesystem Even if the goods supplied are perfectly public this opens upthe possibility that the hegemon will extract payment through cross-linkage of issue-areas (ie I cannot extract payment for perfectly publicgood X but if you do not pay nevertheless I will withhold imperfectlypublic good Y) Thus regardless of whether the hegemon is able toenforce exclusion it may be capable of coercing others into paying forthe goods81 As a rational actor seeking to further its own self-interest thehegemon can be expected to use every available means to extractpayment for the goods it provides82 If public goods are not free as themore benevolent variants of HST suggest then this is a case of taxationwithout representationmdashan injustice even most Americans ought to beable to empathise with
Fourth even in the case of genuine public goods that are providedfree of charge it is by no means self-evident that free-riding works to thedetriment of the hegemon A number of writers have commented on theextent to which the hegemon actively welcomes and seeks to perpetuatethe situation of free-riding as a means of exacerbating the dependenceof its allies and enhancing its leverage vis-agrave-vis them83 Hegemonic
Millennium
____________________
81 Snidal lsquoThe Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theoryrsquo 592-59382 Grunberg lsquoExploring the ldquoMythrdquo of Hegemonic Stabilityrsquo 441 For an
analogous view on free trade also see Conybeare lsquoPublic Goods PrisonerrsquosDilemma and the International Political Economyrsquo 11 13 But for a view that theneed to maintain continued hegemony will exercise a check on the hegemonrsquostendency to behave exploitatively see Bruce Cronin lsquoThe Paradox of HegemonyAmericarsquos Ambiguous Relationship with the United Nationsrsquo European Journal ofInternational Relations 7 no 1 (2001) 103-130
83 See for example Prestowitz Rogue Nation 166 242
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
165
stability theorists are therefore misleading when they characterise free-riding as an unqualified benefit to lesser actors Given the role that free-riding plays in providing a moral prop for the theory a view thatunderscores the ambiguity of the gains from free-riding for smalleractors makes the entire edifice of HST look morally suspect
Whatever the merits of the imperial imposition of public goods weought not to be precluded from enquiring into whether this is the best oronly means of providing such goods (ie empire may be a sufficientcondition for the provision of public goods but is it a necessary one)Disturbingly by proclaiming its intention to dissuade anyone fromlsquosurpassing or equalling the power of the United Statesrsquo the US NSSdoes just this84 By seeking to perpetuate the dominance of the US andthe massive power deficit that already exists between itself and the restof the world the NSS effectively slams the door shut on any discussionof more equitable means of providing global public goods such assecurity A great deal more needs to be said to demonstrate the moralbankruptcy of theories advocating the imperial provision of publicgoods At the very least I hope to have cast reasonable doubt on the oft-repeated assertion that this empire is legitimised by the public goods thatit provides of which global security is said to be the foremost
To conclude writing about events that are unfoldingcontemporaneously invites the risk of being overtaken by developmentson the ground and proved disastrously wrong Nevertheless I believemy critique of empire will remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of USpolitical fortunes in Iraq because it points to the essential immoralityand impracticality of empire in a post-imperial age Ignatieff has notdemonstrated that empire however heavy can accomplish the task ofnation-building His defensive case for empire is specious because itoverlooks the extent to which the circumstances of state-failure thatallegedly justify new empire are themselves a consequence of olderempire and indeed older US empire His (earlier) strictlyconsequentialist attempt to justify the 2003 Iraq war is blind to the factthat lsquosuccessrsquo depends crucially on the cooperation of Iraqismdashcooperation that is unlikely to be forthcoming if they are suspicious ofUS intentions His (current) acceptance of the importance of intentions iswelcome but does nothing to address concerns about the likelihood andnature of local collaboration Whether one describes what is going on inthe world today as lsquoempirersquo or uses the more technocratic euphemism
The Empire writes back (to Michael Ignatieff)
____________________
84 The National Security Strategy 30 See also Thomas Donnelly lsquoRebuildingAmericarsquos Defences Strategy Forces and Resources for a New Centuryrsquo AReport of The Project for the New American Century (September 2000) (i)
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
166
lsquohegemonyrsquo85 consent of the governed seems to be vital to the success ofthe project Part of what it means to live in a post-imperial age is that theabhorrence of empire is too visceralmdashtoo deep a part of politicalconsciousness at least in the Third Worldmdashfor that consent to be freelygiven If the US experiment in Iraq is to be successful it will have to beso different from the empires of old as not to look likemdashmoreimportantly not to bemdashempire anymore
Rahul Rao is reading for a DPhil in International Relations at BalliolCollege University of Oxford
____________________
Millennium
____________________
85 For arguments that the US is appropriately described as an empire seeCox lsquoThe Empirersquos Back in Townrsquo 14-22 Niall Ferguson lsquoHegemony orEmpirersquo Foreign Affairs (SeptemberOctober 2003) Vijay Prashad lsquoCasualImperialismrsquo Peoplersquos Weekly World (August 16 2003) Geir Lundestad TheAmerican lsquoEmpirersquo (Oxford Oxford University Press 1992) 37-39 For argumentsthat lsquohegemonyrsquo is the more appropriate term see Michael Walzer lsquoIs There anAmerican Empirersquo Dissent (Fall 2003) See also Martin Walker lsquoAmericarsquosVirtual Empirersquo World Policy Journal 19 no 2 (2002) 20 who writes thatalthough lsquoempirersquo is a useful metaphor American empire is a new beast the likesof which has never been seen before
