Tutkimus on filosofian historiallinen ja siinä tarkastellaan David Humen (1711-1776) teoreettista filosofiaa (metafysiikkaa, tietoteoriaa ja mielenfilosofiaa). Hume on tunnetuimpia ja tutkituimpia filosofian klassikkoja. Tutkimusongelmana on Humen suhtautuminen filosofiseen oppiin, jota nykyisin kutsutaan metafyysiseksi realismiksi. Metafyysisen realismin mukaan on olemassa mielestä, havaitsemisesta tai havaitsijasta riippumattomia olioita, jotka ovat pysyvästi olemassa havaitsijan ulkopuolella. Tutkimusongelma on merkittävä Hume-tulkintakirjallisuuden ja filosofian yleisestä näkökulmasta. Tunnetuin Hume on aina ollut hänen väitetystä skeptisismistään ja Humen kanta metafyysiseen realismiin on tämän ongelman ydinkysymyksiä. 1900-luvun puolessa välissä Hume-tutkimuksen polttavimmaksi kysymykseksi nousi hänen ajattelunsa suhde naturalismiin: voivatko uskomukset saada esimerkiksi oikeutuksensa niiden luonnollisista syistä. Nykyfilosofian vilkkaimpia keskusteluita on ollut ns. realismi-antirealismi debatti, jossa on keskusteltu riippumattomien, ulkoisten ja pysyvien olioiden olemassaolosta. Voidaan myös sanoa, että tämän ongelman äärellä olemme maailmankuvamme ytimessä: onko olemassa ihmisestä riippumaton todellisuus, onko se totuuden mittapuu ja tietomme ja uskomuksiemme perusta. Tutkimus lähestyy Humen suhdetta metafyysiseen realismiin tuoreesta näkökulmasta ja siinä puolustetaan uutta vastausta tähän kysymykseen. Kun Humen filosofinen kanta erotetaan tässä kysymyksessä hänen jokapäiväisestä uskomuksestaan, lopputuloksena on kaksiosainen vastaus tutkimusongelmaan. Filosofina Hume pidättäytyy ottamasta kantaa riippumattomien, ulkoisten ja pysyvien olioiden olemassaoloon. Sen sijaan hänen jokapäiväinen uskomuksensa on uskoa sellaisten olioiden olemassaoloon. Tulkinnassa Hume nähdään siis sekä skeptikkona että metafyysisenä realistina (skeptistä asennetta voidaan havainnollistaa agnostisella suhtautumisella Jumalan olemassaoloon eli kannanotosta pidättäytymisellä siihen, onko Jumalaa olemassa vai ei.) Tutkimusmenetelmä yhdistää tekstuaalisen ja kontekstuaalisen lähestymistavan. Ensisijaisena lähdetekstinä on Humen kypsä mestariteos Tutkimus inhimillisestä ymmärryksestä (An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, 1748), jonka viimeisen luvun ensimmäinen osa asetetaan yksityiskohtaisen tekstianalyysin kohteeksi. Analyysissä teksti asetetaan sen kontekstiin Hume tuotannossa, intellektuaalisessa kehityksessä ja filosofisessa ympäristössä. Vaikka metodi on ensisijaisesti historiallinen, tulkintatyössä hyödynnetään nykyfilosofian käsitteitä silloin, kun se on tarpeellista ja hedelmällistä. ; The main problem of this study is David Hume s (1711-76) view on Metaphysical Realism (there are mind-independent, external, and continuous entities). This specific problem is part of two more general questions in Hume scholarship: his attitude to scepticism and the relation between naturalism and skepticism in his thinking. A novel interpretation of these problems is defended in this work. The chief thesis is that Hume is both a sceptic and a Metaphysical Realist. His philosophical attitude is to suspend his judgment on Metaphysical Realism, whereas as a common man he firmly believes in the existence of mind-independent, external, and continuous entities. Therefore Hume does not have any one position; accordingly, a form of no one Hume interpretation (Richard Popkin, Robert J. Fogelin, Donald L.M. Baxter) is argued for in the book. The key point in this distinction is the temporal difference between Hume s philosophical and everyday views. It is introduced in order to avoid attributing a conscious contradiction to him (a problem which has not attracted enough attention in the literature). The method of the work is modelled on Peter Millican s work on Hume and induction. The approach to the main problem is to study the two profound arguments against the senses that Hume presents in the Section 12 of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748). These arguments are first reconstructed in detail resulting in Millican-type diagrams of them and then Hume s endorsement of them is established on the basis of the diagrams. The first profound argument concludes that Metaphysical Realism and thus any Realistic theory of perception is unjustified as well as the existence of God and the soul. The second argument goes further having first conceptual conclusion: the very notions of Real entitity, material substance, and bodies are completely out of the reach of the faculty of understanding. Therefore they ought to be rejected according to Hume. This is a consequence of the consistent use of the Humean faculty of reason: idea-analysis and inductive inference. The second profound argument thus concludes that believing in Metaphysical Realism is inconsistent with the rational attitude that is to refrain from this belief. Hence, if we attributed both of them to Hume, we would end up with a great philosopher who embraces a manifest contradiction. The study is finished by arguing that this sceptical and Metaphysically Realistic interpretation concurs well with (1) Hume s professed Academical philosophy and (2) project of the science of human nature. (1) According to Hume, Academical philosophy is in the first place diffidence, modesty, and uncertainty including suspension on certain issues. Secondly, it is restriction of the range of topics for which experience can provide a standard of truth. This kind of empiricist epistemological realism is coherent with the sceptical attitude on Metaphysical Realism because the latter does not rule out inter-subjective consensus on what we experience. (2) Suspension of judgment on Metaphysical Realism coheres with the mind-dependency of the objects of Hume s science of human nature: the understanding, passions, morals, aesthetics, politics, and the human culture in all of its manifestations. Although the study takes the first Enquiry to be Hume s authorised word on the understanding, his juvenile work A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) is argued to support this no one Hume interpretation. Hume s other works are also discussed when needed.
"Self-preservation is the first duty of a nation"Alexander Hamilton "The whole point of the doomsday machineis lost if you keep it a secret!!"Dr. Strangelove VII) Críticas Una de las principales críticas realizadas al realismo es su imposibilidad de explicar el cambio y, en particular, aportar inteligibilidad al mundo de la posguerra fría. Los cambios provocados por la globalización a partir de la década del 90 han, para muchos autores, resquebrajado profundamente los fundamentos axiomáticos del realismo. Badie (2001: 255-256) identifica tres aspectos fundamentales de este cambio de paradigma: A) Acercamiento: el nuevo orden mundial no es más territorial, sino que se basa en lo transnacional y en la interconexión entre individuos y flujos que no son controlados por el estado, provocando la eclosión de nuevas identidades y lealtades. B) Emergencia de bienes públicos globales. En un mundo globalizado, los bienes públicos dejan de ser puramente soberanos (nacionales). La búsqueda del bien social necesita de la mediación, movilización y cooperación internacionales que sobrepasan el control del estado (ej: medio ambiente, DD.HH, bienes socio-económicos, etc.). C) nacimiento de nuevos actores que reconfiguran la relación tradicional entre el ciudadano y el estado y, en cierta medida, atacan la legitimidad del contrato social y ponen en riesgo a la comunidad política en su conjunto. Esta nueva realidad debilitaría la soberanía y la territorialidad tradicionalmente asociadas al Estado-Nación. La nueva concepción de la soberanía lidia con el mercado transnacional y los nuevos compromisos y lealtades generados por la etno-política. En un mundo globalizado, el poder ya no residiría exclusivamente en la soberanía de un estado unitario, sino que éstos se ven de manera creciente obligados a conciliar o negociar sus estrategias con una multiplicidad de nuevos actores no estatales en una escena internacional pública que ya no puede ser monopolizada por el Estado-Nación. Según Badie, (2001: 258) este proceso sería similar al de la emergencia de la burguesía que demandaba participación política al interior de los Estados-Nación en los siglos XVIII y XIX, llevando al colapso de los regímenes absolutistas. Estos nuevos actores internacionales desafían el rol monopólico y absolutista del Estado-Nación y demandan derechos de participación y definición en la agenda internacional. Para esto, los realistas, clásicos y otros, tienen pocas respuestas. Esta crítica hace eco de lo que los adversarios del realismo han sostenido por décadas, a saber que la suposición (dogmática) realista del estado como actor unitario y racional ha desviado la atención del estudio, necesario, de las complejidades de la estructura del estado, del proceso de formación de preferencias así como de la acción de los actores no estatales (Williams, 2004: 636). Otra crítica importante que han enfrentado todas las escuelas realistas es que a pesar de su resistencia como programa de investigación, en particular en la academia estadounidense, el realismo político ha sido históricamente poco propenso a la verificación científica. Vasquez demuestra que las hipótesis realistas han constantemente fallado la corroboración empírica, mientras que las hipótesis no-realistas, liberales u otras, han demostrado ser estadísticamente significativas (Vasquez, 1983: 202), lo que ha llevado al autor a proponer el abandono del paradigma realista como guía teórica y práctica. La obsesión de la academia estadounidense con el enfoque realista ha sido bien documentada. Ya planteaba Kuhn (1970: 24) los problemas del "fanatismo científico" al advertir que cuando un paradigma se torna dominante, la academia se vuelve intolerante hacia las teorías alternativas y decide trabajar exclusivamente dentro del marco teórico dominante. El problema de esto, como bien marca Karl Popper, es que ese acto tiende a empobrecer a la academia y debilitar el pensamiento original e innovador (Walker y Morton, 2005: 342). ¿Cómo explicar entonces que a pesar de sus falencias el realismo político haya sido el paradigma dominante en el mundo académico y político? La respuesta realista es la siguiente: ningún paradigma rival ha logrado presentar, de manera integral, una visión alternativa, descriptiva y normativa de la acción de los estados y del funcionamiento de las RR.II. Una segunda respuesta es que el realismo, desde el inicio de la Guerra Fría, ha aportado un paradigma legitimador a la política exterior estadounidense. Al centrar el realismo el interés nacional en términos de seguridad y promover el gasto militar, alabar la Realpolitik y minimizar el componente legal o moral de las RR.II, ha encontrado en los decisores de política exterior (así como en el complejo industrial-militar) fervientes defensores de sus principios. No es de extrañar que los principales policy-makers de la Guerra Fría, como H. Kissinger o G. Kennan, hayan sido realistas convencidos (Wittner, 1985: 285). Finalmente, el cambio en el paradigma dominante parece haber seguido, si bien de manera relativamente lenta, los cambios estructurales en el mundo en los últimos 40 años. Walker y Morton (2005: 352) analizaron la producción de artículos académicos entre 1970 y 2000 en los Estados Unidos, agrupando principalmente los estudios en tres grandes escuelas: realismo, liberalismo y otros. Entre 1970-74, los artículos realistas y relacionados al realismo representaban el 73% del universo estudiado (37 artículos) y los artículos sobre liberalismo y otros tan sólo el 28%. En 1989, 61% de los artículos aún estaban bajo el paradigma realista. En el año 2000, tan sólo el 34% de los artículos analizados (515 artículos) versaban sobre el realismo político, contra 65% para artículos liberales y otros (de los cuales 40% eran sólo sobre el liberalismo). Esto demostraría que, por lo menos a nivel de la academia estadounidense, el realismo ha dejado de ser la teoría dominante. A nivel de los decisores de política exterior, el realismo sigue relevante, en particular a partir del 11 de setiembre de 2001. A todas estas críticas los realistas responderán invariablemente: los supuestos que han hecho del realismo político una filosofía política relevante, y dominante, desde hace más de dos mil años, permanecen incambiados hasta el día de hoy. El mundo sigue siendo un lugar anárquico, inseguro e imprevisible. Las guerras modernas entre pequeños estados o entre estados rebeldes y la superpotencia dominante no hacen más que confirmar la hipótesis neorrealista de que la disuasión atómica ha cambiado para siempre la guerra dentro del S.I. Las N.U no tienen más poder hoy en día del que tenían hace 50 años y es difícil imaginar un escenario futuro donde la Organización cumpla un rol eficaz como garante de la seguridad internacional, inclusive, o justamente a pesar de la reforma del Consejo de Seguridad. A pesar de la emergencia de nuevos actores, flujos transnacionales y problemas transfronterizos que demandan una respuesta concertada, los estados siguen siendo los actores principales de las RR.II. Los realistas no niegan la importancia de los nuevos temas de la agenda transnacional pero, argumentan ellos, ninguno de estos asuntos ha cambiado drásticamente la razón de ser de los estados ni alterado su principal obligación: salvaguardar su seguridad. Ni siquiera el terrorismo en su versión más extrema representa una amenaza seria a la integridad de los estados, por más que así haya sido instrumentalizado por los decisores de política exterior, apelando o inspirándose erróneamente en una lectura realista para lidiar con este problema. "The war on Terror" no es, desde una perspectiva realista, una guerra: no es más que una respuesta desproporcionada de un estado poco racional que combate un enemigo no tradicional en términos realistas. La "seguridad nacional" es sin dudas la expresión más utilizada en la arena política estadounidense desde el 11 de setiembre, pero lo que los decisores de política exterior estadounidenses parecen no entender, es que si bien los Estados Unidos no pueden perder esa guerra, tampoco pueden ganarla. Ya lo decía Morgenthau cuando criticaba el involucramiento de EEUU en la guerra de Vietnam: "Our very presence in Vietnam is in a sense dictated by considerations of public relations; we are afraid lest our prestige would suffer were we to retreat from an untenable position. One may ask whether we have gained prestige by being involved in a civil war on the mainland of Asia and by being unable to win it. Would we gain more by being unable to extricate ourselves from it, and by expanding it unilaterally into an international war? …Does not a great power gain prestige by mustering the wisdom and courage necessary to liquidate a losing Enterprise? In other words, is it not the mark of greatness, in circumstances such as these, to be able to afford to be indifferent to one´s prestige?". Si Morgenthau no consideraba la Guerra de Vietnam digna del interés nacional, ¿cómo puede serlo en el siglo XXI la guerra contra Al-Qaeda?. VIII) Consideraciones finales En conclusión, me gustaría refutar en parte el argumento comúnmente utilizado para avanzar la muerte del realismo como doctrina relevante a la hora de explicar el accionar de los grandes estados en el concierto internacional, a saber: el fin del estado nación y la consolidación del supranacionalismo, el ejemplo más estridente siendo la construcción europea. Pero para entender claramente a qué me refiero, conviene recordar brevemente qué es un Estado. Según la definición clásica comúnmente aceptada, un Estado, para existir, debe tener por los menos 4 características incompresibles. El Estado es entonces: a) una población, b) dentro de un territorio, c) con alguna forma de gobierno centralizado y d) que ejerce el monopolio legítimo de la fuerza (o de la coerción) para asegurar, entre otras cosas, la seguridad interna y externa. Ahora bien, si reflexionamos en términos de la Unión Europea y hasta donde ha avanzado la construcción de un Estado Europeo, constatamos que es bien cierto que la UE cuenta con tres de las cuatro características normalmente atribuidas al Estado. La Unión Europea posee una población claramente identificable, los ciudadanos miembros de los estados que la conforman, con derechos y obligaciones propias que no poseen los ciudadanos no europeos. La UE cuenta igualmente con unas fronteras delimitadas y protegidas que separan a este "Estado Europeo" de las naciones no europeas. La UE tiene además su propio gobierno (supranacional), el Parlamento, el Consejo y la Comisión, que poseen importantes potestades legislativas y ejecutivas capaces de imponerse a las legislaciones nacionales. Por lo tanto, la Unión Europea estaría en camino a convertirse en un estado hecho y derecho. Hélas para los defensores de dicha tesis, la cuarta característica, el monopolio de la fuerza, está claramente ausente de las discusiones reales de la construcción europea y ello, por un buen tiempo a venir. Recordemos que para los realistas, clásicos y demás, este cuarto componente, a saber el monopolio de la fuerza, destinado a garantizar la supervivencia del Estado, debe ser casi exclusivamente la única preocupación de los Estadistas y por lo tanto, sin ella, no podemos hablar propiamente de Estado. En consecuencia, mientras que los franceses, los alemanes o los ingleses no hagan un paso en dirección hacia una verdadera política de defensa supranacional (y no internacional o concertada), es decir, hasta el día en que los gobiernos nacionales no cedan la potestad sobre su bien más preciado (según los realistas) a un órgano supranacional sobre el cual ejerzan poco o nulo control, entonces el axioma realista que los grandes estados siguen pensando y actuando antes que nada en términos de seguridad y de poder, seguirá siendo relevante para el estudio de las RR.II. Aquellos que desconocen la penetración del realismo y de la realpolitik y desu fuerza ordenadora como principio de acción de los estados, ciegamente niegan que los estados, en materia de seguridad, continúan avalando, en el siglo XXI, una visión Hobbesiana del S.I. Afirmo plenamente en este epílogo que el realismo sigue siendo una doctrina relevante para explicar, si bien no todos, por los menos varios aspectos cruciales de las RR.II. Me arriesgaría a afirmar igualmente que el realismo progresivamente retomará un lugar de privilegio entre las teorías dominantes. El S.I internacional se encuentra actualmente en un período de transición entro lo que fue el fin de la Guerra Fría, el interludio del dominio unilateral estadounidense y la emergencia progresiva de China como principal potencia antagonista. La historia ha tenido múltiples escenarios de dominio unipolar o hegemónico, desde los siglos que duró el Imperio Romano, los años de la Francia Napoleónica, los meses de la Alemania Nazi hasta los 20 años del nuevo orden mundial capitalista y liberal. Pero, si hay algo que el realismo enseña y predice con infalibilidad matemática, es que el poder en el sistema internacional tiende siempre al equilibrio. Es altamente improbable que la potencia China no expanda su área de influencia hasta chocar irremediablemente con los intereses estadounidenses. En la aceptación mutua de la paridad de fuerzas y en el miedo recíproco entre ambas potencias, encontraremos seguramente las garantías de la seguridad colectiva, tal como predice el realismo, y no así otras teorías. El pensamiento realista ha sido injustamente simplificado y encasillado en lo que parece ser una colección de máximas de galletas de la fortuna: de Clausewitz a Maquiavelo, pasando por Tucídides, Hobbes y Morgenthau, el realismo ha producido enunciados categóricos que parecen despojar al mundo de todo matiz. Si bien es cierto que esas afirmaciones banalizan una de las escuelas teóricas más fecundas, no es menos cierto que la incertidumbre del sistema internacional ha llevado a los teóricos realistas a considerar que la supervivencia del Estado es algo demasiado importante para dejarlo en manos de los buenos sentimientos. BibliografíaARON, R., 1984, Paix et guerre entre les nations (8ed.),Calmann-Lévy, Paris.ASHLEY, R., «The Poverty of Neorealism» in International Organization, Vol. 38, Nº2 (Spring, 1984), pp. 225-286.BADIE, B., «Realism under Praise, or a Requiem? The paradigmatic Debate in International Relations» in International Science Review, Vol. 22, Nº3, Transformation of International Relations: Between Change and Continuity, (Jul., 2001), pp. 253-260.BATTISTELLA, D., «L´Intêret national. Une notion, trois discours» in CHATILLON, F., (dir.) 2002, Politiques étrangère. Nouveaux regards, Presses de Sciences Po, pp. 139-166.CEDERMAN, L. E., «Analysing State-Formation and power Politics» in International Studies Quaterly, Vol. 38, Nº4 (De., 1994), pp. 501-533.CHERNOFF, F., «Scientific Realism as a Meta-Theory of International Politics» in International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 46, Nº2 (Jun., 2002), pp. 189-207.FORDE, S., «International Realism and the Science of Politics: Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Neorealism» in International Studies Quaterly, Vol. 39, Nº2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 141-160.FOUZOUNI, B., «Confutation of Politcal Realism» in International Studies Quaterly, Vol. 39. (1995), pp. 479-510.GLASER, C., «The Security Dilemma Revisited» in World Politics, Vol. 50, Nº1, Fiftieth Anniversary Special Issue (Oct., 1997), pp. 171-201.GLYNN, P., 1999, Closing Pandoras Box: Arms Races, Arms Control and the History of the Cold War, Basic Books, New York.GREENFIELD, L., «Is Nation Unavoidable? Is Nation Unavoidable Today» in KRIESI, H. Et al. (eds), 1999, Nation and Nationality Identity, The European Experience in Perspective, Verlag Rüegger, Chur, pp. 37-54.HOLSTI, K., 1984, The Dividing Discipline: hegemony and diversity in International theory, Allen and Unwin, Boston.JAMES, P., «Neorealism as a Research Entreprise: Toward Elaborated Structural Realism» in International Political Science Review, Vol. 14, Nº2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 123-148.JERVIS, R., «Realism in the Study of World Politics» in International Organization, Vol. 52, Nº4, International Organization at Fifty: Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (Autumn, 1998), pp. 971-991.KENNAN, G., 1967, Memoirs 1925-1950, Little, Brown and Company, Boston.KRATOCHWIL, F., «The embarrassment of Change: Neorealism as the Science of realpolitk without Politics» in Review of International Studies, Vol. 19 (1993), pp. 63-80.KUHN, T., 1970, The Structure of Scientifc Revolutions (2ed.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago.LAKATOS, I., 1980, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Vol 1 Philosophical Papers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.LEGRO, J. y A. MORAVCSIK, «Is Anybody Still a Realist» in International Security, Vol. 24, Nº2 (Fall 1999), pp. 5-55.LYNN-JONES, S., «Offense-Defense Theory and its Critics» in Security Studies, Nº4 (summer 1995), pp. 660-691.MEARSHEIMER, J., «The False Promise of International Institutions» in International Security, Vol. 19 (Winter, 1994).MEARSHEIMER, J., 2001, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W.W Norton, New York.MONTGOMERY, E., «Breaking out of the Security Dilemma: Realism, Reassurance, and the Problem of Uncertainty» in International Security, Vol. 31, Nº2 (Fall, 2006), pp. 151-185.MORGENTHAU, H., «The Mainsprings of American Foreign Policy: The National Interest vs. Moral Abstractions» in The American Political Science Review, Vol 44, Nº4 (Dec., 1950), pp. 833-854.MORGENTHAU, H., «What is the National Interest of the Unites Staes?» in Anals of the American Academy of Political Science, Vol. 282, The National Interest-Alone or with Others? (Jul., 1952), pp-17.MORGENTHAU, H., 1961, Politics Among Nations, Knopf, New York.NINCIC, M., «The National Interest and Its Interpretation» in The Review of Politcs, Vol. 61, Nº1 (Winter, 1999), pp. 29-55.ROSE, G., «Neoclassical Realism and The thories of Foreign Policy» in World Politics, Vol. 51, Nº1 (Oct, 1998), pp. 144-172.ROSENAU, J., «National Interest» in D.L Sillis (ed.), 1968, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. XI, Free Press, New York.SCHWELLER, R., «New Realist Research on alliances: Refining, Not Refuting Waltz´s Balancing Proposition» in The American Political Science Review, Vol. 91, Nº4 (de., 1997), pp.927-930.SHIMKO, K., «Realism, Neorealism, and American Liberalism» in The Review of Politics, Vol. 54, Nº2 (Spring, 1992), pp. 281-301.SWEENEY, K. y FRITZ, P., «Jumping on the Bandwagon: An interest-Based Explanation for Great Power Alliances» in The Journal of Politics, Vol. 66, Nº2 (May, 2004), pp. 428-449.TUCKER, R., «Professor Morgenthau´s Theory of political Realism: In Defense of the National Interest: A Critical Study of American Foreign Policy by Hans J. Morgenthau» in Political Science Review, Vol.46, Nº1 (Mar., 1952), pp. 214-224.VASQUEZ, J., 1983, The Power of politics: a critic, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ.VIOTTI, P., y M. KAUPPI, 1993, International Relations Theory: Realism, Pluralism, Globalism (2nd ed.), Macmillan, New York.WAGNER, R., «The theory of Games and the Problem of International Cooperation» in The American Political Science Review, Vol. 77, Nº2 (Jun, 1983), pp. 330-346.WALKER, T. y J. MORTON, «Re-Assessing the "Power of Power Politics" thesis: Is Realism Still Dominant?» in International Studies Review, vol. 7, Nº2 (Jun., 2005), pp. 341-356.WALTZ, K., 1959, Man, the State, and War, Columbia University Press, New York.WALTZ, K., 1979, Theory of International Politics, Addison-Wesley, Reading.WALTZ, K., «The Origins of War in Neorealist Theory» in The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 18, Nº4, The Origin and Preventions of Major Wars (Spring, 1988), pp. 615-628.WALTZ, K., «Structural Realism after the Cold War» in International Security, Vol. 25, Nº1 (Summer 2000), pp. 5-41.WENDT, A., «Anarchy is What States make of It. The Social Construction of Power Politics» in International Organization, Vol. 46 (spring 1992).WENDT, A., «Constructing International Politics» in International Security, Vol. 20 (Summer 1995).WILLIAMS, M., «Why Ideas Matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Classical Relism, and the Moral Construction of Power Politics» in International Organization, Vol. 58, Nº4 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 633-665.WITTNER, L., «Pursuing "The National Interest": The Illsuion of Realism» in American History, Vol. 13, Nº2 (Jun, 1985), pp. 282-287.ZIMMER, L. 2011, The Vietnam War debate: Hans J. Morgenthau and the atempt to halt the drift into disaster, Lexington Books, UK. *Este artículo fue presentado en la 9° sesión el Seminario Interno de Discusión Teórica 2013, organizado por el Departamento de Estudios Internacionales de la Universidad ORT Uruguay. Germán Clulow es Licenciado en Estudios Internacionales por la Universidad ORT –Uruguay, Master en Ciencia Política por la Université de Genève – Suiza, y Master en Estudios de Desarrollo por el Instituto de Altos Estudios Internacionales y de Desarrollo (IHEID-The Graduate Institute) Ginebra, Suiza.
Stemming from an observation that global power is shifting from North to South, this research project is a critical inquiry of the global power shift through climate negotiation. Climate negotiation has been selected as a case study because of its multinational dimension. Climate negotiation is a multinational process and it requires multinational cooperation. At present, it occupies a central position in International Relations (IR). It is one of the most influential topics of IR and global politics. Climate negotiation helps us to understand current characteristics, changes and transformations in global politics. It has influenced the development narrative. In the main, climate change has made global politics more convoluted. Co-operation is necessary at the international level to cut emissions. These cuts require systemic change in global climate governance. These two issues have brought climate politics to the centre of IR. Conflict and co-operation define climate negotiations, which have been influenced by the response to climate change issues by the actors. The conflict and co-operation game provides a new position to the actors. This dissertation puts forth the hypothesis that climate negotiations are redistributing power and helping actors form new identities in power shifting process. In this power redistribution and group reconstruction process, climate politics and negotiations have indicated the appearance of a new global political order led by China and other advanced developing countries. The central aim of this research has been to develop analytical tools to observe the power shifting process and make the appearance of new global order more visible. In order to conduct this research, this dissertation integrated the idea of Samuels Barkin's constructivist realism and power theory and developed its own typology to examine power redistribution and the process of reconstruction. This dissertation conceives the idea that global politics is anarchic, actors struggle for power for developing the self-help system. Therefore, the typology considers power as controlling the agenda, limiting alternatives to opponent and wining negotiations to improve the self-help system. Based on the analytical tool, this dissertation applied qualitative research methodology to collect data and analysis. Mainly, the foreign policy of actors in climate negotiations has been closely observed based on the statements, proposal and argument in different session in conferences as well as domestic policy document of actors. An intensive semi-structured qualitative interview survey has also been conducted among the negotiators from different sections such as government delegations, NGO activists, or epistemic communities. Climate negotiations are very complicated and many domestic and global issues are connected to the negotiations, therefore, this dissertation follows Sil and Katzenstein's "analytic eclecticism" to analyze collected data. Analytic eclecticism helps us construct new knowledge by combining different approaches in complicated situation. The research findings show that power is indeed shifting. Firstly, power is shifting between different state actors. For example BASIC countries have emerged as a connecting hub among the members of the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) between developed and developing countries. For instance, China is the leader of advanced developing countries by initiating many groups such as BASIC, LMDC, G77, and China. At the same time China has made many joint announcements with USA on climate negotiations as well. China, India, Brazil and South Africa, known as BASIC countries are playing a key role as the main opposition to the developed world in the negotiation process. China has been accepted as leader of negotiating countries and China also shares the power of allied countries in its network, in particular with BASIC members. These countries are interlinked to each other and their leadership has been institutionalized by accepting proposals in decision-making process in many climate conferences. BASIC countries constitute a parallel hegemony against the US-EU hegemony on global politics. A second finding is the emergence of knowledge based non-state actors, for example NGOs, CSOs and the epistemic community. The research project shows that power is not only shifting from state to state actors, but also from state actors to non-state actors as well. Member of NGOs, CSOs and the epistemic community are included in negotiations process and they have influence on decision-making process. According to the research findings, this dissertation stresses two changes in global political structure. First, there is a clear indication of economic and geo-political power shift from north to south or from developed industrialized countries to developing countries and emergence of non-state actors as separate identity in global negotiations. Till the end of the 80s of the last century, world political groups were previously divided into two groups. One side was led by the USA and the other by the former Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR. However, after the fall of the USSR, global politics reshaped into a unipolar system under US leadership and hegemonic structure. Research findings show that the global power structure is gradually restructuring by forming a multi-polar system. China, India, Brazil, and many more players are more active and making the new leadership in the global political landscape along with non-state actors. This dissertation has mainly examined the strategy and position of state actors. It has a small section regarding non-state actors in the climate negotiations. The concluding remarks of this dissertation address the pressing need to begin serious discussion to redefine the role of non-state actors in global politics, particularly for constructivist and realist scholarships. To that end, further study and research is required in order to figure out the role and implication of non-state actors in anarchic global politics.
En ocasiones anteriores, ya hemos hablado aquí en Letras Internacionales sobre qué hace único y distintivo al campo de las relaciones internacionales con respecto a otras disciplinas, y sobre las implicancias generales de teorizar o pensar en términos teóricos acerca del mundo. En esta oportunidad, sin embargo, hablaremos más bien sobre qué iguala a nuestra disciplina con las demás ciencias sociales. Sobre todo en lo que concierne a la teorización. Asimismo, discutiremos con cierto grado de detalle un caso paradigmático y ejemplificador como es la perdurabilidad de la Unión Europea (UE) dentro del marco de explicaciones teóricas de la disciplina. El foco principal de este ensayo está puesto en analizar las implicancias de la existencia de la UE para la teoría de relaciones internacionales; en particular, en lo que respecta a la última gran crisis europea.IEn términos generales, se considera que una teoría debiera poder cumplir dos funciones básicas. Por un lado, simplificar realidades complejas con el fin de ayudar a alcanzar ciertas explicaciones sobre relaciones causales presentes en determinados tipos de situaciones. Es decir, clarificar y dar sentido a fenómenos complejos. Y por el otro, en base a esas relaciones de causas y efectos supuestas y/o constatadas, generar expectativas y predicciones sobre futuros rumbos o resultados concretos a partir de un objeto de estudio determinado. En relaciones internacionales, así como en todas las disciplinas dentro de las ciencias sociales, el acto de teorizar está sujeto a múltiples limitaciones y dificultades.A diferencia de las ciencias "duras" o naturales, por ejemplo, donde quien teoriza tiene la capacidad de experimentar controlando su objeto de estudio —ya sea en un laboratorio o en una computadora—, y donde dicha experimentación puede ser repetida una y otra vez bajo mismas condiciones, en las ciencias sociales cada situación es, como bien dice Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, un suceso esencialmente único e irrepetible. Este punto de contraste entre ambas áreas de estudio también plantea serios obstáculos a la capacidad predictiva de las teorías. En lo exclusivamente concerniente a la teoría de relaciones internacionales, al no poder escapar a estas mismas fuertes limitaciones más generales, ésta va necesariamente detrás de los hechos. En otras palabras, en nuestra disciplina, construir teorías para predecir el futuro es un acto más de fe que de ciencia exacta. A lo sumo, el carácter predictivo de las teorías de relaciones internacionales se asemeja más a una partida de póquer que a una de truco, ya que nuestras expectativas teóricas sobre el futuro no se apoyan en adivinanzas sobre las cartas del otro (o donde es posible y hasta beneficioso "engatusar" al otro con "trucos" y "envidos"), sino en lo que comúnmente se llama "educated guesses" (o "adivinanzas educadas"). Éstas, a diferencias de las otras, son decisiones del tipo de "adivinanza", pero que están respaldadas por estimaciones de probabilidad. Comprender dicha distinción es fundamental para evaluar cuándo estamos frente a una "predicción" simplona que bien podríamos reemplazar con el lanzamiento de una moneda, o bien cuándo estamos frente a una "prognosis", apoyada en cierto conocimiento probabilístico y/o contextual, aunque nunca despojado por entero del gran factor homogeneizador que es la incertidumbre. Con estos elementos introductorios en consideración, veamos ahora cómo algunas de las teorías más importantes de relaciones internacionales tratan el caso de la UE, tanto en su creación como en su perdurabilidad, y los prospectos a futuro.IIDesde el fin de la Guerra Fría, el continente europeo ha brindado la oportunidad de estudiar y contrastar, en los hechos mismos, el grado de validez de muchas teorías de relaciones internacionales. En particular, ha permitido evaluar con profundidad cada una de las "predicciones" destiladas de las diferentes corrientes teóricas. La UE, en tanto caso de estudio, representa una de esas oportunidades históricas inigualables (como se ha dicho más arriba), únicas e irrepetibles, que es de gran utilidad a la hora de evaluar tanto las virtudes como las limitaciones de la teorización en relaciones internacionales.Los argumentos teóricos más importantes acerca de la UE pueden ordenarse en tres grupos. En un primer lugar, existe un grupo numeroso de trabajos que problematiza los orígenes de la UE en clave "seguridad" vs. "economía". Según este grupo, el identificar cuáles son las motivaciones particulares iniciales detrás del proyecto de integración europea es central para la discusión del segundo grupo. Así, en segundo lugar, otro grupo de trabajos problematiza lasustentabilidad del proyecto europeo en el tiempo. Para ambos grupos, entender los orígenes de la UE en términos de amenazas a la seguridad, o de prosperidad económica, plantea grandes diferencias analíticas ya que, uno u otro rumbo, sirven por igual para sustentar distintas explicaciones con respecto a la capacidad de la UE de perdurar en el tiempo, o bien menguar lentamente, a la luz de la implosión de la Unión Soviética (URSS) en 1991. Un tercer grupo de trabajos problematiza el carácter único, distintivo e inédito del proyecto europeo. Según esta última perspectiva, la UE constituye un fenómeno nunca antes visto en las relaciones internacionales y que, por lo tanto, no puede supeditarse tan rígidamente a los mismos estándares teóricos que, por ejemplo, se aplican para entender las relaciones interestatales más vulgares.En la primera discusión, son más bien los autores realistas y neorrealistas quienes plantean de manera más sólida la tesis de la "seguridad" como el disparador de la integración europea. Principalmente, autores como Mearsheimer, Layne, Waltz, Posen, Grieco, Jones, y en especial Rosato, defienden la idea de los orígenes más bien paganos de la UE. En concreto, la UE se explica por el efecto combinado del contexto histórico de hostilidad bipolar de la Guerra Fría, la amenazante presencia cercana de la URSS, y el rol de primacía de los Estados Unidos. Para estos autores, el acercamiento entre los otrora archirrivales Francia y Alemania se explica de manera muy natural y simple por factores que la corriente realista tradicionalmente ha resaltado. Por el contrario, otro grupo sostiene que los orígenes se encuentran en la búsqueda de la prosperidad (principalmente autores liberales europeo-norteamericanos como Moravcsik, Olson, Cooper, Keohane, Hoffmann, Rosecrance; o constructivistas, como Risse-Kappen, Haas, Checkel, o Wendt). Es decir, que el motivo fundamental del acercamiento y la pacificación de las relaciones franco-alemanas, que permitió luego dar inicio a una serie de proyectos integradores a escala continental, no se debió a cuestiones mundanas de seguridad, típicamente destacadas por los realistas, sino que más bien surgió del reconocimiento por parte de los líderes del momento (una versión europea de los "padres fundadores") de que la lucha, el antagonismo y la confrontación crónica de las relaciones europeas sólo había llevado a los países del continente a una posición relegada y disminuida en las relaciones internacionales. En resumidas cuentas, la versión realista de los orígenes de la UE se apoya en consideraciones de seguridad, supervivencia, temor a un enemigo común, y a la presencia protectora del paraguas militar norteamericano. El momento clave para los realistas es, pues, el Tratado de Dunkirk (1947) y el Tratado de Bruselas (1948). Para la versión liberal-constructivista, los puntos de inicio son 1951, año de la creación de la Comunidad Europea del Carbón y del Acero (CECA), y más formalmente 1957, con el Tratado de Roma.En la segunda discusión, nuevamente se da un corte entre realistas, por un lado, y tanto liberales como constructivistas, por el otro. Los primeros sostienen que dada la naturaleza de seguridad de los orígenes de la UE, su evolución y sustentabilidad en el tiempo están estrechamente ligadas a los mismos factores. En concreto, sostienen que en la medida en que tanto la actual Federación Rusa no pueda reemplazar en igual grado de amenaza y antagonismo a la otrora URSS, como que el compromiso norteamericano mengue, las fuerzas estructurales en juego hacia el mantenimiento de una UE coherente y unificada se debilitarán. Como consecuencia principal, para los realistas, la UE en tanto una institución internacional se encuentra en jaque hoy más que nunca ya que los incentivos que le dieron origen y justificación actualmente han desaparecido o están en un franco proceso de retirada. Los segundos, compuestos tanto por liberales como por constructivistas, sostienen una visión mucho más optimista de la UE. Se apoyan en los clásicos argumentos liberales relacionados al rol estabilizador y homogeneizador de las instituciones internacionales por sobre el comportamiento exterior de los estados, así como por sobre las identidades y la configuración de sus preferencias de política exterior. En este sentido, la institución internacional que todos llamamos "Unión Europea" ha cobrado vida por sí misma y, ahora, su perdurabilidad depende de sí y ya no de elementos típicamente realistas. El impacto por sobre los estados-miembro de la UE no sólo se da en el plano institucional, sino también en el de las identidades y la identificación con la forma de gobierno democrático-republicana, y ciertos valores y principios generales que incluyen, pero van más allá, de la declaración de los Derechos Humanos y las normas del derecho internacional.Por último, en la tercera discusión, un grupo pequeño pero creciente de autores da por tierra con todos los argumentos anteriores, ubicándolos en el plano del anacronismo y la obsolescencia. Desde esta nueva perspectiva, las herramientas teóricas tradicionales de la disciplina (y particularmente las provenientes del realismo), ya son parte del pasado, de una forma ya anticuada de ver el mundo, y de una concepción de las relaciones internacionales anclada en una etapa anterior de la evolución del sistema internacional. Por ello, la UE exige la elaboración de nuevos enfoques y herramientas analíticas, de un carácter mucho más original y sui generis. Muchos de los autores dentro de esta última corriente se ubican en lo que comúnmente llamamos teorías del "post-modernismo" en relaciones internacionales, aunque también muchos autores liberales y constructivistas suelen aportar ideas interesantes en este otro campo. Uno de los trabajos más característicos de esta discusión es el libroInternational Relations and the European Union, editado por Hill y Smith en 2005. Esta obra ya clásica, demuestra en todo su esplendor el argumento en pos de una concepción distintiva e inédita sobre la UE, presentando una pléyade de autores que recorren el espectro liberal, de sociedad internacional, marxistas y neo-marxistas, así como otros de difícil categorización.IIIEn suma, entonces, como hemos visto existen diversos tipos de explicaciones teóricas con respecto a los orígenes, el desarrollo y el carácter de la UE, y cada uno de ellos se condice de manera coherente con los preceptos básicos de cada corriente teórica. Sin embargo, aún resta por aclarar algunos aspectos relacionados a la predicción o prognosis de estos mismos enfoques. Por un lado, y si pausamos por un momento los alegatos del tercer grupo, podemos decir que tanto las teorías realistas como las liberales y las constructivistas poseen elementos claramente distintivos unos con otros y que generan potenciales escenarios a futuro de manera clara y coherente. Para unos, más pesimistas, el futuro de la UE está ligado a las condiciones de seguridad iniciales, y dado el actual entorno internacional, su futuro es incierto y problemático. Para otros, más optimistas, las condiciones iniciales de búsqueda de prosperidad económica plantean escenarios prospectivos de otra índole, más estables y duraderos, aún a pesar de los grandes cambios en el entorno.Como conclusión, debemos regresar a nuestro punto de inicio. Dado que, como se ha dicho al comienzo, la teorización en ciencias sociales va más bien por detrás de los hechos, momentos como el actual constituyen una instancia inigualable de testeo de muchas de las premisas y predicciones teóricas de nuestra disciplina. Plantear cuáles perspectivas o autores arrastran más peso sería traicionar los principios planteados por nosotros mismos en este ensayo. Sin embargo, sí puede mencionarse la constante renovación y ascenso en importancia de distintas teorías en distintos momentos históricos de la UE; es decir, el constante estado de auge y declive de ciertos grupos de explicaciones por sobre otras. En los últimos diez años, las corrientes liberales y constructivistas, así como también las post-modernas, parecían reinar por sobre las más tradicionales, simplistas y añejas perspectivas; parecían verse constatadas de manera irrefutable por los hechos. Sin embargo, cual ave Fénix, estas mismas perspectivas se han quedado mudas frente a los renovados embates mundanos de las corrientes siempre-escépticas y más pesimistas de la UE y las relaciones internacionales más en general. De hecho, uno podría argumentar que no son estos embates en sí quienes han descolocado a las explicaciones optimistas de la UE, sino la evidencia de los hechos en sí. Si bien aún es muy temprano para declarar quiénes han sido refutados y quiénes revalidados, las tendencias son cada vez más claras en el sentido contrario a los defensores de la perdurabilidad de lo inédito y lo imaginado. Todo pareciera indicar que el cambio cualitativo en las relaciones internacionales (es decir, uno que modifique sustancialmente y haga trascender la condición "anárquica" o descentralizada del sistema de estados) es más difícil incluso de lo que muchos escépticos creen. Todo pareciera indicar que estamos comenzando a vivir el ayer, una vez más.*Profesor, Universidad Abierta Interamericana (UAI), Buenos Aires.Maestría en Estudios Internacionales,Universidad Torcuato di Tella (Tesista).Lecturas sugeridas: Visiones generales:Filippo Andreatta, "Theory and the European Union's International Relations", en: Christopher Hill y Michael Smith (eds.), International Relations and the European Union(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).Simon Collard-Wexler, "Integration Under Anarchy: Neorealism and the EU", European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2006), pp. 397-432.Joseph M. Grieco, "The Maastricht Treaty, Economic and Monetary Union and the Neo-Realist Research Programme", Review of International Studies, Vol. 21 (1995), pp. 21-40.Visiones realistas y neorrealistas:John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future. Instability in Europe After the Cold War",International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-56.Eric Posner, "Europe's Missing Identity", Wall Street Journal (June 4, 2010). Disponible en: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704596504575272742111445082.htmlNiall Ferguson, "The End of the Euro", Newsweek (May 07, 2010). Disponible en:www.newsweek.com/2010/05/07/the-end-of-the-euro.html.Sebastian Rosato, "The Untied States of Europe", en: Stephen M. Walt Foreign Policy blog (Wednesday, June 23, 2010). Disponible en: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/23/guest_post_the_untied_states_of_europe.Barry S. Posen, "ESDP, Response to Unipolarity", Security Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2 (April-June 2006), pp. 149-186.Sebastian Rosato, "Balancing Act: The Power Politics of European Integration", Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security (PIPES), Fall 2006 Speaker Series, University of Chicago (October 5, 2006), 57 pp.Sebastian Rosato, "The Strategic Logic of Integration", paper presentated at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC (September 2005), 22 pp.John J. Mearsheimer, "Warum herrscht Frieden in Europa?", Leviathan, 37 (2009), pp. 519-531.Stephen Van Evera, "Primed for Peace: Europe after the Cold War", International Security, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter 1990/91), pp. 7-57.Adrian Hyde-Price, "A 'Tragic Actor'. A realist perspective on 'ethical power Europe'",International Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 1 (2008), pp. 29-44.Christopher Layne, "America as European Hegemon", The National Interest (Summer 2003), pp. 17-29.Visiones liberales y constructivistas:Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe. Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).Stanley Hoffmann, "Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation-state and the Case of Western Europe", Dædalus, Vol. 95, No. 3 (Summer 1966), pp. 862-915.Richard Rosecrance, "The European Union: A New Type of Actor", en: Jan Zielonka (ed.),Paradoxes of European Foreign policy (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1998), pp. 15-23.Stanley Hoffmann, Robert O. Keohane y John J. Mearsheimer, "Correspondence. Back to the Future, Part II: International Relations Theory and Post-Cold War Europe", International Security, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Fall 1990), pp. 191-199.Bruce M. Russett, Thomas Risse-Kappen y John J. Mearsheimer, "Correspondence. Back to the Future, Part III: Realism and the Realities of European Security", International Security, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter 1990/91), pp. 216-222.Andrew Moravcsik, "In Defense of Europe", Newsweek (May 30, 2010). Disponible en:www.newsweek.com/2010/05/30/in-defense-of-europe.html.Thomas Risse, "Social Constructivism and European Integration", en: Antje Wiener y Thomas Diez (eds.), European Integrations Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 159-176.Robert O. Keohane y Lisa L. Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory", International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 39-51.Joseph Jupille, James A. Caporaso y Jeffrey T. Checkel, "Integrating Institutions. Rationalism, Constructivism, and the European Union", Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1/2 (February/March 2003), pp. 7-40.John G. Ruggie, "The False Premise of Realism", International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 62-70.Visiones post-modernas: Christopher Hill y Michael Smith (eds.), International Relations and the European Union(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). En especial, ver cap. 1 y cap. 18.Karen Smith, "The European Union: A Distinctive Actor in International Relations", The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Winter/Spring 2003), pp. 103-113.Alex Warleigh, "Learning from Europe? EU Studies and the re-thinking of 'International Relations'", European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 12, No. 1 (March 2006), pp. 31-51.
La historia es una disciplina incómoda para los filósofos de las ciencias sociales. Piénsese en la respuesta a la pregunta: ¿es posible encontrar leyes del desarrollo histórico de las sociedades? K. Popper creía que no y afirmaba que la creencia en dicha posibilidad era la fuente de los totalitarismos del siglo XX. Eso afirmaba en"The poverty of historicism" en 1957. Unos años antes Carl Gustav Hempel creía haber encontrado la fórmula básica para expresar una explicación en términos científicos a través de la formulación de leyes en un estilo nomológico deductivo (ver HEMPEL, 2005). Y creía que dicha fórmula también se aplicaba a la historia. En el campo de la sociología fue George Homans quien dio impulso a las ideas de filósofos como C. G. Hempel y R. Braithwaite quienes creían que era posible llegar a teorías deductivas de la misma naturaleza tanto en las ciencias naturales como en las ciencias sociales (ver HOMANS, 1970). A mediados de la década pasada, Philip S. Gorsky publica un provocador artículo en "Sociological Methodology" con el título "The poverty of deductivism" y retoma la vieja discusión sobre el lugar de la historia en la teorización en ciencias sociales (GORSKY, 2004). Lo hace, afirmando exactamente la tesis contraria a Popper: las ciencias sociales no son más que historia.Como señala Thomas Smith, el estudio de la historia es particularmente importante en la investigación en Relaciones Internacionales:"As either political backdrop or behavioral laboratory, history is never far removed from International theory and research. When theory is constructed from the bottom up, history provides the building blocks. When theory is constructed from the top down, history serves to test or falsify theoretical concepts. Case studies are focused, comparative historical analyses. The learning and institutionalist literature is explicitly historical and evolutionary. When quantitatively oriented researchers speak of 'events data' or 'data making', they are referring to historical representations abstracted from a welter of evidence. Normative theorists stress the historical context of moral action. Marxist theorists seek to uncover the hidden histories upon which international theory is founded, while postmodernists point out privileged views of the past that have shaped the discipline. (…) Formal theory, including game theory is perhaps the most ahistorical of theoretical approaches, yet increasingly it too is being put to the historical test". (SMITH, 1999, 8)La investigación histórica y el problema de la explicaciónEn el presente artículo retomaremos las ideas de uno de los sociólogos vivos más interesantes del siglo XX: Arthur L. Stinchcombe (1) (de aquí en más ALS). Al hacerlo pretendemos presentar una discusión del tema que está a medio camino entre las pretensiones deductivistas y el relativismo histórico. Al mismo tiempo pretendemos aportar elementos que apuntan a mostrar lo fructífero de la obra de investigadores que le dan una importancia clave a la historia en ciencias sociales.Antes de comenzar la exposición creemos importante dejar sentado que sentimos una profunda admiración por las ideas de ambos "bandos": aquellos que defienden el proyecto de que los resultados de la investigación deberían poder ser generalizables como la de aquellos que defienden que la investigación social debe explicar hechos históricos singulares e irrepetibles. Creemos que la postura de Stinchcombe busca un término medio mediante el cual, la investigación social se nutra de la particularidad histórica sin renunciar a encontrar generalizaciones aplicables más allá de los casos concretos que formaron parte del estudio realizado.Abordaremos el libro que ALS especialmente escribió sobre teoría social e historia y que se llama "Theoretical methods in social history" de 1978. En este libro Stinchcombe comienza a delinear una perspectiva sobre la explicación en ciencias sociales que hoy en día es una corriente ya instalada en el panorama de las mismas. Me refiero a la perspectiva analítica, la cual se nutre del pensamiento de cientistas sociales provenientes de diversas disciplinas como la economía (T. Schelling) o la sociología (R. Boudon, P. Hedström), así como de la filosofía (J. Elster, P. Manicas, W. Salmon) (2). La idea de mecanismo social como base de una explicación en términos científicos aparece delineada con claridad en la siguiente cita de Peter Hedström:"A social mechanism, as defined here, is a constellation of entities and activities that are linked to one another in such a way that they regularly bring about a particular type of outcome. We explain an observed phenomenon by referring to the social mechanism by which such a phenomenon is regularly brought about". (HEDSTRÖM, 2005, 11)La idea de "mecanismo" tiene una clara inspiración en el individualismo metodológico, la perspectiva según la cual toda explicación de un hecho social en términos agregados (como puede ser la civilización capitalista, la revolución rusa o las recientes revueltas en medio oriente) debe remitirse en última instancia a individuos y sus acciones. Para expresarlo en términos actuales, toda explicación en ciencias sociales debe tener micro fundamentos (LITTLE, 1991). Más allá de esta especificación, la idea de la existencia de un "mecanismo" vinculante entre causa y efecto pretende ser una alternativa a dos formas tradicionales de abordar la causalidad en ciencia: la explicación en términos nomológico - deductivos (covering law model) y la explicación en términos estadísticos. ¿Qué tiene de diferente la idea de mecanismo? Para entender su singularidad repasaremos en los siguientes excursos los principales elementos de las dos teorías rivales (covering law model y explicación estadística).Excurso 1. Covering law model: Carl Gustav HempelActualmente se reconoce en filosofía de la ciencia que el trabajo de C. G. Hempel sobre la explicación científica es la piedra angular de la discusión sobre la materia en la segunda mitad del siglo XX (SALMON 2006, MANICAS, 2006). Según W. Salmon el artículo original de Hempel con Paul Oppenheim de 1948 "is the fountainhead from which the vast bulk of subsequent philosophical work on scientific explanation has flowed –directly or indirectly" (SALMON, 2006, 8).Más allá de sus aciertos y errores hay que conocer el argumento de Hempel para adentrarse en la discusión contemporánea sobre qué es explicar en ciencia.En su formulación inicial, Hempel establece que una explicación científica adquiere la forma de un argumento deductivo con sus premisas y su conclusión. Supongamos que queremos explicar un cierto evento E. Dar respuesta a la pregunta ¿por qué E ocurre? implicaría subsumir el evento E en alguna ley general. Es decir, E queda explicado cuando su ocurrencia se deduce de ciertas leyes conocidas y de determinadas condiciones en las cuales el evento se produce. La explicación de un evento adquiere la forma de un silogismo en el cual una de las premisas establece al menos una ley general, otra premisa refiere a ciertas condiciones iniciales (ambas constituyen el explanans) y la conclusión es el evento que quiere ser explicado (explanandum). Se posee una explicación cuando el explanandum es una consecuencia lógica del set de premisas que constituyen el explanans.Esta idea puede representarse de la siguiente forma:Si ocurre A entonces ocurre B (la forma de una ley general)A ocurre (refiere a las condiciones iniciales o "relevantes") --- Por lo tanto, ocurre B (evento a ser explicado o explanandum)Esta explicación que está formulada para leyes universales también puede formularse de manera probabilística con lo cual tenemos un tipo de explicación que abarca procesos de pensamiento de tipo inductivo o estadístico (para profundizar en esta posibilidad ver MANICAS 2006; SALMON, 2006; HEDSTRÖM 2005).La debilidad habitualmente criticada a este modelo de la explicación científica es que no es suficientemente restrictivo como para eliminar explicaciones obvias o superficiales. Veamos un ejemplo conocido de este tipo de crítica al modelo de Hempel que aparece en Manicas (2006); Salmon, (2006) y Hedström (2005):Nadie que tome píldoras anticonceptivas en forma regular queda embarazadoPedro toma píldoras anticonceptivas regularmente --- Por tanto, Pedro no ha quedado embarazadoEl problema denunciado por los críticos de Hempel es que el covering law model está construido en términos de un argumento lógico en vez de estar construido en términos de causas y sus "poderes" para la producción de eventos ("poderes" o "capacidades" que hay que dilucidar teóricamente). La consecuencia que tiene esta deficiencia es que explicaciones incorrectas (como la presentada en el silogismo previo) deberían ser admitidas si se sigue estrictamente la propuesta del covering law model. En palabras de Hedström: "The fact to be explained can be logically derived from the premises –both of which can be assumed to be true- but the explanation is nevertheless incorrect because it refers to the wrong causal mechanisms" (HEDSTRÖM, 2005, 16).Veremos en la presentación de las ideas de Stinchcombe sobre la investigación histórica, que en éste tipo de perspectiva analítica no solo importa señalar que dos fenómenos aparecen juntos o uno sucede al otro sino que es necesario establecer por qué eso ocurre de determinada manera y en determinadas circunstancias. Precisamente, para Stinchcombe la investigación histórica es una fuente ineludible para descubrir y probar los mecanismos por los cuales determinadas causas producen determinados efectos.Excurso 2. La explicación estadísticaLa explicación estadística en su formulación tradicional está vinculada a la idea de "correlación" o "dependencia robusta". Si en el covering law model la explicación de un fenómeno implica que se posee una teoría desarrollada capaz de subsumir el fenómeno en sus leyes, el modelo estadístico desconfía de las teorías generales y se dirige a la constatación inductiva de regularidades. Esto es, a la asociación de dos fenómenos lo cual implica, en términos estadísticos, que los valores de dos variables tienden a variar en forma conjunta. Hay una sutileza a tener en cuenta cuando se aborda la explicación estadística: la asociación o correlación entre dos variables no necesariamente implica que una sea la causa de la otra, aunque sí es un indicador de que puede haber una relación de tipo causal. X e Y pueden tener una asociación robusta pero puede suceder que ambas sean un efecto de Z con lo cual la relación entre X e Y es espúrea (en términos llanos: se trata de una falsa relación de causalidad). Si bien siempre existe este riesgo también hay formas de controlar la espuriedad de la relación entre X e Y manteniendo constantes los valores de otras variables y observando qué ocurre con la relación original entre X e Y. De aquí viene uno de los pilares de la explicación estadística: una relación es robusta (y por tanto podemos creer que existiría una relación de causalidad entre ambas) si dicha relación al ser controlada por otras relaciones se mantiene firme.Hay dos problemas con este tipo de explicación. En primer lugar, no es posible controlar una relación entre dos variables mediante todas las posibles variables que podrían oficiar como control. En segundo lugar, constatar una regularidad no implica explicar porqué ocurre dicha regularidad. Ya desde Hume sabemos que la causalidad no es observable y este es un problema con mucha investigación orientada a la búsqueda de explicaciones meramente estadísticas. Por ejemplo, durante mucho tiempo se insistió en la importancia de la educación de la madre como predictor del nivel académico alcanzado por los hijos. Esta afirmación provenía de la constatación de una relación robusta entre el nivel educativo alcanzado por la madre y los resultados académicos de los niños. Ahora bien, ¿por qué ocurre este fenómeno? ¿Se trata de una transmisión de conocimiento desde la madre hacia el hijo? ¿Es debido a que una mayor educación en la madre hace que ésta sea más sensible a la evolución educativa de sus hijos e intervenga para componer problemas en la misma? La investigación estadística es muy útil para explorar la pertinencia de hipótesis alternativas como las planteadas recién, pero no es la herramienta capaz de generar por sí misma explicaciones de los fenómenos. En última instancia, la explicación de las relaciones es una cuestión de teoría, es decir, de una perspectiva teórica capaz de develar los mecanismos por los cuales un cierto fenómeno influye sobre otro. Esta es la principal crítica que desde tiendas "analíticas" se hace al tipo de investigación que confía exclusivamente en la detección y control de regularidades.Una propuesta heterodoxa para la investigación históricaEn "Theoretical Methods in Social History" ALS cuestiona tanto la investigación histórica cuantitativa sin una orientación teórica como la idea deductivista de emplear la investigación histórica sólo para validar teorías. Para ALS la investigación histórica es útil para construir teorías. En sus propias palabras:"Our object has been to analyze how generality can be wrested from historical facts" (1978, 115). El desacuerdo con el deductivismo no pasa por negar que un objetivo del trabajo científico sea elaborar y trabajar con conceptos generales, sino en la metodología para construir dichos conceptos. Por su parte, ALS también se separa de la perspectiva que niega la posibilidad de generalizar a partir del estudio de la historia, "the Nietszche – Dilthey side of epistemology" tal como le llama el autor. ALS afirma que los conceptos deben poder captar la singularidad de los hechos y que esto es clave para construir conceptos generales con alto potencial de ingresar en sentencias causales fructíferas.Para ALS la "gran teoría" (como el marxismo o el estructural funcionalismo) solo sirve como un punto de partida: nos facilita ciertos conceptos que nos ayudan a determinar por donde comenzaremos a observar el fenómeno de interés. En definitiva, las grandes teorías pueden mostrar coherencia lógica, pero no necesariamente ser capaces de explicar de forma coherente una secuencia empírica de eventos.La investigación histórica permite avanzar en la teorización aportando precisamente la clase de ajuste "a los hechos" que toda buena teoría debería tener. Este ajuste hace que la teoría tenga un mayor caudal explicativo. ALS explica su idea con suma claridad en el siguiente párrafo:"Concepts are things that capture aspects of the facts for a theory; they are the lexicon that the grammar of theory turns into general sentences about the world.The argument is that the power and fruitfulness of those sentences is determined by the realism and exactness of the lexicon of concepts, and not by the theoretical grammar. The problem of eliminating false sentences by research, the traditional problem of epistemology, is not as problematic as the problem of having sentences interesting enough to be worth accepting or rejecting. And this is determined by whether or not our concepts capture those aspects of reality that enter into powerful and fruitful causal sentences". (1978, 115) (énfasis agregado M.B.)¿Qué método de abordaje propone ALS para investigar un fenómeno histórico y poder teorizar a partir de él? En su forma más sencilla se compone de cuatro pasos.Tomar una secuencia de hechos claramente delimitada en el tiempoObservar la secuencia de hechos a partir de algún concepto general(tomado de teorías previas) con un foco preciso: tratar de vincular una serie de hechos que están conectados a dicha noción general como causa y efecto.Tratar de componer dicha secuencia de hechos en una teoría causalque pueda explicar la secuencia de interés.Probar los conceptos a partir de su capacidad para generar analogíasA continuación retomaremos cada uno de los pasos planteados por ALS para abordar un objeto de estudio histórico. Nos proponemos mostrar la originalidad de su perspectiva.Tomar una secuencia de hechos claramente delimitada en el tiempoUn gran problema de las grandes teorías de la historia como el marxismo o la teoría de la modernización es que trabajan con largo períodos. Este abordaje lleva al investigador a darle prioridad a los aspectos narrativos de la gran secuencia histórica antes que a la formalización de una secuencia causal capaz de mostrar la conexión entre los fenómenos. El marxismo, la teoría de la concentración del poder político (de Jouvenel) y la teoría de la modernización todas tratan de explicar el transcurso desde el siglo XV al siglo XX apelando a algún mecanismo "maestro" que opera a través de la historia y cuyos efectos son acumulativos. Para el marxismo ese mecanismo está en los conflictos que surgen a partir de la propiedad de los medios de producción, para de Jouvenel está en la concentración de poder en los gobiernos centrales, para la teoría de la modernización está en los procesos de diferenciación. ¿Cómo podemos hacer para establecer cuál mecanismo es el más importante en la generación del mundo moderno?Para ALS, la única forma de hacerlo es investigar una secuencia relevante de acontecimientos históricos de moderada extensión que permita (a partir de la riqueza y profundidad que brinda un contexto específico) probar que el mecanismo explicativo "maestro" puede postularse como variable exógena. Es decir, oficia como causa del output final sin ser afectado por cambios en las variables que integran el modelo.Observar una secuencia de hechos históricos y tratar de componer dicha secuencia en una teoría causalLos pasos 2 y 3 son clave en la exposición de ALS porque es en el proceso de ajustar una secuencia de hechos en una cadena de causas y efectos cuando "emergen" los mecanismos explicativos más fructíferos. ALS afirma que los buenos historiadores que tienen una inclinación teorética, no importando el paradigma del cual parten, pueden llegar a descubrir similares mecanismos teóricos. ¿Por qué? "Por que han mirado los hechos" nos diría el autor. Vinculado a este punto, el autor plantea la siguiente paradoja (la cual intenta resolver en el capítulo 2 del libro de referencia):"De Tocqueville's theory of revolution is almost completely unanticipated in conservative thought, Trotsky's theory of the Russian Revolution almost completely unanticipated in Marxist thought; they are very similar, and both are probably basically true". (1978, 5)La teoría de la revolución que puede extraerse de los escritos de de Tocqueville (sobre la revolución francesa) y de Trotsky (sobre la revolución rusa) son muy parecidas ya que recaen en similares mecanismos explicativos. ¿Cómo es esto posible? Para ALS es posible porque ambos historiadores construyen teorías adecuadas a la secuencia de hechos que quieren explicar y dado que estos hechos son análogos un resultado posible es que las teorías también lo sean. Sin duda, es un argumento fuerte y dedicaremos unos breves párrafos a mostrar la pertinencia del análisis de ALS. Pero antes, es importante que resaltemos la riqueza del pensamiento del autor. Contra toda intuición previa, ALS nos dice que dos investigadores que políticamente se ubican en las antípodas piensan igual cuando trabajan como teóricos de la sociedad. ¿No es acaso una buena prueba de la importancia de "razonar los hechos" ésta que nos ofrece ALS?Sin ser exhaustivos repasaremos un mecanismo explicativo del quiebre revolucionario que –según ALS- aparece teorizado de la misma manera en Trotsky y de Tocqueville.El mecanismo básico del cambio revolucionario que abordan de manera muy similar Trotsky y de Tocqueville es el relativo a la crisis de la autoridad tradicional. Toda revolución implica un cambio de autoridad. Por ello, para ambos autores (Trotsky y de Tocqueville) la reflexión sobre cuáles son los elementos que propician en un sistema social este cambio, es un punto clave en su explicación de la revolución.A ambos les interesa la decadencia de la autoridad real y se concentran en los mecanismos que permiten mantener o que son capaces de erosionar la legitimidad de dicha autoridad.Ambos autores apuntan a conceptos que permitan dar cuenta de qué condiciones favorecen en las masas la formación de la creencia en la posibilidad de una alternativa a la autoridad instituida. Ambos niegan que la privación sea por sí sola capaz de movilizar a los grupos sociales que forman parte del conflicto. Antes que por las condiciones de vida de la población se preocupan por problemas tales como la percepción de injusticia como motor de un proceso de extrañamiento entre los grupos sociales, lo cual genera un contexto que estimula (aunque no sea causa directa) el proceso revolucionario. Como puede verse, ambos autores remiten su explicación a mecanismos que operan a través de individuos. Por tanto, ambos tienen una posición encuadrada dentro del individualismo metodológico.Ambos intentan dar cuenta de un cambio cognitivo en la población que va desde el respeto a la autoridad hacia el activo cuestionamiento de la legitimidad de la autoridad instituida. Este cambio, para ambos autores, no depende exclusivamente de las condiciones de vida (factores estructurales de la situación). Es fruto de un cambio cognitivo en el cual es clave la deslegitimación de la autoridad, la posibilidad de imaginar una alternativa y la evaluación de que dicha alternativa tiene posibilidades de triunfar.Un elemento central de la legitimidad de una autoridad está en su efectividad en el cumplimiento de los fines para los cuales ha sido creada: "effectiveness, especially in services to the public, legitimates authority, and ineffectiveness makes the privileges of authority galling" (1978, 35).Ambos autores intentan explicar cómo ciertos patrones sociales, ciertas prácticas de gobierno y ciertos eventos históricos provocan una distribución desigual de la fé en los propósitos de la autoridad instituida y en la percepción de su efectividad al ser comparada con la efectividad de sus posibles alternativas. El foco del análisis de ambos autores está en los procesos cognitivos (3), fundamentalmente comparativos, que producen deslegitimación de la autoridad. Esta es una lección muy valiosa que surge de la investigación de Trotsky y de Tocqueville sobre los procesos revolucionarios: determinar contra qué es comparada la autoridad instituida (por parte de los grupos sociales que desafían o participan, activa o pasivamente, del derrocamiento de la autoridad establecida).En definitiva, tanto Trotsky como de Tocqueville extraen de sus respectivas investigaciones históricas, mecanismos que operan a nivel de la cognición de los actores y es a partir de estos procesos de cambio que dan una explicación de la particular secuencia de hechos que concluye en el quiebre abrupto de vastos esquemas absolutos de poder. "They are all directed at the problem of explaining the decay of authority, they all have something to do with people forming purposes and believing, or not believing, that particular social organs are effective in pursuing those purposes, and they have to do with the perception of possibilities". (1978, 40)"The gradual spreading of the conviction that perhaps a better alternative is really possible (…) is what both Trotsky and de Tocqueville see as the basic psychological process of undermining the traditional authority". (1978, 40)Así como Trotsky y de Tocqueville enfatizan en los mecanismos que estimulan el proceso revolucionario, también son capaces de encontrar en sus investigaciones, los mecanismos que desestimulan dicho proceso. Para ambos autores, por ejemplo, la discusión pública y la participación de los diferentes grupos sociales en la elaboración de la política tienden a no erosionar la legitimidad de las autoridades instituidas. Este tipo de mecanismo impide que se dispare un proceso de enajenación respecto a la autoridad y quienes la ejercen.Probar los conceptos a partir de su capacidad para generar analogíasAhora bien, ¿cómo es posible saber si la teoría a la que se ha llegado es promisoria? Para ALS, una teoría es "fuerte" cuando los mecanismos causales que emplea para explicar un fenómeno son válidos para explicar diferentes instancias históricas concretas. Es decir, cuando nos permite realizar analogías.La analogía es un típico producto de la investigación empírica. Considerar a dos objetos como similares (los predicados que A y B tienen en común y que los diferencian de un tercer objeto C) surge de una comparación minuciosa entre los objetos. Para ello hay que investigar (puesto que hay que hacer comparaciones). Una vez que tenemos un concepto que separa a dos objetos de otros, tenemos en potencia un concepto con alta capacidad para poder ingresar en sentencias causales. ¿Por qué? Porque podemos presumir que la analogía encontrada es causa de comportamientos similares entre A y B, comportamiento que en otros objetos adquiere valores diferentes.En la medida en que ALS defiende la estrategia de investigar series de eventos históricos de moderada extensión, el hallazgo de analogías fructíferas a nivel del comportamiento de los actores (individuales o corporativos) tiene mayor probabilidad de emerger durante el trabajo de investigación mismo. Ya que el estudio cuidadoso de la historia le ofrece al investigador un campo "rico" en posibilidades para hallar fenómenos análogos (fenómenos en los cuales los mismos mecanismos producen similares resultados). Por tanto, el estudio de la historia para ALS es una fábrica de conceptos con mayor potencial explicativo que el pensamiento teórico en abstracto, desarraigado. Es más fructífero construir conceptos a partir de la elaboración de analogías históricamente situadas que elaborarlos en abstracto sin un "teatro de operaciones" que pueda ayudar al investigador.Esto no implica un llamado al inductivismo ingenuo, "it is about the use of facts to improve ideas, to make them richer, more flexible, more powerful" (1978, 24).Un ejemplo de razonamiento por analogía tomado de Letras InternacionalesPara ejemplificar el método propuesto por ALS tomaremos un análisis realizado en Letras Internacionales por Javier Bonilla en editorial correspondiente al número 100 de la revista. En dicho editorial Bonilla aborda el problema de los "fundamentalismos islámicos" y su explicación en tanto fenómeno político. Dice acerca de los mismos:"Si hoy alguien quiere creer que los talibanes afganos, así como la miríada de grupos más o menos afines, autónomos o apoyados por distintos estados, son sólo "fundamentalistas islámicos" que, indignados por la irrespetuosa fuerza de la globalización generada en Occidente, han optado por defender su identidad religiosa y cultural, estará seguramente en todo su derecho. Pero tendrá inevitablemente que explicar dos cosas.La primera: ¿como se "defiende" la pureza del Islam mediante el expediente de aplicar 200 azotes y ejecutar de tres tiros en la cabeza en la plaza pública a una viuda encinta?. Si esta metodología no es la forma misma de instaurar el Terror para controlar a la población por el ejercicio del Terror mismo, no imaginamos un mecanismo mejor.La segunda: ¿por qué razones, tanto el 'modus operandi' de la exhibición pública del Terror, como el sistemático recurso al desmentido propagandístico cínicamente reñido con las evidencias que utilizan los talibanes, resultan ser prácticamente idénticos a los métodos de Lenin, de Hitler, de Mussolini, de Stalin, de Enver Hoxha, de Tito, de Pol Pot, de Castro o de Kim Jong-il , entre otros ?"(4).Este razonamiento puede ser tomado como un ejemplo de aplicación de la propuesta de ALS respecto a las analogías. Veamos la propuesta del editorialista en términos sencillos:Todo régimen político que es análogo a otro régimen político en el ejercicio del terror en forma pública es también análogo en no aceptar ninguna limitación ética, en la intención de imponer su relato y lograr sus fines (5). En consecuencia, una forma de conceptualizar qué es el régimen talibán es hacerlo formar parte del mismo conjunto que integran la Alemania nazi o la Unión Soviética bajo Stalin.Estas analogías son muy valiosas cuando nos enfrentamos a la explicación de un fenómeno político. En primer lugar, implican una conceptualización que recorre un camino que podríamos llamar "bottom – up". En el sentido que parte desde características observables del régimen y asciende en la conceptualización de las mismas (el camino inverso es despreocuparse de las características observables y aplicar apresuradamente una categoría teórica tomando al régimen como un vago ejemplo de la misma). En segundo lugar, apunta a clasificar las características observadas en alguna categoría análoga y ya conocida de régimen político. Esto permite ahondar en el estudio del fenómeno contemporáneo al menos con una herramienta desarrollada como punto de partida. La comparación minuciosa nos dirá si nuestro punto de partida es el correcto o no. En tercer lugar, nos permite eludir explicaciones aparentemente poderosas como aquella que hace del florecimiento de fundamentalismos la consecuencia de una misteriosa fuerza llamada "globalización" (nunca definida con precisión y desprovista de todo anclaje individual). Eludir este tipo de explicaciones basadas en grandes abstracciones es muy importante aunque los cientistas sociales solemos ser adictos a ellas. Conceptos como "globalización" o "modernidad líquida" son adictivos porque nos transmiten la sensación de que podemos explicar casi cualquier cosa con ellos. Sin embargo, su problema es que la inconsistencia de la definición de los mismos y su nulo anclaje en la actividad concreta de individuos no nos permiten esclarecer cómo es que esa fuerza llamada "globalización" genera aquellos fenómenos que queremos explicar. La utilización indiscriminada de estos conceptos nos hace sentir que al menos tenemos una explicación, aunque no se tenga la más mínima idea de cómo es que opera el explanans en el mundo concreto de los individuos que hacen o dejan de hacer determinadas cosas y con ello producen resultados a nivel colectivo.(1) Arthur L. Stinchcombe (1933) es actualmente profesor emérito en el Departamento de Sociología en Northwestern University. Previamente enseñó en Johns Hopkins, Berkeley, University of Chicago y University of Arizona. En su carrera se destacan tanto sus contribuciones al área de la metodología como de la construcción de teorías en ciencias sociales. Ha escrito más de 12 libros en muy distintas áreas como desarrollo agrícola, organización industrial y educación. Su segundo libro es un clásico en el área de la construcción de teorías y se llama precisamente "Constructing social theories", publicado originalmente en 1968. Dicho libro ha sido traducido al español. Ganó a lo largo de su carrera muchos premios, destacamos los más recientes: en 2004 Distinguished Career Prize, American Sociological Association; en 2007 Lazarsfeld Award for career contribution of methodology, ASA Methods Section. Una excelente entrevista en la que puede leerse sobre su trabajo de investigación hasta finales de la década de 1980 está en Swedberg (1990, ver bibliografía).(2) La lista no es exhaustiva. Pueden consultarse tres antologías de exponentes de la corriente analítica en las siguientes referencias especificadas en la bibliografía de este artículo: Hedström y Silverberg 1998, Hedström y Bearman, 2009 y Noguera et. Al., 2006.(3) Proceso cognitivo que se produce a nivel de los individuos que forman parte de los grupos en conflicto.(4) Disponible en:http://www.ort.edu.uy/facs/boletininternacionales/contenidos/100/editorialbonilla100.html(5) No aceptar limitaciones y pretender una sumisión total es una de las virtudes del concepto de totalitarismo que permiten diferenciar este tipo de régimen de otros que pueden ser similares en algún aspecto. Pablo Brum escribe: "Hitchens acota que totalitarismo 'is a useful term, because it separates 'ordinary' forms of despotism –those which merely exact obedience from their subjects- from the absolutist systems which demand that citizens become wholly subjects and surrender their private lives and personalities entirely to the state, or to the supreme leader'" (BRUM, 2011). *Profesor de Fundamentos de la Investigación Social, Métodos de investigación y Taller de Monografía.Depto de Estudios InternacionalesFACS – ORT Uruguay(ma.baudean@gmail.com). BIBLIOGRAFÍABRAITHWAITE, Richard. 1965 [1953]. La explicación científica. Madrid, Tecnos.BRUM, Pablo. 2011. El Impacto del Totalitarismo en el Siglo XX. Documento de Investigación Nº 62. Montevideo, FACS-ORT.GORSKY, Philip S. 2004. The Poverty of Deductivism: A Constructive Realist Model of Sociological Explanation. En: Sociological Methodology, 2005.HEDSTRÖM, Peter; SWEDBERG, Richard. 1998. Social Mechanisms. An analytical approach to social theory. New York, Cambridge University Press.HEDSTRÖM, Peter. 2005. Dissecting the Social. On the Principles of Analytical Sociology. New York, Cambridge University Press.HEDSTRÖM P., BEARMAN, P. (Editors). 2009. The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology. USA, Oxford University Press.HEMPEL, Carl G. 2005 [1965]. La explicación científica. Estudios sobre la filosofía de la ciencia. Barcelona, Paidós.HOMANS, George C. 1970. Naturaleza de la ciencia social. Buenos Aires, Eudeba.LITTLE, Daniel. 1991. Varieties of social explanation: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Science.Colorado: Westview Press.MANICAS, Peter. 2006. A realist philosophy of social science. Explanation and Understanding. New York, Cambridge University Press.Analytical Sociological Theory Papers. En: Papers Revista de Sociología (número especial), 80, 2006, p. 1-307.POPPER, Karl. 1969 [1957]. The poverty of historicism. London, Routledge.SALMON, Wesley. 2006 [1989]. Four decades of scientific explanation. USA, University of Pittsburgh Press.SMITH, Thomas W. 1999. History and International Relations. London, Routledge.STINCHCOMBE, Arthur L. 1978. Theoretical methods in social history. New York, Academic Press.SWEDBERG, Richard. 1990. Economics and sociology. Redefining their boundaries: conversations with economists and sociologists. New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
At first glance, it may be surprising to consider the German-Jewish born sociologist Norbert Elias (Breslau, 1897–Amsterdam, 1990) as a reference of primary importance for thinking about the future of democracy and citizenship in Europe and beyond. Until recently, 'classics' of historical sociology as a whole have rarely been considered as highly relevant for investigations of the present state and future of relations between political communities in the age of globalisation. Moreover, in Elias's work, which focuses on very long-term social (including political) processes in pre- modern and modern Europe, the major terms used in European Studies and in political theories on European Union – such as 'legitimacy', 'sovereignty', 'citizenship' or 'democracy' – are rarely mentioned. Elias was obviously not first and foremost a theorist of nationalism or a post-nationalist author. He would even have refused to be considered mainly as a political or social theorist, and even less as a theorist or as a philosopher tout court. Elias's first doctorate was in philosophy but he was to abandon that discipline in favour of sociology, an intellectual break that deeply shaped his subsequent thinking (Elias 1994; Mennell 1998: 7-9). Elias's sociology was then marked by the opposition between positive, descriptive or 'reality congruent' social sciences, on the one hand, and normative philosophy, sometimes denounced as unrealistic or utopian, on the other. In addition, he refused to consider politics or policy as a distinct sphere. Moreover, Elias's historical sociology, in its more political aspects, mostly seems interested in the genesis of the state (Elias 1996; 1997), as were such sociologists as Anderson (1977) and Tilly (1993). However, a closer examination of his work reveals the undoubtedly central character of the question of social and political integration beyond the nation state. This preoccupation is already present in the conclusion of Über den Prozess der Zivilisation (1997, completed in 1939), often considered as his magnum opus, which reveals that, at this early stage in his writings, Elias questioned the relationship between nation-states and democracy. He continued to do so in later essays, especially in the crucial text, 'Changes in the We–I Balance' (1991, written in 1987), on which I will focus in the following discussion, and in Humana Conditio (2010, written in 1985). Now, the nature of this 'link' – historical and contingent, or, alternatively, conceptual or necessary – has led in the past twenty years to a well-known opposition between the so-called 'post-nationalist' authors and the 'national republicans', in France, or the 'liberal' or 'civic nationalists', in Great Britain (see Lacroix 2002; 2004). Even though Elias did not directly confront the problem of transcending national borders in conceiving of, and implementing, democracy in European Union, his intuitions can be read in relation to these recent debates about the pertinence of the national-democratic and post-national paradigms. It is true that Europe in the sense of the actual European Union does not really receive close attention in his writings. Quite obviously in Elias's view, European integration, if it would really take place, should rather be considered as a first step or as a transitional phase towards a more global, worldwide integration. Nevertheless, he demonstrated through all his work how much historical sociology is relevant for thinking about European integration and the very nature of the European Union. In 'Changes in the We–I Balance', Elias did not explicitly examine whether democracy can, or should, exist beyond the nation state, although it appears quite obvious, as in Humana Conditio (2010), that the nation-state is not the end of history. The originality of Elias's sociology lies elsewhere, and is twofold. On the one hand, it is to be found in Elias's forceful suggestion that any immediate political problem has to be considered in the light of long-term developments (see Déloye 2000; 2008) and in an all-embracing sociological perspective. Recently, Stefano Bartolini's book Restructuring Europe (2005) is an exceptional attempt to adopt a genuinely long-term socio-political perspective in order to understand the centralising processes that led to nation-states and to European integration. However, it remains focused on politics whereas Elias's more comprehensive approach includes the domains of psychology and the emotions. On the other hand, Elias's originality consists of his determination not to turn observations into norms or values that could legitimate particular conceptions of politics. If one forgets that sociological, self detached, standpoint, then Elias's propositions might sometimes seem similar to nationalist ideas, of course referring to civic or liberal nationalism (see Miller 1995; 2000) that considers the nation as the 'ultimate horizon of a political identity', or at least to the notion that democracy cannot be detached from the national frame. First of all, Elias strongly insists on the importance of affects and emotions for all kinds of collective identities, including political ones, and for every social and individual process of integration. Furthermore, his writings lay great stress on the enduring importance of the 'national habitus' (Elias 1991; 1996), particularly in the case of the old European countries. Finally, Elias sometimes seems to define the community as founded on conflicts with outsiders, both inside the community (Elias 2008), at the cultural or national level (Elias 1996), and beyond (Elias 1991), which at first glance resembles the fashionable idea (after Edward Said) of 'the Other'. In this paper, I will challenge this 'national' or culturalist reading of Elias's work, a reading that insists on the importance of belonging to a national community that one can find in the French sociologist Dominique Schnapper's essay La communauté des citoyens (1994). I will show that Elias's intuitions, by giving a crucial role to democratisation processes, contribute much more to deepen, from a sociological standpoint and in a critical way, the conceptions articulated by the post-nationalist authors – first of all the concept of 'constitutional patriotism' advocated by Jürgen Habermas[2] (1998; 2000) and that of 'post-national identity' presented by Jean-Marc Ferry (1992; 2000; 2005). And yet, according to Elias, European union, European unity or European integration, is not, first of all, a matter of values or ideals, political will or belief. More generally and less consciously, the growing repulsion towards suffering and pain would reveal a growing emotional identification between human beings over the centuries, though most obviously within their particular nation-states. However, just like Habermas, Elias suggests that a democratic political community could not be entirely based on such a feeling, although it is a 'civilising' one. This is because of his rational preferment that leads him to argue that people should rather base their acts on an understanding of the reality of their social relations. Moreover, there is no reason to consider as typically European in any meaning of the term that conscience-formation process associated with a widening circle of mutual identification. Elias admittedly studied the civilizing process by focusing on modern Western Europe at first, but it has never signified that European people have to be considered as 'civilized', compared to others, or even 'more civilized' thanks to cultural specific features, or in the vanguard of such a decentred conscience-formation process thanks to a specific European process. Not only did Elias severely criticise all nationalist and Eurocentric positions but, in the twentieth century more than ever before, humanity as a whole has to be considered as the real social unit of reference in a wholly interdependent world. In what follows, I firstly propose to review briefly the main ideas of the theory of the civilising process from state formation to globalisation that provides the framework for a long-term historical sociology. In this first part I will emphasize the crucial question of the links between the nation-state and democracy in the twentieth century that constitute the background of the current discussion between (liberal, civic) nationalists and post-nationalists. Second, I will show how the question of post-national interdependence and integration appears as a central problem in Elias's 'political' sociology, that always considers distinctly and together national, European, and global levels in a processual way. Third, I will tackle what are, according to Elias, the main obstacles to post-national political integration in terms of the endurance of national habitus, and will insist on the importance of not conflating the sociological study of such a phenomenon with its political justification. I will end with some comments on Eliasian post-nationalism and on his 'realist cosmopolitanism'. My opinion is that the stimulating tension between Hobbesian and Kantian inflexions in Elias's work, already analysed by Andrew Linklater in the field of international relations theory (Linklater 2004; 2011), is interestingly questioned when post-national integration in Europe or civic patriotism is at stake. My hypothesis is that, from an 'Eliasian' standpoint, the sociological study of long-term historical processes would not only reveal what separates Europeans from each other, but also what (temporarily) binds them together, 'for better and for worse', and what (more definitely) binds Europeans to the rest of the world.
At first glance, it may be surprising to consider the German-Jewish born sociologist Norbert Elias (Breslau, 1897–Amsterdam, 1990) as a reference of primary importance for thinking about the future of democracy and citizenship in Europe and beyond. Until recently, 'classics' of historical sociology as a whole have rarely been considered as highly relevant for investigations of the present state and future of relations between political communities in the age of globalisation. Moreover, in Elias's work, which focuses on very long-term social (including political) processes in pre- modern and modern Europe, the major terms used in European Studies and in political theories on European Union – such as 'legitimacy', 'sovereignty', 'citizenship' or 'democracy' – are rarely mentioned. Elias was obviously not first and foremost a theorist of nationalism or a post-nationalist author. He would even have refused to be considered mainly as a political or social theorist, and even less as a theorist or as a philosopher tout court. Elias's first doctorate was in philosophy but he was to abandon that discipline in favour of sociology, an intellectual break that deeply shaped his subsequent thinking (Elias 1994; Mennell 1998: 7-9). Elias's sociology was then marked by the opposition between positive, descriptive or 'reality congruent' social sciences, on the one hand, and normative philosophy, sometimes denounced as unrealistic or utopian, on the other. In addition, he refused to consider politics or policy as a distinct sphere. Moreover, Elias's historical sociology, in its more political aspects, mostly seems interested in the genesis of the state (Elias 1996; 1997), as were such sociologists as Anderson (1977) and Tilly (1993). However, a closer examination of his work reveals the undoubtedly central character of the question of social and political integration beyond the nation state. This preoccupation is already present in the conclusion of Über den Prozess der Zivilisation (1997, completed in 1939), often considered as his magnum opus, which reveals that, at this early stage in his writings, Elias questioned the relationship between nation-states and democracy. He continued to do so in later essays, especially in the crucial text, 'Changes in the We–I Balance' (1991, written in 1987), on which I will focus in the following discussion, and in Humana Conditio (2010, written in 1985). Now, the nature of this 'link' – historical and contingent, or, alternatively, conceptual or necessary – has led in the past twenty years to a well-known opposition between the so-called 'post-nationalist' authors and the 'national republicans', in France, or the 'liberal' or 'civic nationalists', in Great Britain (see Lacroix 2002; 2004). Even though Elias did not directly confront the problem of transcending national borders in conceiving of, and implementing, democracy in European Union, his intuitions can be read in relation to these recent debates about the pertinence of the national-democratic and post-national paradigms. It is true that Europe in the sense of the actual European Union does not really receive close attention in his writings. Quite obviously in Elias's view, European integration, if it would really take place, should rather be considered as a first step or as a transitional phase towards a more global, worldwide integration. Nevertheless, he demonstrated through all his work how much historical sociology is relevant for thinking about European integration and the very nature of the European Union. In 'Changes in the We–I Balance', Elias did not explicitly examine whether democracy can, or should, exist beyond the nation state, although it appears quite obvious, as in Humana Conditio (2010), that the nation-state is not the end of history. The originality of Elias's sociology lies elsewhere, and is twofold. On the one hand, it is to be found in Elias's forceful suggestion that any immediate political problem has to be considered in the light of long-term developments (see Déloye 2000; 2008) and in an all-embracing sociological perspective. Recently, Stefano Bartolini's book Restructuring Europe (2005) is an exceptional attempt to adopt a genuinely long-term socio-political perspective in order to understand the centralising processes that led to nation-states and to European integration. However, it remains focused on politics whereas Elias's more comprehensive approach includes the domains of psychology and the emotions. On the other hand, Elias's originality consists of his determination not to turn observations into norms or values that could legitimate particular conceptions of politics. If one forgets that sociological, self detached, standpoint, then Elias's propositions might sometimes seem similar to nationalist ideas, of course referring to civic or liberal nationalism (see Miller 1995; 2000) that considers the nation as the 'ultimate horizon of a political identity', or at least to the notion that democracy cannot be detached from the national frame. First of all, Elias strongly insists on the importance of affects and emotions for all kinds of collective identities, including political ones, and for every social and individual process of integration. Furthermore, his writings lay great stress on the enduring importance of the 'national habitus' (Elias 1991; 1996), particularly in the case of the old European countries. Finally, Elias sometimes seems to define the community as founded on conflicts with outsiders, both inside the community (Elias 2008), at the cultural or national level (Elias 1996), and beyond (Elias 1991), which at first glance resembles the fashionable idea (after Edward Said) of 'the Other'. In this paper, I will challenge this 'national' or culturalist reading of Elias's work, a reading that insists on the importance of belonging to a national community that one can find in the French sociologist Dominique Schnapper's essay La communauté des citoyens (1994). I will show that Elias's intuitions, by giving a crucial role to democratisation processes, contribute much more to deepen, from a sociological standpoint and in a critical way, the conceptions articulated by the post-nationalist authors – first of all the concept of 'constitutional patriotism' advocated by Jürgen Habermas[2] (1998; 2000) and that of 'post-national identity' presented by Jean-Marc Ferry (1992; 2000; 2005). And yet, according to Elias, European union, European unity or European integration, is not, first of all, a matter of values or ideals, political will or belief. More generally and less consciously, the growing repulsion towards suffering and pain would reveal a growing emotional identification between human beings over the centuries, though most obviously within their particular nation-states. However, just like Habermas, Elias suggests that a democratic political community could not be entirely based on such a feeling, although it is a 'civilising' one. This is because of his rational preferment that leads him to argue that people should rather base their acts on an understanding of the reality of their social relations. Moreover, there is no reason to consider as typically European in any meaning of the term that conscience-formation process associated with a widening circle of mutual identification. Elias admittedly studied the civilizing process by focusing on modern Western Europe at first, but it has never signified that European people have to be considered as 'civilized', compared to others, or even 'more civilized' thanks to cultural specific features, or in the vanguard of such a decentred conscience-formation process thanks to a specific European process. Not only did Elias severely criticise all nationalist and Eurocentric positions but, in the twentieth century more than ever before, humanity as a whole has to be considered as the real social unit of reference in a wholly interdependent world. In what follows, I firstly propose to review briefly the main ideas of the theory of the civilising process from state formation to globalisation that provides the framework for a long-term historical sociology. In this first part I will emphasize the crucial question of the links between the nation-state and democracy in the twentieth century that constitute the background of the current discussion between (liberal, civic) nationalists and post-nationalists. Second, I will show how the question of post-national interdependence and integration appears as a central problem in Elias's 'political' sociology, that always considers distinctly and together national, European, and global levels in a processual way. Third, I will tackle what are, according to Elias, the main obstacles to post-national political integration in terms of the endurance of national habitus, and will insist on the importance of not conflating the sociological study of such a phenomenon with its political justification. I will end with some comments on Eliasian post-nationalism and on his 'realist cosmopolitanism'. My opinion is that the stimulating tension between Hobbesian and Kantian inflexions in Elias's work, already analysed by Andrew Linklater in the field of international relations theory (Linklater 2004; 2011), is interestingly questioned when post-national integration in Europe or civic patriotism is at stake. My hypothesis is that, from an 'Eliasian' standpoint, the sociological study of long-term historical processes would not only reveal what separates Europeans from each other, but also what (temporarily) binds them together, 'for better and for worse', and what (more definitely) binds Europeans to the rest of the world.
*This series is the result of an adaptation of a paper presented as part of a seminar on "Theories and Research in International Relations" at Hebrew University, July 2012. Commentaries are welcome to daniel.wajner@mail.huji.ac.il Click here to read Part II of the series In the first article of this series we have introduced the debates on the ontology of power, while in the second one we have presented the main epistemological approaches of the different paradigms. In this third and final article we will deal with methodological schemes for Power Analysis in IR, while indicating areas for possible innovation using the "Arab Spring" cases as illustrations. Power, Outcomes, and what brings them togetherAs we have seen in the last part, the contribution made by Barnett and Duvall with his taxonomy of four dimensions of power is very helpful as theoretical framework; nevertheless, it is still weak to implement as a methodological tool - it is very difficult to distinguish in a real case what is originated through the structure or the actor, as well as to measure if the specificity is direct or diffuse.But the same could be expressed about the majority of the mentioned schemes. In fact, Dahl itself warned about the difficulties of combining variables to compare power relations and argued that it depends on the requirements of the research.1 This complexity is even larger when normative factors are included; for example, despite the proposal of Nye of measuring soft power through polls and focus groups, he also cautioned about the limits of the intangible variables.2 Hurt addresses certain ways of skipping the difficulties in measuring the power of legitimacy, such as examining: the rates of compliance, the reasons given for compliance and for non-compliance, the support given by the centers of Power and the need for legitimacy argument (akin to a counterfactual technique).3 But, once again, no combined power relations framework is presented.In addition, Lukes argues that power depends on the "significance" of the outcomes, namely, in the capacity of affecting the interests of the agents. He refers to two methods: by changing incentives structures (indoctrination) and by influencing interests (subject freedom). However, Lukes confesses that the main question remains open: how to use certain power to shape certain preferences?4In conclusion, in these approaches no power relation mechanism explains, in a measurable way, how material and normative resources are combined to shape power and influence decisions. Therefore, I would like to subsequently suggest a very simple framework that may allow us to implement the knowledge mentioned hitherto to study specific cases in IR.In line with the majority of the authors, in order to make power measurable I consider that we have to divide it in two variables: material power (or simply Power) and legitimation power (or legitimacy). In international politics, the power of an actor is expressed by its military (backed-by-economical) resources, and for the scheme it would receive "high" or "low" values. The legitimacy of the actors, which is based on their capacity to be perceived as norms-compliers and to build consensus around them5, would receive also "high" or "low" values.A power analysis based on the combination of those two variables, as it is shown below in illustration I, leads us to the taxonomy of four types of cases, each one ascribed to an "outcome". It is important to clarify that, for this paper, the outcomes would reflect the domestic situation of the main agent (the State) given an international system; it is a sort of outside-in analysis if we take into account Gourevitch´s second image reversed.6 Further work has to be done to adapt this scheme so as to explain the conduct of the State vis-à-vis other States as well as to include the domestic sphere of legitimacy.The first actor, which has high power and high legitimacy, could describe his situation as "stable"; that means, the actor would overcome the domestic and external challenges without internal changes and high international costs.The second actor, having high power but low legitimacy, is considered to be in a "changeable" situation. Although this actor is capable of overcoming internal and external challenges, due to the fact that it lacks of support from the other actors he could suffer from high international costs and possibly domestic changes.Illustration I – Taxonomy of Power-Legitimacy outcomesPOWERLEGITIMACYHigh PowerLow Power High Legitimacy "STABLE" "PROTECTABLE" Low Legitimacy "CHANGEABLE" "REVOLUTIONABLE" To the third actor, which has low power but high legitimacy, his situation is defined as "protectable". Due to his incapacity to overcome alone the internal and external challenges, this actor may count on the support of other actors to reduce the possibility of domestic changes; otherwise he will suffer from it.The fourth actor, with low power and low legitimacy, is placed in a "revolutionable" situation; that means, this actor is candidate to suffer from internal changes and high international costs at the time he would face challenges.Testing the Power Analysis framework with the "Arab Spring"The phenomenon known as the "Arab Spring", composed of dozens of countries in which massive protests were held, constitutes an outstanding test for the theory. A large quantity of those cases happened in a very short range of time, with all the variety of domestic conditions, reactions from the regime and from the world, as well as different outcomes. This makes those events ideal for the present examination; even though it is just a "sample" of a more deeply study.7Although no State of those that suffered uprisings is considered in a "stable" situation at all, Saudi Arabia and Jordan could be mentioned as good examples of Arab countries that combined high power (relatively, of course) and high legitimacy. Their regimes faced the uprisings from the beginning (mid-January 2011), but were capable of overcoming the internal challenges through a combination of repression and reforms, without suffering changes in their regime and being supported by the international community.Egypt is probably the best representation of a country whose regime kept high power at the moment of facing domestic challenges but received low legitimacy from the world; this "changeable" situation caused drastic changes at the top of the leadership (including the president, ministers, etc), albeit not of the whole regime (still leaded by the Military Council). Syria seems to be in a similar situation; while the power of the regime is still high, the legitimacy is not low enough to bring to major changes due to the sustained support of Russia, China and Iran. As a result, Syria constitutes today an excellent test for the power of legitimacy (and norms) in international politics.Between those countries that experienced a combination of low power and high legitimacy, experiencing a "protectable" situation, it is possible to mention Bahrain. Despite its regime was not capable of overcoming the internal revolts alone, it counted with the support of most of the Arab countries in the repression, and the Western approval of the "regional intervention" leaded by Gulf countries around the GCC. Yemen was in a comparable position, but at the end of 2011 the legitimacy of its regime was reduced when the region and the world understood the necessity to remove the President to maintain the remaining, in what was denominated later "the Yemenite option".Finally, Libya constitutes the case in which the regime was in a "revolutionable" situation, owing to its low Power to contain the rapid domestic rebellion and its low legitimacy after the first days of tremendous repression. The international costs were so high that included a military intervention leaded by NATO (with the endorsement of the Arab League), that led to the total collapse of the regime. It is possible to say that Tunisia was in an analogous situation while it did not need for a civil war and an external intervention to consummate finally a revolution (i.e., the complete removal of the existing regime).ConclusionsThroughout the paper we were able to observe that the ontological, epistemological and methodological discussions about the complex concept of Power maintain their relevance in the main schools of IR, and in some cases even constitute an essential part of their latest developments.At the same time, the inter-paradigmatic efforts of the last decades are demanding new power analysis approaches; that means, theoretical schemes that would embed a combination of the different factors at stake (material and non-material, resources and interactions, agents and structures) to specific cases of study.Deeper examinations of the "Arab Spring" cases need to be implemented so as to confirm the presented findings, as it was previously said. However, these small samples could possibly reveal that the implementation of a framework that combines both material and non-material resources is possible and, even more, desirable, to a better understanding of the devices of power in IR. 1 Robert A. Dahl, "The concept of Power", p.2142 Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power- The Means to Success in World Politics. p.63 Ian Hurt, "Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics". International Organization 53 No2 (Spring 1999), 390-3914 Stephen Lukes, "Power and the Battle for Hearts and Minds", p.4925 This short definition is based on concepts presented in Ian Clark, "Legitimacy in International Society" (London: Oxford University Press, 2005). It includes components both from the structure and the agent.6 Peter Gourevitch, "The second image reversed – the international sources of domestic politics" International Organization 32 No4, (Autumn 1978), 881-911.7 An investigation is "under construction", called "The Arab League and its legitimation role in the Arab Spring". It focuses on the power of the Arab League to yield legitimacy (or not) in six different cases. Bibliography Bachrach, Peter and Baratz, Morton S. "Two Faces of Power". The American Political Science Review 56 No4, (December 1962), 947-952 Baldwin, David A. Paradoxes of Power (NYC: Basil Blackwell, 1989). Barnett, Michael and Duvall, Raymond. "Power in International Politics", International Organization 59, No1 (Winter 2005), 39-75 Berenskoetter, Felix and Williams, Michael J. Power in World Politics. (NYC: Routledge, 2007) Bourdieu, Pierre. Language & Symbolic Power (NYC : Polity Press, 2001) Carr, Edward H., The Twenty Years' Crisis,1919-1939 (NYC: Harper Torchbooks, 1964) Clark, Ian. "Legitimacy in International Society" (NYC: Oxford University Press, 2005) Claude, Inis L., Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962). Dahl, Robert A. "The concept of Power", Behavioral Science 2 No3, (July 1957), 201-215 Haas, Ernst B. When Knowledge is Power (University of California Press, 1990). Finnemore, Martha and Sikkink, Kathryn "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," International Organization 52, No. 4 (Autumn 1998), 887-917. Foucalt, Michael. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77 (Brighton: Havester, 1980) Franck, Thomas M., "The Power of Legitimacy and the Legitimacy of Power: International Law in an Age of Power Disequilibrium." American Journal International 88 (2006), 88-106 Gourevitch, Peter. "The second image reversed – the international sources of domestic politics" International Organization 32 No4, (Autumn 1978), 881-911. Guzzini, Stefano, "The Concept of Power: A Constructivist Analysis" Millennium 33 No3, 2005, 495-521. Guzzini, Stefano, "Structural power: the limits of neorealist power analysis", International Organization 47, No3 (Summer 1993), 443-478. Hurt, Ian, "Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics". International Organization 53 No2 (Spring 1999), 379-408 Ikenberry, John and Kupchan, Charles A. "Socialization and hegemonic power", International Organization 44, No3 (Summer 1990), 283-315. Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S., Power and Interdependence, 2nd edition (New York: Harper Collins, 1989) Krasner, Stephen D. "Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables", International Organization 36 (Spring 1982), 497-510 Lukes, Stephen. "Power and the Battle for Hearts and Minds", Millennium 33 No3, (2005), 477-493 Mearsheimer, John. The Tragedy of Great power Politics (NYC: Norton, 2001) Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics among Nations, 4th edition (NYC: Knopf, 1967). Nye, Joseph S. Soft Power- The Means to Success in World Politics (NYC: PublicAffairs, 2004) Putnam, Robert. "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games," International Organization 42, No3, (1988), 427-460 Risse, Thomas. "Let's Argue! Communicative Action in World Politics," International Organization 54 No1 (Winter 2000), 1-40. Schmidt, Brian C. "Competing Realist Conceptions of Power", Millennium 33 No3, 523-549 Walt, Stephen. The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987) Waltz, Kenneth. Theory of International Politics. (NYC: McGraw-Hill, 1979) Weber, Max. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. (California: University of Berkeley, 1978. Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich). Wendt, Alexander. "Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International Organization 46 (1992), 391-425. Wendt, Alexander. "The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory", International Organization 41/3 (1987), 335-370. Fabian Daniel Wajner is a Research and Teaching Assistant at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Department of International Relations) and a Fellow of the Liweranth Center for Latin America Studies.
Die Inhalte der verlinkten Blogs und Blog Beiträge unterliegen in vielen Fällen keiner redaktionellen Kontrolle.
Warnung zur Verfügbarkeit
Eine dauerhafte Verfügbarkeit ist nicht garantiert und liegt vollumfänglich in den Händen der Blogbetreiber:innen. Bitte erstellen Sie sich selbständig eine Kopie falls Sie einen Blog Beitrag zitieren möchten.
Previously posted on May 10/22 and Jan 30/23 Kissinger in Washington, May 7, 2022Henry Kissinger will be one hundred years old in a few weeks and has published five books since he turned ninety. Along with President Nixon, he futilely prolonged and escalated the Vietnam War for four years when defeat was already inevitable. But he also received the Nobel Peace Prize precisely for negotiating the ceasefire for that same war. His doctrine also has these two faces. On the one hand, he conceives international politics as the interaction between states seeking power. On the other hand, he favors the balance of powers so that no one is able to fully impose its dominance on the others. In the academic literature, Kissinger's approach is called "realism" and is widely accepted. The main alternative is the so-called "liberal" approach, which trusts in the ability of institutions to prevent wars and keep peace. From there arose the League of Nations, which failed, and the United Nations and its specialized organizations, which have had significant success on many issues, but are also currently showing their insufficiency. The most accurate postulate of the realists is that the world is more peaceful when there are multiple powers than when there are only two, as in the Cold War, or a single super-dominant one, as seemed to be the case with the United States after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The success of the formula requires that the multilateral equilibrium could only be overthrown by an effort of a magnitude too difficult to mount. As a historical example, Kissinger has analyzed and praised the so-called Concert of Europe that was formed, after the defeat of Napoleon's France, by Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and also recovered France. According to his interpretation, the Concert "came close to constituting the government of Europe" and achieved a long period without European-wide wars. The balance was upset by the unification of Germany at the end of the 19th century and its consequent aggressive expansionism, which led to the absurd and catastrophic First World War. Taking a similar approach, Kissinger continues to praise the construction of the European Union, which has prevented new general wars on the continent. During his time in government, the biggest concern was that communism would end up dominating the world according to the domino theory, whereby the fall of a piece like Indochina would be followed by Burma and Thailand, as well as Indonesia (which, in fact, was very close), and from there, India, Japan, the Middle East... That's why the Vietnam war extended to Laos and Cambodia. But this is also the reason for the diplomatic opening to China, to break the Sino-Soviet bloc and achieve a certain multilateral balance. The current interest of the discussion is that the role of the United States as the only superpower may be less exclusive and exclusionary than it seemed. A version of political realism in academia tends to analyze international relations "after hegemony" as a ground for "anarchy", that is, destructive conflicts and wars. However, the changes around the Ukrainian war can be read as a new opportunity for multilateral cooperation. The United States has the initiative and many economic and military resources, but, paradoxically, it may have a good opportunity to expand pluralism. In the new situation of divided government between the Presidency and Congress, the most ambitious projects in domestic policy are paralyzed, so Joe Biden can focus on foreign policy, where he has more power, and expand multilateral cooperation. The European Union is beginning to develop, for the first time, a spirited common international policy, in contrast to the dissent during the Iraq war, when the governments of Britain and Spain were on one side and those of France and Germany on the other. The rulers of China and India, which are rivals to each other, have told Russia that the world is not ready for war. This configuration with more than three major powers points to a balance of powers capable of avoiding polarization, since, otherwise, a coalition of two-to-one preludes conflict. Specifically, the Group of Seven, which is the nucleus of a latent world government, needs to work more closely with some members of the Group of Twenty, which includes India and China, so that its decisions are widely accepted and effective. Negotiations between the US and the EU for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), in which substantive agreements had been reached, were paralyzed by Trump, and could now be revived. The Trans-Pacific Agreement for Economic Cooperation was also abandoned by Trump, but the other eleven initial countries went ahead on their own and ended up signing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to which China has presented its candidacy. Many in the United States are clamoring for re-entry in what had been its own initiative. And after the war in Ukraine, a new international structure will have to be defined, especially for Central and Eastern Europe, in which, as Kissinger said in a recent interview, "Russia should find a place." Realism shows that the seeking for power explains many things, and the balance of power can prevent a general war. But when there is neither a single dominant power nor a confrontation between two, "liberal" rules and institutions may be the best mechanism for peace and multilateral cooperation.Also in Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia-click While President Biden is not clear, and sometimes he is confusing about how the war in Ukraine could end, some other voices in Washington can speak and suggest more clearly. Several of them did it a few days ago at the Financial Times Weekend Festival, which was held, for the first time outside England, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.The first surprisingly constructive intervention was from William J. Burns, the current CIA Director. Just a year ago, he came from retirement after a long career as a diplomat, and as such, in his presentation, the conversation with an FT journalist, and the dialogue with the audience, he showed a broader vision than the usual spies. When he was Ambassador in Boris Yeltsin's Moscow in the mid-1990s, Burns already felt that the NATO expansion until the borders of Russia was "premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst." More specifically, to push for NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia was "a serious strategic mistake that did indelible damage" –an opinion that at the time was shared by the governments of France and Germany. In an official encounter, Putin had told him that Ukraine in NATO "would be a hostile act toward Russia."Burns emphasized, of course, that there is "absolutely no justification for the invasion of Ukraine." Yet, he resumed that kind of strategic explanation while dismissing the ideological elaborations that pretend either justify or condemn the attack. In short: Russia has "pushed back" after Ukraine moved westward away from Russian influence.In his view, nevertheless, Putin miscalculated regarding the power of the Russian Army (which was sent to a "special operation" not planned by its generals), about Ukrainian resistance, and with the supposition that the West would be distracted by elections in Germany and France. He tried to explain the recent candidacies of Sweden and Finland to NATO as a deterrent against Putin's other potential attacks in the future. But the Director of the CIA did not utter a word that could be interpreted as supporting Ukraine's NATO membership.Even more thrilling was the participation of Henry Kissinger on "the new world disorder." The former Secretary of State is 99 years old this month, announced a new book of immediate publication, and for nearly one hour was focused, clear, and insightful, also in a dialogue with the audience. Kissinger started by using his academic background and remarking that the foreign policy's main priority of Russia, which is the largest country in the world, has always been to protect its huge territory from invasions. From this perspective, after the Cold War, the country's leadership was "offended" by NATO's absorption of Eastern Europe.Now –he noted— public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation, but by reflecting on the previous failures of the several governments he advised, he lamented that, again, nobody knows where we are going. Kissinger had already opposed Ukraine's candidacy to NATO when President Bush and Vice-president Cheney launched it in 2008. Six years later, at the Russian occupation of Crimea, he warned that Ukraine should not join either the East or the West, but it should function as "a bridge" between the two. He had predicted that otherwise, "the drift toward confrontation would accelerate."Most striking was his warning about the use of nuclear weapons. "I would not make Ukraine's membership to NATO a key issue," he remarked at the Kennedy Center. It would be "unwise to take an adversarial position," mainly because of the horrible danger of a nuclear war. His approach was certainly in contrast with that in the 1970s, of which he was reminded, when the gibberish theory of the "domino" was used to attack one country after another. Bush and Cheney still used that approach in the early 2000s to justify "preventive wars." I got the impression that with aging, intelligent people like Kissinger may feel that it is not worth trying to deceive himself again, and despite his physical frailness (or perhaps because of that), his more mature brain moves in the direction of more honest and clear thinking. His main argument was that in the past, although confrontation was addressed to "preserve the balance of power" between the US and the Soviet Union, at the same time, he also promoted agreements for nuclear arms reduction and control. Nowadays, modern technology would produce much worse destruction, so he claimed for a "new era" in which the governments should take more care about the consequences of nuclear arms and favor diplomacy above all. Kissinger reminded the audience that, in the past, nuclear countries such as the Soviet Union and the United States accepted military defeats from non-nuclear countries, such as in Vietnam and (both) in Afghanistan. Even more now, "we have to deescalate to conventional arms and learn to live with adversarial relations." Kissinger has met Putin more than twenty times and asserted that "there is still room for negotiation" with him. In Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia
Como ya hemos sugerido hace un par de semanas atrás, el carácter anárquico de los asuntos internacionales constituye un punto de partida fundamental y necesario para el estudio de las relaciones internacionales, en tanto disciplina. Partir desde allí, no sólo es importante porque representa un gran cambio del "principio ordenador" del sistema (de un orden jerárquico, como el doméstico, a uno horizontal o descentralizado, como el internacional), sino porque también se encuentra irradiando continuamente fuerzas e incentivos que afectan con profundidad el comportamiento a largo plazo de los actores internacionales. Estas fuerzas e incentivos, como lo destacara Kenneth Waltz (1), no determinan mecánicamente el comportamiento individual de los estados, pero sí constriñen y moldean ciertos patrones de comportamiento a lo largo del tiempo. Una forma de estudiar el papel de estas fuerzas, si nos abocamos al estudio de la guerra y la paz, es analizar el llamado "dilema de seguridad". En este ensayo, presentaré brevemente en qué consiste este "dilema" y cuál es su importancia a la hora de abordar no sólo las causas de la guerra, sino también las condiciones para la paz.La idea de un "dilema de seguridad", propuesta originalmente por John H. Herz en 1950, generó una revisión profunda en los estudios de seguridad de la disciplina ya que por primera vez se logró demostrar convincentemente que el fenómeno de la recurrencia de la guerra a través de los siglos no puede explicarse sólo mediante la referencia a estados expansionistas, con ansias de conquista, ambiciosos territorialmente, o "revisionistas absolutos"; sino que, además de ello, el tipo decontexto de seguridad en el cual se encuentran los estados juega un papel sumamente importante.(2)Así, por ejemplo, el dilema de seguridad nos ayuda a comprender cómo incluso cuando los estados no pretenden individualmente hacer la guerra entre sí, el frágil contexto de desconfianza, de inseguridad y de incertidumbre, y sobre todo de miedo —junto al factor fundamental de la ausencia de una autoridad política central— es suficiente como para que la guerra pueda abrirse camino de forma recurrente. En otras palabras, la anarquía internacional es una "causa permisiva" de la guerra, o una causa indirecta, porque no provoca el inicio específico de ninguna guerra o conflicto internacional, pero sí permanece impávida frente a ello, no erigiendo ningún tipo de obstáculo o desincentivo a la ocurrencia del conflicto.La condición anárquica del sistema genera incertidumbre, la cual da lugar a la desconfianza, que también provoca un profundo dilema según el cual aquellas personas que toman decisiones en nombre de un estado nunca pueden estar "100% seguros" de si sus cálculos sobre las intenciones futuras de los demás son correctos. Todo ello compele a los estados a desconfiar y a competir (necesariamente) en aras de proveerse seguridad, y prevalecer.(3)Como lúcidamente explica Martin Wight, "[t]he fundamental cause of war is not historic rivalries, nor unjust peace settlements, nor nationalist grievances, nor competitions in armaments, nor imperialism, nor poverty […]. The fundamental cause is the absence of international government; in other words, the anarchy of sovereign states. […] In such a situation, mutual distrust is fundamental, and one power can never have an assurance that another power is not malevolent". Y concluye: "Consequently, with the best will in the world no power can surrender any part of its security and liberty to another power".(4)O como el mismo Herz lo ha expresado: a través de los siglos, siempre que han existido sistemas sociales anárquicos en donde las unidades que los conforman son asimismo las instancias últimas de resolución de sus disputas,"there has arisen what may be called the 'security dilemma' of men, or groups, or their leaders. […] Whether man is by nature peaceful and cooperative, or domineering and aggressive, is not the question. […] Groups or individuals living in such a constellation must be, and usually are, concerned about their security from being attacked, subjected, dominated, or annihilated by other groups or individuals. Striving to attain security from such attack, they are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the impact of the power of others. This, in turn, renders the others more insecure and compels them to prepare for the worst. Since none can ever feel entirely secure in such a world of competing units, power competition ensues, and the vicious cycle of security and power accumulation in on".(5)Esta situación, por su parte, se asemeja a lo que el historiador británico Herbert Butterfield llamó "miedo hobbesiano", o "trágico elemento del conflicto humano".(6) Al igual que Herz, él comprendía que desde una visión con perspectiva, el historiador goza de la capacidad de ver fríamente los sucesos y tiene el desafío de entender cómo el contexto anárquico en el cual los estados existen es la principal fuente por la que el conflicto puede, en primera instancia, emerger una y otra vez. Por ejemplo, dice Butterfield: "The central fact [.] is a certain predicament, a certain situation that contains the elements of conflict irrespective of any special wickedness in any of the parties concerned [.]. In historical perspective we learn to be a little more sorry for both parties than they knew to be for one another". Y así, concluye Butterfield: "Here is the absolute predicament and the irreducible dilemma [.] here are the ingredients for a grand catastrophe. The greatest war in history could be produced without the intervention of any great criminals who might be out to do deliberate harm in the world".(7)Sin embargo, a pesar del pesimismo al cual fácilmente pudiera llevar esta comprensión del dilema, la historia demuestra claramente que la cooperación y el mantenimiento de la paz sigue siendo posible, aún bajo los efectos de la anarquía.(8)Esta es otra de las comunes confusiones de la literatura. Básicamente: la creencia en que allí donde existe un dilema de este tipo no puede existir la paz o diversos tipos de orden (¡incluso por períodos prolongados de tiempo!). Es, además, esta misma confusión la que lleva —erróneamente— a creer que sólo es posible hablar de "zonas de paz", como actualmente se hace en Sudamérica, a través de la eliminación (más que nada intelectual) del "dilema de seguridad".Ciertamente, la situación de "continua competencia" implícita en la concepción realista de la política internacional no significa que la guerra tenga lugar todo el tiempo y en todo lugar. El dilema de seguridad puede ser mitigado (aunque aún nunca ha sido resuelto), y ello puede incluso generar períodos de paz que a veces alcanzan muchos años de duración. El Concierto Europeo, por ejemplo, creado por las potencias europeas luego de la derrota de Napoleón, es uno de esos casos. Pero justamente es este mismo ejemplo el que sirve para comprender el verdaderodilema: si bien es posible la cooperación y la paz bajo anarquía, y más allá del corto o largo período por el que ello se prolongue, la competencia y el conflicto revertirán en el largo plazo todo esfuerzo cooperativo. Sin la comprensión de estos elementos, es imposible entender cómo es que aún los más fuertes ejemplos de cooperación entre los estados, a lo largo de los siglos, ulteriormente han dejado de existir.De todas formas, si bien el dilema puede ser atenuado o mitigado en el tiempo —aunque no sin gran dificultad—, el mismo no puede ser trascendido de una manera sencilla, ya sea a través de la creación de instituciones o por actos de conciencia individuales.(9) Como tan claramente lo explica Butterfield: "The supporters of the new diplomacy, which has emerged since the opening of the epoch of world-wars, like to tell us that the whole problem we have been discussing does not exist, because it ought not to exist. In any case, there is no Chinese puzzle at all, they say, for, whatever the issue might be, we could easily dispose of it by referring it to a conference or sending it to the United Nations. Against these specialists in wishful thinking it must be asserted that the kind of human predicament which we have been discussing is not merely so far without a solution, but the whole condition is a standing feature of mankind in world-history. [.] And if the issue which divides the world at a given moment were referred to a conference table, then, though many good things might be achieved, we should not have eliminated the predicament which was most crucial—we should merely find it transplanted into the bosom of the conference itself".(10)A la luz de esta discusión, se hace imprescindible para todo aquel abocado al estudio de la seguridad internacional, el comenzar no sólo con adquirir un profundo respeto y comprensión del carácter anárquico de las relaciones internacionales, sino también por analizar los efectos que el dilema de seguridad ejerce por sobre los estados. Un punto central para todo estudiante de estos asuntos es no ceder jamás a la complacencia intelectual de lo que prediquen sus teorías predilectas y, en su lugar, seguir buscando formas inteligentes de mitigar y construir orden en un tan precario, endeble e indiferente contexto como es el de la política internacional.(1) Ver Kenneth N. Waltz, El Hombre, el Estado y la Guerra (Buenos Aires: Nova, 1959); y Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, ma: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1979).(2) Ver Herz, "Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma", pp. 157-180. Ver también Randall L. Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma?", en Frankel, ed., Realism: Restatements and Renewal, pp. 90-121.(3) Una buena explicación de la interconexión entre estos elementos puede encontrarse en Stephen Van Evera, "The Hard Realities of International Politics",Boston Review,Vol. 17, No. 6 (November–December 1992), p. 19; y Mearsheimer,Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001), cap. 1.(4) Martin Wight, Power Politics, ed. por Hedley Bull y Carsten Holbraad (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, riia), pp. 101-2.(5) Herz, "Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma", World Politics, Vol. 2, No. 2 (January, 1950), p. 157.(6) Ver Herbert Butterfield, History and Human Relations (London: Collins, 1951), pp. 21, 22, 16, 20. En su Power Politics, Wight también se refiere a esta condición como "Hobbesian predicament", p. 142., o "Hobbesian fear", por ejemplo: "Wars are fought for many different causes […] But all particular causes of war operate within the context of international anarchy and the Hobbesian fear", p. 102.(7) Butterfield, History and Human Relations, pp. 15, 17.(8) Ver Robert Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma", World Politics, Vol. 30, No. 2 (January 1978), pp. 167-214; Charles L. Glaser, "The Security Dilemma Revisited", World Politics, Vol. 50, No. (October 1997), pp. 171-201; Glaser, "Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help", en Frankel, ed., Realism: Restatements and Renewal, pp. 122-63; Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays in International Politics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1962); Marc Trachtenberg, "The Problem of International Order and How to Think About It", The Monist, Vol. 89, No. 2, pp. 207-31; y Trachtenberg, "The Question of Realism: An Historian's View", Security Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Autumn 2003), pp. 156-94. Para dos importantes críticas y reformulaciones, cfr.Schweller, "Neorealism's Status-Quo Bias"; y Helen Milner, "The Assumption of Anarchy in International Relations Theory: A Critique", Review of International Studies Vol. 17, No. 1 (January 1991): pp. 67-85.(9) Ver Butterfield, History and Human Relations, pp. 27-28.(10) Butterfield, History and Human Relations, pp. 31-2. *Tesista de la Maestría en Estudios Internacionales, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Die Inhalte der verlinkten Blogs und Blog Beiträge unterliegen in vielen Fällen keiner redaktionellen Kontrolle.
Warnung zur Verfügbarkeit
Eine dauerhafte Verfügbarkeit ist nicht garantiert und liegt vollumfänglich in den Händen der Blogbetreiber:innen. Bitte erstellen Sie sich selbständig eine Kopie falls Sie einen Blog Beitrag zitieren möchten.
Draft Translation: Not for CitationWhat follows is another attempt at a translation of an important text by André Tosel on the Marx/Spinoza relation. It is not a finished, or polished translation, but a rough sketch put forward to help people get a sense of this overlooked articulation of the relation between Marx and Spinoza.For a Systematic Study of the Relation of Marx to Spinoza: Remarks and Hypotheses
André Tosel Published in 2008 in the book Spinoza au XIXe Siècle The question of relation of the thought of Marx to that of Spinoza has up until now been the subject of more of a hermeneutic investigation than a philology. It is easier to construct a history of the different interpretations of Spinoza at the center of different Marxisms then to have determined the precise function of the reference to Spinoza in the work of Marx and to define the use Marx made of the spinozist problematic and the elaboration of his thought. More or less the Marxists that were first developed a relation to Spinoza were an important milestone on the way to developing what could be called a historical and materialist dialectic. The relation begins in the midst of the Second International. The singularity of Spinoza's thought has often been reduced to a stepping stone on the way to "monist" immanentism, which is supposed to be its philosophical structure at least in the reception of two thinkers, as Plekhanov has asserted in some preliminary texts working from some notes of Engels in manuscripts published in the USSR under the title of the Dialectic of Nature. In the dogmatic frame of the struggle between idealism and materialism, Spinoza anticipates materialism by his thesis of the unity of nature and by his doctrine of the equal dignity of the attribute of extension in relation to the attribute of thought. The doctrine of mode and substance causality, coupled with the critique of final causality and the illusions of superstition, signifies at the same time an overcoming of mechanistic thinking and the first form of the dialectic. Rare were those who, like Antonio Labriola, were careful not to oppose two conceptions of the world head-on and maintained a certain distance with polemical opposition, preferring instead to indicate that Marx did for mode of production what Spinoza had done for the world of the passions—a geometry of their production. In the Soviet Union before the Stalinist freeze, this interpretive tension is reproduced: Spinoza becomes the terrain through which the clarification of the dialectic takes place opposing mechanists and anti-mechanists, and original articulation of the thesis of liberty as the comprehension of necessity. These problems have been clarified somewhat. (Zapata, 1983; Seidel, 1984; Tosel, 1995)One would have to wait for the deconstructive enterprise of Louis Althusser for this movement to be reversed. Spinoza is no longer a moment in the teleology which is integrated and surpassed on the way to Marxism-Leninism. His work is the means of theoretical production for reformulating the philosophical and scientific revolution of Marx without recourse to only the Hegelian dialectic. Spinoza is the first to have elaborated a model of structural causality that makes it possible to think the efficacy of the structure as an absent cause over its effects. The theory of knowledge is not one that authorizes absolute knowledge, but it announces this infinite exigency of a break with ideology without the hope of arriving at transparent knowledge. It obliges one to renounce any idea of communism as a state of a final reconciliation in social relations which would be deprived of any contradictions. "We have always been spinozists,' Althusser announces in the Elements of Self-Criticism, and then proceed to the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect from the Hegelian dialectic. It is then only an epistemological obstacle which prevents Marx from realizing the full power of his critique of political economy and to explore the continent of history that he discovered. Spinoza for clarifying Marx himself. Everything has been clarified. (Cotten 1992; Raymond, Moreau, 1997). In terms of historical research, the spinozist studies that have been made after the end of the nineteen sixties in France and Italy have often been made by researchers who have rubbed shoulders with Marxism. We find the same oscillation between a tendency to read Spinoza according to a pre-marxist perspective, in the sense of a dialectic of emancipation, or liberation from a theological political complex and disalienation, even constituent power, and another tendency insisting on the infinity of the struggle against all illusions, even those of total liberation, affirming the unsurpassable dimension of the imagination in the constitution of the conatus and in the production of the power of the multitude. This oscillation is manifest often in the same commentators, often itself a function of the change of the historical conjuncture. However, up until now, there has never been an attempt to study from Marx's works themselves the structural function of the spinozist reference in the constitution of Marxist theory, one which would permit us to better understand the understanding that Marx made of Spinozist work. The interpretations have anyway have developed from a certain exteriority to the letter of Marxists texts. Several years ago, a German researcher, Fred E. Schrader, in a short text dedicated to the thematic of "substance and concept" chez Marx (Substanz und Funktion: zur Marxsrezeption Spinoza's) drew attention to this situation (1984). He rightly noted that it was necessary to distinguish two moments in the research to avoid any merely external confrontation: a) first, obviously, document the explicit and implicit mentions of Spinoza in Marx's text; 1) then, reconstruct the position of the reference to Spinoza in the process of the constitution of the critique of political economy which is the central Marxist work, alongside of the references to "Hegel" which one knows were constitutive in the years of 1857-1858. Only this philological and philosophical work can permit us to renew the state of the question. Schrader's study must be considered. We propose to develop it and comment on it because up until now it has not received the attention that it merits. Before everything else, it is necessary to be precise. The work envisioned must be considerable, it includes taking into account the texts published by Marx, those published posthumously by Engels and by Kautsky, and all of those—collections of notes and thematic notebooks—which make up the incomplete nature of Capital, including Marx's correspondence. The MEGA 2, Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, still incomplete, has not finished being scrutinized. This work could begin from the hypothesis that we can conceptualize two periods in Marx's work from which it is possible to reassemble occurrences that conceptualize the reference to Spinoza in order to determine their structural function. The first period corresponds to the years of his formation and the interlinking of the critique of politics and the early critique of political economy, it begins with the concept of history underlying the German Ideology and culminates in the Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto. The second period begins with the research operating under the title of the critique of political economy beginning in 1857, interrupted provisionally in January of 1859 and beginning again in 1861. The reference to Spinoza is more explicit in the first period where it is a matter of an specifically political practice, articulating a materialism of practice. It is less explicit in the second period, it functions nonetheless as a fundamental operator in the essential theory of the substance of value in capital. The Philosophical Intensifier of Spinoza of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Destruction of the Theologico-Political Complex and Democratic Radicalism. Marx encounters Spinoza in the beginning of his theoretical and political journey. In 1841 we know from the preface by Alexandre Matheron (Cahiers Spinoza), Marx, after his doctorate, reproduced the extracts he copied from the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (MEGA 2 VI/I Berlin, 1977). He is curiously presented as the author of these texts and moreover they are reorganized in their own order which is not that of the Tractatus itself. The chapters containing the critique of the supernatural, of the miracle, and all of all forms of superstition are brought forward as essential and open on the properly political chapters dedicated to the freedom of thought (XX) and the foundation of the republic (XVI). The Ethics is not ignored but it is not reproduced, Letter XII takes the place of a speculative text and is accompanied with Letter LXXVI to Burgh. Everything takes place as if Marx considered as the most important question to be that of theological politics and is concentrated on the question of human freedom in its radical ethico-political dimension. What is important is that the revolutionary democratic state is realized according to this concept. One could also consider that Spinoza is utilized here as one of the figures that a Doctorate of Philosophy considers along with Aristotle, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel as provocations, of that which puts knowledge in the service of a life liberated from the fear of authorities, which reappropriates humanity's power of thinking and acting confiscated in the service of gods and fetishes. In a certain manner Epicurus is the paradoxically the first of the thinkers who claims that "it is a misfortune to live in necessity, but it is not necessary to live under necessity." This truth finds a new application, after the French Revolution, in the age of a new ethics, where free individuals recognize themselves in a free state. 2. The explicit reference to Spinoza is displaced in the texts of the years 1841-1843—the Kreuznach manuscript dedicated to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, followed by the introduction and the Jewish Question. These constitute the Feuerbachian moment of Marx, at the heart of his theory of the alienation of the human essence. One must not make this critique of politics a simple transition towards the discovery of the alienation of social powers, nor understand it as an end of a politics understood as primarily statist. It is the ethico-political liberation which requires a transformation of social relations and which is a transvaluation or emancipation of social powers. Spinoza is not named, but certain passages from the TTP are repeated almost to the letter: Spinoza figures as the index of a new task , that is lacking in Hegel which is that of thinking beyond the dualism of civil society and the state. The name of this passage is democracy or true democracy. Marx returns to the letter of the Spinozist thesis according to which democracy is not only the name of a constituted political regime, but the essence of politics, the most natural regime, constituting the power of the people. The intensive force of Spinoza is that of democracy not as a mystical act or utopian ecstasy, but as a process of constitution that replaces actual void of the Hegelian state where the people lack themselves, in which the state becomes something separate, still theologico-political. Democracy is the active process by which the people is refigured as the negative instance of any separate political form and gives a political form to its social power. "Democracy is the truth of monarchy, monarchy is not the truth of democracy. Monarchy is necessarily democracy in contradiction with itself, whereas the monarchial moment is no contradiction within democracy. Monarchy cannot, while democracy can be understood in terms of itself In democracy none of the moments obtains a significance other than what befits it. Each is really only a moment of the whole Demos. In monarchy one part determines the character of the whole; the entire constitution must be modified according to the immutable head. Democracy is the generic constitution; monarchy is a species, and indeed a poor one. Democracy is content and form; monarchy should be only form, but it adulterates the content. In monarchy the whole, the people, is subsumed under one of its modes of existence,. the political constitution; in democracy the constitution itself appears only as one determination, and indeed as the self-determination of the people. In monarchy we have the people of the constitution, in democracy the constitution of the people. Democracy is the resolved mystery of all constitutions. Here the constitution not only in itself, according to essence, but according to existence and actuality is returned to its real ground, actual man, the actual people, and established as its own work. The constitution appears as what it is, the free product of men." It is possible to remark that this constituent power of the demos tends to be presented as a sort of causa sui in the order of world of social relations. The naturalist dimension thematized in the Ethics is not posited here with the insistence of humanity as part of nature, with the thematization of the relations between internal and external causality. Necessity seems to have disappeared for an instant. It is notable that this in the same moment that Feuerbach defends Spinoza's naturalism against Hegelian idealism and makes the author of the Ethics the Moses of modern thought who has destroyed theology by his pantheism, while reproaching him, for not having arrived at a radical humanist affirmation, since he maintained an equivocal equivalence between the naturalization of god and the divinization of nature. The Marxist reference is primarily to the ethico-political Spinoza, one of the "intellectual heroes of morality" as he says in a text contemporary with it, "Comments on the Latest Russian Censorship—" along with Kant and Fichte he is one of the heroes that found and defend the principal of moral autonomy. Spinoza makes it possible to undertake a philosophical political of Hegel, the people would be the only ontological instance that constitutes the political constitution, which is to say democracy, of civil society. Spinoza makes it possible to introduce a new dialectic within the incomplete dialectic of The Principles of the Philosophy of Right. This dialectic is simultaneously a critique. The object of this critical dialectic is the self-constitution of political activity in the struggle to overcome the domination of abstract entities erected into speculative abstractions defining the latest avatars of the theological-political complex. Schrader does not say more in the exposition of the reference to Spinoza in this first period. We could take a step beyond his analysis. A unpublished path seems to be presented. We could in fact explore it as Yovel has done (Spinoza and Other Heretics); also the first book of Matheron, Individu et communauté chez Spinoza (1968) examines the double relation of the human conatus to other conatuses and objects that suit them or do not suit them the rudiments of a theory of objectification of the human essence that Marx elaborates in the texts of 1844 where he analyzes the people under the figure of the proletariat subject and object of alienated labor. The reading can shed light on Spinoza, but Marx has for his interlocuters Hegel, Adam Smith, and Feuerbach. Spinoza does not intervene here explicitly. It is preferable to follow the letter of his texts. 3. The text which follows, The Holy Family of 1845, indicates an unexamined reversal of perspective. Far from finding in Spinoza a radical thinker of liberty through the radicalization of the democratic process and developing Feuerbach's theses of the virtues of Spinoza's naturalization, far from continuing the anti-idealist elements of Spinoza, Marx for the first time distances himself from Spinoza placing him on the side of Descartes, of Malebranche, of Leibniz, of abstract rationalist metaphysics, in a paragraph before celebrating the materialists in which he inscribes himself. These are the materialists of the French Enlightenment, La Mettrie, Holbach, Helvétius, which are lauded for having operated outside of metaphysics. These are the authors that Plekhanov reinscribes as a defenders of monistic materialism in the thought of nature and in the theory of history. Certainly as Olivier Bloch in an important contribution has demonstrated ("Materialism, genesis of Marxism, 1981, reprinted in Matières à penser, Vrin, 1997), this chapter of the history of philosophy is a plagiarism by Marx who literally takes it from the Manuel d'histoire de la philosophie moderne by Charles Renouvier (1844). The soviet Diamat has been founded by a French critic… But the fact remains that Marx endorses this reconstruction which prefers Bacon, Hobbes and Locke to Spinoza, lauding them for the empiricism and nominalism: the English thinkers critique metaphysic speculation and open directly the way to materialism. Pierre Bayler in France can be considered the only fellow traveler of British empiricism by his scepticism he dissolves the metaphysics of Spinoza and Leibniz (The Holy Family, 171). The Spinoza criticized here is that of the Ethics understood as a dogmatic treatise of metaphysics which has a "profane content" but it has lost its historical condition. This is no longer the antitheological political Spinoza but the speculative philosopher. Is it necessary to conclude that this is a contradiction on the part of Marx and to forget his previous theses? It is a surprising oversight because that which Marx and Renouvier give credit to Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke can be imputed to Spinoza as well. Everything takes place as if Marx, put off by the metaphysics of the Ethics forgets what he had found in the TTP—and this seems to be a permanent transformation. In fact the contradiction is not only apparent, or, more to the point, it concerns Spinoza himself. Marx does not have as his object an analysis of Spinozism. He uses the latter by breaking it down according to the needs of his task which is at this moment is to study the activity of real man and the possibility of his transformation by bringing together the theoretical humanism of Feuerbach, the French communism and socialism, and the English thinkers who represent this humanism in the domain of practice. "[Metaphysics] will be defeated for forever by materialism which has now been perfected by the work of speculation itself and coincides with humanism. As Feuerbach represented materialism in the theoretical domain, French and English socialism and communism represent materialism in the practical field which now coincides with humanism." (The Holy Family, pg. 168) One can detect in this passage the presence of a schematic of the history of modern philosophy which has echoes of Moses Hess and Ludwig Feuerbach, the two have confronted the problem of the critical comprehension of Hegel and have begun to present a reinterpretation of the grand moments of the history of philosophy after their master. Marx deviates from the interpretation of Hess given in a text which had a particular impact: The Sacred History of Mankind by a Young Disciple of Spinoza (1838). Hess appropriates Spinoza's theory of knowledge and exploits his theory of the imagination to develop a positive sense of social utopia, and overall makes Spinoza the true alternative to Hegel's Christian philosophy. Far from being an acosmism, the theory of substance is the perfect incarnation of the Hebraic idea of the unconditional unity of all. It is paradoxical, the other part, of the interpretation by Renouvier followed by Marx recovers and conceals that of Feuerbach that one can find in the same period in Preliminary Theses for the Reform of Philosophy (1842) and Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843). Marx brushes up against these theses of Feuerbach on Spinoza without reproducing them in their entirety. They make Spinoza an important moment in modern philosophy: at the heart of this movement they make this philosophy an important realization of the humanization of God, Spinoza remains still a speculative philosopher who is at once produces the realization and negation of God. Speculative metaphysics realizes with him its ultimate phase which is determined contradictorily as theism and atheism in the form of pantheism. "Spinoza is the originator of speculative philosophy, Schelling its restorer, Hegel its perfecter."(Thesis 102) Pantheism becomes the only consequential theology in that it anticipates the end of theology in atheism. The Spinozist substance transforms all independent beings into predicates, into attributes of a unique and independent being. God is no longer only a thing thought, it is equally an extended thing (Thesis 3). Spinoza does not make the self-activity of self-consciousness the attribute that unifies and transforms substance into subject. This was Hegel's tour de force but he paid for it with an absolute idealism of spirit since once again spirit prevails over extension and concrete man is subject to abstraction separated from reality of self-consciousness. This inscription of Spinoza in metaphysics is all the more paradoxical because Marx finds in empiricism and British materialism the theses that Feuerbach attributes to Spinoza, and Marx accepts a definition in which materialism coincides with communism. As can be seen in this passage from Principles of the Philosophy of the Future Pantheism is theological atheism or theological materialism; it is the negation of theology while itself confined to the standpoint of theology, for it turns matter, the negation of God, into a predicate or an attribute of the Divine Being. But he who turns matter into an attribute of God, declares matter to be a divine being. The realisation of God must in principle presuppose godliness, that is, the truth and essentiality of the real. The deification of the real, of that which exists materially – materialism, empiricism, realism, and humanism – or the negation of theology, is the essence of the modern era. Pantheism is therefore nothing more than the essence of the modern era elevated into the divine essence, into a religio-philosophical principle. Empiricism or realism – meaning thereby the so-called sciences of the real, but in particular the natural science – negates theology, albeit not theoretically but only practically, namely, through the actual deed in so far as the realist makes the negation of God, or at least that which is not God, into the essential business of his life and the essential object of his activity. However, he who devotes his mind and heart exclusively to that which is material and sensuous actually denies the trans-sensuous its reality; for only that which constitutes an object of the real and concrete activity is real, at least for man. "What I don't know doesn't affect me." To say that it is not possible to know anything of the supersensuous is only an excuse. One ceases to know anything about God and divine things only when one does not want to know anything about them. How much did one know about God, about the devils or angels as long as these supersensuous beings were still objects of a real faith? To be interested in something is to have the talent for it. The medieval mystics and scholastics had no talent and aptitude for natural science only because they had no interest in nature. Where the sense for something is not lacking, there also the senses and organs do not lack. If the heart is open to something, the mind will not be closed to it. Thus, the reason why mankind in the modern era lost the organs for the supersensuous world and its secrets is because it also lost the sense for them together with the belief in them; because its essential tendency was anti-Christian and anti-theological; that is, anthropological, cosmic, realistic, and materialistic. [In the context of the present work, the differences between materialism, empiricism, realism, and humanism are, of course, irrelevant.] Spinoza hit the nail on the head with his paradoxical proposition: God is an extended, that is, material being. He found, at least for his time, the true philosophical expression for the materialistic tendency of the modern era; he legitimated and sanctioned it: God himself is a materialist. Spinoza's philosophy was religion; he himself was an amazing man. Unlike so many others, Spinoza's materialism did not stand in contradiction to the notion of a non-material and anti-materialistic God who also quite consistently imposes on man the duty to give himself up only to anti-materialistic, heavenly tendencies and concerns, for God is nothing other than the archetypal and ideal image of man; what God is and how he is, is what man ought to be or wants to be, or at least hopes to be in the future. But only where theory does not belie practice, and practice theory, is there character, truth, and religion. Spinoza is the Moses of modern free-thinkers and materialists. 4. The anti-metaphysical fury of Marx, the blind submission to Renouvier, limits him in developing an interpretation of the Ethics more nuanced and sensitive to the historical contradictions. This situation is even more strange because it is in The Holy Family that Marx interprets materialist philosophers such that they are a Feuerbachian Spinoza. On can find then three theses that Marx distributes to different representatives of materialism and that can also be imputed to Spinoza. --Thesis 1. Nature is a primary reality, it can be explained by itself without recourse to the principle of a creator. Nothing comes from nothing. One can then have recourse to Bacon for who "the primitive forms of matter are essentially living forms, individuals, and it is they that produce specific differences." He follows, as does Hobbes, in adding that "one cannot separate thought from the matter which thinks." Thought cannot be separated from matter capable of thought. --Thesis 2. The human order is inscribed in a specific manner in nature. This specificity does not specify anything extra-worldly of human activity. Hobbes has demonstrated the sensible nature of activity. "Man is subordinate to the same laws that nature. Power and liberty are identical." The Holy Family) This order is known to promote the art of forming ideas, the human species is fundamentally educatable. ---Thesis 3. What is important is to think the constitution of this human order according to radical possibilities of the ways of transforming these necessary conditions of experience of liberty-power. "If man is unfree in the materialist sense, i.e., is free not through the negative power to avoid this or that, but through the positive power to assert his true individuality, crime must not be punished in the individual, but the anti-social source of crime must be destroyed, and each man must be given social scope for the vital manifestation of his being. If man is shaped by his surroundings, his surroundings must be made human. If man is social by nature, he will develop his true nature only in society, and the power of his nature must be measured not by the power of separate individuals but by the power of society." (The Holy Family 176). It is not necessary to give the history of philosophy presented in The Holy Family a structural importance. It acts as a provisionally constructed polemical text where Marx has given the means for his own philosophical conception in broad strokes in order to better understand the intersection of humanism, materialism, and communism. The incongruence of the treatment of Spinoza, reinterpreted to be behind Feuerbach's position, was not overlooked by Marx's comrades in combat since H. Krieg (himself denounces by Marx in a virulent circular as a confused partisan of religious socialism), he wrote in a letter of June 6, 1845 in order to restore Spinoza's battle against metaphysics overlooked by Marx, "you're probably right about what it says in the English Hobbes and Locke [i.e. that they vacillate contradictorily between materialism and theism], the same for Voltaire and his direct partisans; but Holbach is practically Spinozist, and it is with and Diderot that the Enlightenment reaches its summit and becomes revolutionary." (cited by Maximilien Rubel and his edition of the philosophical texts of Marx titled Philosophie) 5. The instrumental and fluctuating character of the reference to Spinoza as a metaphysician is confirmed precisely by The German Ideology. Marx returns in passing to the place of Spinoza in modern philosophy. Spinoza has developed the principle of substantial immanence but he has not integrated the principle with self-consciousness. Hegel would be the unity of Spinoza and Fichte (The German Ideology, 107). But for Marx this representation consigns him to a partial aspect of the Hegelian synthesis. Self-consciousness is at once a hypostasis of the real activity of human beings in the process of their self-production and the "the real consciousness of the social relations in which they appear to exists and to which they appear to be autonomous." In a similar manner substance is "an ideal hypostatized expression of the world as it exists" that is take as the foundation of the world "existing for itself." Marx returns to Feuerbach for clarification of substance and it anthropological resolution. We do not know much more, but the text seems to distinguish the Hegelian critique of substance and its possible materialist significance as "the existing world." We would have expected considerations on the immanence of modes in natura naturans and of their dynamic interdetermination. In any case, Marx refuses the young Hegelain opposition between self-consciousness and substance, and proposes to maintain the category of substance as an inseparable unity of the existing mode and the beings which constitute the world in the play of their relations. Marx's criticism has as its target the mystification of self-consciousness and its anti-substantial phobia. Everything takes place as if the ontological categories of Spinoza up until now rejected as conservative metaphysics have an intensive force irreducible to the critique of the young Hegelians. However, it remains that in this complex itinerary the use value of the reference to Spinoza is concentrated in the theological political constellation and the political constitution of the political force of social force. This reference becomes the presupposition of the materialist conception of history, but it does not intervene in the texture of these concepts. The Spinoza Reference in the Critique of Political Economy, Substance and Concept Returning to Schrader and his propositions for the study of the second moment of the reference to Spinoza, that of the Marxist use of Spinozist concepts from the Ethics in the development of the critique of political economy in the development of Capital. Schrader pays particular attention to the reappearance in the margins of the reference to Spinoza in the period of the creation and exposition of the critique of political economy which is developed from 1851 to 1863. An important letter from Marx to Lassale from May 31, 1858 which was published in an obscure book on Heraclitus, gives to Spinoza's metaphysics the same status that he gave to Hegel in a famous letter to Engels a few months before. Even among philosophers who give a systematic form to the works, as for example Spinoza, the true inner structure of the system is quite unlike the form in which it was consciously presented. The true system is only present in itself. (Marx MEW, 29, Berlin, 1963, 561).
What was of great use to me as regards method of treatment was Hegel's Logic at which I had taken another look by mere accident... If ever the time comes when such work is again possible, I should very much like to write 2 or 3 sheets making accessible to the common reader the rational aspect of the method which Hegel not only discovered but also mystified. (Correspondence Marx-Engels) Marx makes it clear that the elaboration of the critique passes through the utilization of elements of philosophical works which others appear to have completely bypassed. The presence of Hegel is the center of the interpretation of Capital. It would appear certain to this period that Marx no longer takes inspiration from the Feuerbachian critique of abstract speculation. In this case, the Idea separated from its contents generates the latter in a mystified way by legitimizing the crudest aspects, losing the benefit of seizing the real as a contradictory process, as is explained in The Holy Family or The Poverty of Philosophy. Hegel is from now on solicited for his dialectical discoveries: he elaborates the dialectic as an immanent process of thought and his discoveries serve Marx in developing his proper critique. The presence of Hegel in the period up to the publication of the first volume of Capital in 1867, in passing through diverse manuscripts of 1857-1858 (The Grundrisse) and the manuscripts from 1861-1863, has been attested to and demonstrated by works, either to reaffirm the heretical Hegelianism of Marx, (Rosdolsky, Reichelt, Zelenyi, all dedicated to research the logic of Capital, all following one of the most famous injunctions of all times, Lenin in the Notes on Dialectics) or to combat it in order to argue that Marx was Hegelian or anti-Hegelian (Althusser, and Bidet in his famous study, The Making of Marx's Capital). This usage of Hegel consists essentially in using the categories of logic to expose the theoretical structure of the passages which operate from the commodity to value, from money as the measure of value to money as the means of exchange and as the universal means of payment, from money to capital. Schrader proposes the following recovery of the Marxist exposition of Hegelian categories: --Exchange value and the form of value correspond to the pure quantity of Hegel: this value and its measure is realized as money. The Marxist measure of value adopts the Hegelian determinations of the quantitative relations and their measure. --The circulation of commodities and money is described by the concepts of an infinite qualitative and quantitative process. --Finally the passage from money to capital transposes the passage from being to essence. Marx has thus read and reused these conceptual determinations for the diverse functions of commodity, value, money and circulation. And what about Spinoza? According to Schrader, he intervenes to resolve a logical problem that is at this point unresolved, that of the determination of the concept of capital supposed to integrate the logically preceding determinations. In good Hegelianism, Marx has made the movement of capital that of the essence of the concept. When Marx maintains that exchange value is realized in the circulation of other substances, in an indefinite totality, without losing the determination of its form, always remaining money and commodities, he makes capital the totality of substances. However, it thus impossible to maintain the internal connection between capital and labor, and more precisely abstract labor. Spinoza intervenes to make possible another use of the category of substance: that would not have its function to subsume the plurality of all substances, but to determine the quality of the fluent quantity that defines abstract labor. One can see this in the text of Volume One of Capital, revised by Marx in 1873 for the French translation of J. Roy. The category of substance is introduce in the passage from the commodity to its determination as the contradictory unity of use value and exchange value. The exchange of commodities is only possible if the their values are "expressed in terms of something common to them all, of which thing they represent a greater or less quantities." This something is a substance specific to all commodities. "This common "something" cannot be either a geometrical, a chemical, or any other natural property of commodities…[] it is evident that one makes an abstraction from use value when one exchanges, and that the relation of exchange is characterized by this abstraction (Capital). Exchange and the production process which supports it operate this real abstraction from the useful qualities of the objects to be exchanged. This utility, although necessary, does not render possible the exchange of objects of value insofar as they products of labor. Exchange concerns the objects considered as products of labor. If then we leave out of consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour. But even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use value, we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use value; we see in it no longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract. Capitalism cannot be grasped as a subject enveloping the totality of the process of the development. It is no longer a simple quantity in indefinite expansion. It is thought as the "social substance of as exchange values." This substance can be determined as capital, but it goes beyond this process of determination by constituting a remainder, a "residue" that constantly reappears. "Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation of homogeneous human labour, of labour power expended without regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now tell us is, that human labour power has been expended in their production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are – Values." The concept of Capital is not that of the concept of substance becoming subject., it returns to the concept of social substance defined as abstract labor creator of value, substance of value, and substance which increases value: purely progressive quantity reduced to its infinity which is a true infinity irreducible to the logic of bad infinity, that of capital which nonetheless subsumes it. However it is said that this reconstruction does not rest on an explicit reference to Spinoza. The objection is well founded. Schrader responds that it is Marx who reread Hegel and saw that the formal system of Spinoza could be used against Hegel critique of the concept of substance in the Logic. It is a matter of the problem of determination. Omnis determination negatio, Marx keeps reminding everyone of this. If it is Hegel who validates Spinoza's judgement by demonstrating its insufficiency which for Marx transforms into a sufficient truth to permit him to avoid identifying capital with the Hegelian concept. Capital can increase its reality only by determining this social substance of abstract labor, by negating it. The tendency of capital, its ideal, is the absolute negation of this substance. Marx makes the insufficiency of Spinoza's substance according to Hegel into a virtue. In the Logic the principle according to which determination is negation is recognized as essential. But Spinoza, according to Hegel, remains with determination as limit which is founded on an other being. The mode is in another from which it derives its being but this other is in itself. It is the integral concept of all realities. But its immanence is only apparent. Each mode negates each other, determination of each is the result of the determined negation of all of the others. Far from determining itself in these negations, substance is negated in its absolute indifference. It does not reflect itself in these negations no more than they reflect it. The Spinozist principle does not arrive at absolute negation that it anticipates contradictorily. The substance is posed by an external reflection which compromises the otherwise affirmed subsistence of the determinations which become an effervescent moment (attributes and modes). This can be read in the texts from The Science of Logic dedicated to Spinoza. "Of this proposition that determinateness is negation, the unity of Spinoza's substance — or that there is only one substance — is the necessary consequence. Thought and being or extension, the two attributes, namely, which Spinoza had before him, he had of necessity to posit as one in this unity; for as determinate realities they are negations whose infinity is their unity. According to Spinoza's definition, of which we say more more subsequently, the infinity of anything is its affirmation. He grasped them therefore as attributes, that is, as not having a separate existence, a self-subsistent being of their own, but only as sublated, as moments; or rather, since substance in its own self lacks any determination whatever, they are for him not even moments, and the attributes like the modes are distinctions made by an external intellect. Similarly, the substantiality of individuals cannot persist in the face of that proposition."Hegel, Science of Logic "Since absolute indifference may seem to be the fundamental determination of Spinoza's substance, we may add that this is indeed the case in so far as in both every determination of being, like every further concrete differentiation of thought and extension and so forth, is posited as vanished. If we stop short at the abstraction [of substance] then it is a matter of complete indifference what something looked like in reality before it was swallowed up in this abyss. But when substance is conceived as indifference, it is tied up with the need for determining it and for taking this determination into consideration; it is not to remain Spinoza's substance, the sole determination of which is the negative one that everything is absorbed in it. With Spinoza, the moment of difference — attributes, thought and extension, then the modes too, the affections, and every other determination — is introduced empirically; it is intellect, itself a mode, which is the source of the differentiation." Hegel, Science of Logic 3. It is capital which fails to realize its ideal determinations of essence and which falls back into the residue of the social substance, of the abstract labor which it masks. Capital as a mode of production is ruled by the real abstractions of exchange value which are not comprehended by social agents. Value is a social abstraction that is produced from the base of multiple dispersed evaluations, that the understanding of the economist produces only after the fact, but can be known as a real abstraction operated by society and which is determined as a social substance of abstract time. The determination of the common substance as abstract labor makes it possible to dissipate the mystification produced by the appearance of capital as the self moving essence of value. All of the people, who are modes of this substance, cannot immediately represent to themselves the internal determinations of this substance in which they appear other than as representation of theological-political complex, the same as the agents of capital who cannot represent to themselves the determinations of capital (commodity-value-money-forms of capital) without fetishizing them as autonomous movements of the value form. Theoretical knowledge, the Wissenschaft, does not dissolve this fetishism because the mechanisms of its social reproduction are founded on the constitution of these forms of representation and their real efficacy. Capital cannot arrive at self-identity in terms of an absolute reflection. The determination that Hegel imputes to Spinoza negatively of substance as exterior reflection can better convey the determinations of moments of its critique. This places within the development of initial economic forms this sort of equivalent of the attribute of extension that is human labor, this common social substance comprising the forms of modal representations which capture it, that is to say that the forms of consciousness and their functional relations in the material process of reproduction. It is therefore the relationship between the substances of abstract human labor and mystified or adequate forms of social representations of this substance that Marx finds in in the hidden Spinozian system and that he utilizes in order to escape the limits of Hegel's categories, which tend to sublimate substance into the concept and therefore annul the contradictions of capital in the passage from substance to the essence and the concept. From this point of view, Hegel and Spinoza would both be utilized without reservations by Marx as the complimentary and constitutive means of production of the critique of political economy. Spinoza would thus be primarily critical to the extent that the process of the development of the determination of capital cannot be ruled by the teleological order of being-essence-concept. The theory of the substance of abstract labor interrupts the movement of the idealization of capital from the mimesis of the Hegelian order that has been opposed. Spinoza is a moment of the emendation of the intellect internal to the Marxist critique, not an external instance that would be opposed in the confrontation with exteriority. On an Incomplete Analysis 1. Schrader goes no further. The outline of his work remains open. In particular this analysis Postulates as evidence a substantial theory of abstract labor, one that has come under criticism from multiple non-marxist thinkers (Croce, Pareto, Menger) and also, more recently, by Marxists (Althusser and Bidet). In this case the relation to Spinoza would lose its fecundity. But if one leaves to the side the labor theory of value and its supposed foundational role, on the internal level the analysis still remains allusive, because it would have been necessary to exceed the level of Volume One of Capital in order to demonstrate the decisive character of Spinoza's conceptuality in the Marxist conception. Despite these uncertainties, the perspective opened by Schrader is stimulating in that can necessitate a more rigorous study, tempering the contradictory interpretations by the rigors of philology. 2. Schrader's final remarks seem to us be more provocative. Starting from the idea that Spinoza and Marx begin from two different historical moments—that of manufacturing capital limited by the desire of hoarding and that of capitalism fully developed—the logical and ethico-political thesis of the submission of needs to absolute monetary enrichment, and that therefore the refusal of money as an end in itself, he begins to construct a shocking analogy between the third type of knowledge in Spinoza and the knowledge of the capitalist which exposes its money to circulation in order to multiply it. The determination of particular things sub specie aeternitas, as deepening the knowledge of their essence would symbolize with the effort of capitalists to insert money to measure things in their circulation sub specie capitalis. The reference to Marx attests to the irony of Marx: if the movement of true knowledge is infinite, this infinity cannot be confused with that of monetary accumulation which becomes a bad infinity because the means of accumulation are reversed and perverted to be posited as an end in itself. 3. It is more correct, as Schrader makes apparent, to find a space more effective for the forma mentis common to Marx and Spinoza: the two both diagnosis the pathology of the understanding and that of a form of life proper to a given historical world. Both understand the irreversible character of modern passions and set to understand and eventually cure these pathologies. Spinoza, son of a merchant enriched by international trade and a merchant himself in his youth, does not have contempt for money and the new wealth of nations promoted by capitalist economy. He does not dream of a return to oikos of finite needs in a household setting, he is not an aristoltean who condemns bad infinity of the circulation of merchandise which has as its object money and not the use value of merchandise. He registers the emergence of exchange value, he sees, as Aristotle did, that it is the subordination of true value. Remember the famous text from Ethics IV Appendix, consecrated to the function of money. XXVIII. Now to achieve these things the powers of each man would hardly be sufficient if men did not help one another. But money has provided a convenient instrument for acquiring all these aids. That is why its image usually occupies the mind of the multitude more than anything else. For they can imagine hardly any species of joy without the accompanying idea of money as its cause. XXlX. But this is a vice only in those who seek money neither from need nor on account of necessities, but because they have learned the art of making money and pride themselves on it very much. As for the body, they feed it according to custom, but sparingly, because they believe they lose as much of their goods as they devote to the preservation of their body. Those, however, who know the true use of money, and set bounds to their wealth according to need, live contentedly with little. The realization of money as a concept, the accumulation of money for accumulation, is unrealized. Marx adds that this goal is inaccessible because the character of use value of commodities contradicts the universal sociality of value. The common social substance in so far as it is measured in abstract labor time is measured according to quantitatively determined portions. Money is supposed to represent value in its infinite becoming of an end in itself, but it can only effectively represent a determined part. This contradiction is resolved in the deplacement that money makes in becoming capital, exchange value multiplied in profit. Spinoza's therapeutic of desire also concern the intellect of calculation: the latter is not condemned, it is superior to the intellect of avarice which theorizes by avarita and does not develop the capacity to act and think. This understanding, however, is called upon to better understand the monetary economy by subordinating it to immanent true utility, that which is inscribed in the republic of free citizens. It is only in this sense that the accumulation of wealth under the monetary form can enter into the correct perspective of knowledge of the third kind. Marx in his own way wants to understand the action of human beings without deploring or flattering them. Capital cannot be understood going from substance to the essence of the concept, but it has its basis in substance, the social substance of abstract labor, and can be rethought and regrouped in the forms of economic understanding. Capital also has as its goal a particular therapeutic manner, the health and well-being of a social body that cannot be subsumed under capital but must encompass the increase of the capacities of acting and thinking that capital subordinates to itself. 4. This anti-teleological function of the concept of substance/abstract labor is not maintained by Marx for long in his dialectic. Certainly the function of the subject cannot be attributed to capital, but it is displaced and given a different support, not that of abstract labor with its internal multiplicity and impersonality, but its bearer, that of the working class, the proletariat, the people of the people. The substance of abstract labor becomes subject in the determination that Marx always uses with the English term general intellect. One could thus see a final return of Hegel which interrupts Marx's return to Spinoza. The communism developed by the general intellect is the practical substitute of the Hegelian concept and imposes an anthropological version and anthropocentric teleology that Spinoza would not accept. What does the general intellect represent? It represents the capacity of the proletariat to organize the ensemble of forces defining the collective worker and the cooperation associated with it, under the direction of formation of the factory in the constitution of the unqualified worker, all representing the advance front of the progressive socialization of the social productive forces. Communism is not something that is imposed as a simple moral ideal, it is a product of the real historical process. However, Marx does not escape here the teleologism that he shares with majority of German idealism. The socialization of productive forces—that for Marx leads the process of the self-production of humanity realizing its immanent end and to which he attributes the function of the concept—is not realized at the level of society. It cannot in any way constitute itself as a causa sui. The human world remains a world of world of modal relations and interactions: if the effects of liberation can realize themselves at the level of the individual (by the knowledge of singular things) or at the level of collectivity ( by the democratic constitution of the multitude), these effects would not be made from a mode as a complete cause of itself under all points of view. The capacity of a mode to act and think, human individual or society, can be more or less adequate, but this adequation does not annul the difference that separates the mode which is produced by and in another which it requires to subsist and which is produced in and by itself and becomes a cause of itself. The identity of natura naturata and natura naturans cannot grant a mode the capacity to be cause of itself under all points of view: it permits it to do so under certain points of view and certain conditions which are sufficient for an ethical realization. Communism to the extent that Marx thinks in terms of the becoming concept of the collective worker exceeds the conditions and possibilities of action predicated on modes. To this structural impossibility we can add the consideration of an analytical one: modern society is not immense and singular enterprise under the order of the collective worker, it is, to say the least, a network of antagonistic enterprises in which on the contrary the process of work is fragmented to the point where it loses all material and ideal unity, a fragmentation that has been imposed by the imperative of capitalist society. Exploitation is not only maintained but it is generalized, it is only in compensation that the recomposition of labor process itself as something collective, cooperative, and associated that Marx believes leads the dialectic of the process of capitalist production. Spinozist realism is here irreducible. It does not limited us in taking the measure of the problem posed generally by Marx, it excludes, however, the solution envisioned from speculative teleology and it compels us to attempt to comprehend the modal form in which exploitation is reproduced. How can we form a new theory of the capacity for insurrection of the multitude subordinated to capital while they also resist it. What effects of liberation can still be manifested by producing new subjectivities which are embedded in real productive activities, not prisoners of unproductive ghettos ravaged by self-destructive violence, nor recluse themselves in the powerless rumination of a moral salvation? How can we escape forms of historical impotence? How can we avoid being reduced to the status of spectators of this impotence? Such are the questions posed by Marx and which are posed again today along with Spinoza and his critique of the teleological illusions of the general intellect, questions which have not arrived at the end of their road. But it is historically vain to ask Marx these questions: they are ours and it is up to us to answer them.
"Self-preservation is the first duty of a nation"Alexander Hamilton "The whole point of the doomsday machineis lost if you keep it a secret!!"Dr. Strangelove I) Introducción: El realismo, la moral y la condición humana El realismo político ha sido la teoría de filosofía política de referencia por más de dos mil años y el programa de investigación dominante en las relaciones internacionales en el siglo XX. A pesar de todos sus defectos e imprecisiones, es el paradigma a partir del cual todas las corrientes rivales se han desarrollado. Tanto Holsti (1984) como Viotti y Kauppi (1993) identifican tres grandes paradigmas en RR.II: los enfoques clásicos o realistas, los enfoques pluralistas (ej. liberalismo) y los enfoques globalizadores o neo-marxistas. El paradigma realista ha sido, sin lugar a contestación, la teoría dominante. De manera más que sucinta es posible afirmar que las dos principales escuelas en RR.II, el realismo y el liberalismo, fundan toda su filosofía sobre concepciones opuestas de la condición humana. En última instancia cualquier filosofía política no es más que un "acto de fe", porque, más allá de cualquier validación heurística o de encadenamiento lógico, ser "realista", "liberal" o "marxista", implica una concepción particular del individuo, una forma de creer y ver al Hombre sobre la cual construiremos nuestra visión de la sociedad. El liberalismo es principalmente una filosofía positiva de la condición humana, basada en la libertad, en la racionalidad, en el libre albedrío y en la perfectibilidad social y humana. La perspectiva realista, como se verá a lo largo de este trabajo, parte de suposiciones radicalmente diferentes. Un supuesto central del realismo, mas no el único, es que el hombre anhela, ansía el Poder por encima de todas las cosas. Pero, ahí donde el liberalismo ve un defecto moral destinado a ser reparado o dominado, el realismo no reconoce más que una característica inmanente al individuo. El ansia de poder, para los realistas, no es ni buena ni mala, simplemente es. He aquí una distinción central entre ambas corrientes filosóficas, mientras el liberalismo anhela un mundo como "debería ser", el realista se contenta de observar cómo es el mundo. Esto ha derivado en un par de críticas importantes hacia la escuela realista. La primera es su ausencia de "compás moral"; la segunda, más relevante para este estudio, es su incapacidad para pensar o explicar el cambio. Algo así como si en la teoría realista el individuo (o el sistema internacional para los neorrealistas), careciese de pasado y futuro y estuviese destinado a vivir el presente encorsetado por una fuerza que lo domina: su apetito de poder para los realistas clásicos y la estructura del S.I en el caso de los neorrealistas. Conviene aquí incorporar una primera distinción, así como una aclaración con respecto a la centralidad del argumento depredador de la condición humana presente en el realismo. Con respecto a la aclaración, varios teóricos que han revisado exhaustivamente el "catalogo de pensadores realistas", refutan la idea que el ansia por el poder sea un argumento central al realismo (sí puede ser subsidiario). Tanto Viotti y Kauppi (1993: 6-7) como Vasquez (1983: 18) no encuentran que la naturaleza humana depredadora sea una suposición fundamental del realismo político. Con respecto a la distinción, he aquí una primera diferenciación entre el realismo clásico y el neorrealismo (o realismo estructural). Si bien es cierto que en el neorrealismo, preocupado únicamente por un análisis estructural (distribución de fuerzas y reglas que gobiernan el S.I), la naturaleza humana está ausente de todo análisis, en el realismo clásico, ya sea el de Tucídides, Hobbes o Morgenthau, es difícil edificar cualquier base teórica sin tener recurso, por lo menos como axioma no declarado, a la condición humana. Así lo expone Shimko (1992: 288): "Assumptions about human nature were not merely afterthoughts, excess intellectual baggage, or flowery rhetorical flourishes; they were the cornerstone of the classical realist analysis of political conflict". Y en palabras de George Kennan, sobre si la divina providencia había protegido o no al pueblo estadounidense de las tentaciones del fascismo propias a otros pueblos: "Unfortunately, I know that is not true…the fact of the matter is that there is a little bit of totalitarian buried somewhere, way down deep, in each and every one of us" (Kennan, 1967:319 en Shimko, 1992:289). El realismo clásico no asume que la moral está ausente de las RR.II, como erróneamente a menudo se expone, sino que argumenta que toda acción basada en la moral es contraproducente a los intereses del estado, principalmente a su seguridad y supervivencia. Es su fundamental oposición al idealismo moral lo que ha en parte dado su nombre al realismo clásico, que se inscribe antes que nada como un enfoque teórico reaccionario al idealismo (Forde, 1995: 143). La manipulación de principios morales sólo puede debilitar la política exterior y conducir a situaciones catastróficas porque, plantean los realistas, las normas que gobiernan el S.I nada tienen que ver con la moral y, con respecto a la condición humana, negar su naturaleza es un acto de ceguera. Así lo explica Morgenthau cuando critica la intervención de los Estados Unidos en la primera guerra mundial "The invocation of abstract moral principles was in part hardly more than an innocuous pastime; for embracing everything it came to grips with nothing. In part, however, it was a magnificent instrument for marshaling public opinion in support of war and warlike policies- and for losing the peace to follow. The intoxications with moral abstractions…has become the prevailing substitute for political thought, is indeed one of the great sources of weakness and failure in American foreign policy" (Morgenthau, 1950: 834). Para Morgenthau, los intereses morales están totalmente divorciados del interés nacional. El único acto verdaderamente inmoral, para los realistas clásicos, es actuar en contra de los intereses racionales del estado. II) El núcleo duro del realismo político Antes de lanzarse al estudio de la escuela realista, de sus principales aportes así como de las críticas que se le han realizado, conviene detenerse brevemente en los postulados centrales que han hecho del programa de investigación del realismo político uno de los más fecundos de las RR.II . En complemento al falsacionismo popperiano, Imre Lakatos (1980) desarrolla la idea del programa de investigación como medio para hacer avanzar el conocimiento científico. Lakatos afirma que el progreso científico no se alcanza únicamente a través de la refutación, sino igualmente, y sobretodo, a partir de la confirmación de conjeturas audaces. La ciencia no progresa automáticamente a través del rechazo de teorías, es más, Lakatos avanza que, para que un programa de investigación pueda progresar es necesario preservar un "núcleo duro" de supuestos fundamentales que serán centrales en el desarrollo de cada programa. Este núcleo duro del programa de investigación es, por decisión metodológica, infalsificable (Lakatos, 1980:112). El núcleo estará rodeado por una "cintura protectora", un conjunto de teorías e hipótesis (derivadas de los supuestos del núcleo duro), destinada a explicar los hechos observados así como predecir nuevos. La validación de estas teorías fortalecerá el núcleo, pero su rechazo, y he aquí una de las innovaciones metodológicas de Lakatos, no invalidará el conjunto del programa de investigación. Un programa será rechazado únicamente cuando un programa rival demuestre un mayor "poder heurístico". ¿Cuál es entonces el núcleo duro del realismo político?, ese conjunto de supuestos infalsificables que, a la manera de axiomas o dogmas, sustentan toda la construcción teórica del programa de investigación del realismo y que están más allá de cualquier cuestionamiento ontológico. Dependiendo de los autores, 3, 4 o hasta 5 son los "dogmas" realistas. Sin embargo, conviene aclarar que no todos los autores realistas adhieren ciegamente a la integralidad de estos supuestos a la manera de un tipo ideal weberiano. Como ya dije, el supuesto de la "naturaleza humana", por ejemplo, es cuestionado. Asimismo, algunos autores resaltan algunos principios por sobre otros. Sin embargo, a pesar de ciertas disensiones entre teóricos sobre el tratamiento y alcance de cada uno de estos axiomas, existe un consenso sobre la centralidad de estas cuestiones en la teoría realista. A mi entender, el realismo político se sustenta en los siguientes principios. A) Los estados son los actores principales de las RR.II; B) El estado es unitario y racional; C) El interés nacional, entendido en términos de seguridad nacional, debe ser la principal preocupación del estado y guiar su política exterior (Los estados buscan el poder); D) La anarquía es la norma que regula el accionar de los estados en el Sistema Internacional. Los tres primeros principios resurgen en prácticamente todos los teóricos realistas como los tres axiomas centrales (y únicos para algunos) del realismo político. Por otra parte, la centralidad del argumento de la anarquía dependerá en gran medida de si la consideramos o no como una característica secundaria o derivada del primer supuesto (el mundo es anárquico porque está compuesto sólo por estados soberanos). Veremos igualmente que si bien la anarquía no es un principio central para la mayor parte de los realistas clásicos como Tucídides o Hobbes, ya que no existiría "de por sí", la anarquía sí representa para los neorrealistas un supuesto fundamental. Ciertos teóricos, inclusive dentro de la escuela realista, han considerado que la anarquía del S.I ha sido por momentos "exagerada" y que existen en los hechos ciertas reglas, normas y mecanismos de cooperación que limitan y regulan el accionar de los estados. En este caso, el concepto de anarquía no sería un supuesto central del realismo. Vasquez (1883: 18) propone que otra suposición central al realismo es que existe una clara distinción entre la política doméstica y la política internacional, y que las relaciones internacionales representan una lucha por el poder y la paz. Entender como funciona esa dinámica, y encontrar formas o normas para dominarla, debe ser el propósito de la disciplina de las relaciones internacionales. Los estados son los actores principales de las RR.II: Otros actores no estatales, transnacionales o internacionales no son tan importantes, principalmente porque no ejercen el monopolio de la violencia interna o no tienen la capacidad de representar una amenaza física a la integridad del estado. Actores como las organizaciones internacionales (N.U, OTAN), no son sujetos de análisis importante ya que están compuestas por estados soberanos e independientes y, por lo tanto, no son autónomos de las partes que los componen. El estado es unitario: Por unitario se entiende que el estado es una única unidad política, soberana sobre su propio territorio. Independientemente de los diferendos internos o de los procesos de negociación políticos o burocráticos que puedan existir, el estado sólo tiene una posición en el concierto internacional. El estado es racional: Los realistas asumen que el estado siempre adoptará la decisión más eficiente, dados los recursos y capacidades disponibles y en un contexto de incertidumbre e información incompleta, para alcanzar sus objetivos (Legro y Moravcsik, 1999: 12). La racionalidad del estado pasa, para los realistas, casi exclusivamente por garantizar su seguridad y buscar el poder. La racionalidad del estado no puede desasociarse de la naturaleza de anarquía del S.I. Es sólo a través de la respuesta racional del estado ante las condiciones de anarquía internacional, que el realismo puede pretender establecer pautas y regularidades en el comportamiento, necesarias al establecimiento de una ciencia que explique comprensivamente el accionar de los estados (Forde, 1995: 145). Un concepto interesante es el de la naturaleza de las preferencias del estado o, dicho de otra manera, del interés nacional. Se tratará este tema en detalle más adelante, pero valga aquí una primera aclaración. El realismo, al asumir que las preferencias de los estados son fijas y mutualmente excluyentes o conflictivas (la seguridad o la búsqueda del poder), se aleja de la "tentación reduccionista" de buscar las causas de la acción del estado en los procesos domésticos de formación y negociación de preferencias, así como de las interpretaciones moralistas, utópicas o legalistas de la naturaleza de la política internacional (Legro y Moravcsik, 1999:14). El realismo propone entonces que las RR.II son un perpetuo proceso de negociación sobre la conquista, distribución y redistribución de recursos y bienes escasos. III) Poder, Sistema y Seguridad Dos cuestiones son centrales al pensamiento realista: el Poder y el Sistema. Ambos conceptos pueden ser pensados desde una perspectiva estática o dinámica. El poder estático representaría el conjunto de atributos o capacidades, militares, económicos, tecnológicos, diplomáticos y otros que posee un estado. El Poder dinámico debe ser pensado, no como un absoluto, sino como la capacidad de influenciar el accionar de otros estados. En este sentido, la influencia de un estado en el plano internacional no depende únicamente de su dotación objetiva de poder, sino de a) su voluntad de usar dicho poder, b) la percepción que los otros estados tengan de su voluntad a utilizar dicho poder, c) su influencia efectiva sobre otros estados (Viotti y Kauppi, 1993: 44). Es innegable que para muchos realistas el poder es la principal herramienta de presión para influenciar el resultado de la negociación interestatal y que este resultado es proporcional al total de las capacidades materiales (Legro y Moravcsik), 1999: 17). En otras palabras, en un mundo entre iguales (estados soberanos) los poderosos tienen más opciones que los débiles, cuya única opción a menudo es sufrir la dominación del más fuerte. El primero en expresar esta idea, dos mil años antes que Maquiavelo, fue Tucídides en su Historia de la Guerra del Peloponeso, en el famoso diálogo de los Melios, cuando los emisarios atenienses advierten a los melios (libro V: verso 89): "…lo saben ustedes tan bien como nosotros, la justicia sólo forma parte del razonamiento humano cuando las fuerzas en presencia son iguales, de lo contrario, los fuertes ejercen su poder y los débiles deben inclinarse ". En relación al concepto de sistema, una corriente minoritaria (principalmente behaviorista), ve al sistema como un conjunto de interacciones entre el estado y otros actores no estatales. La corriente mayoritaria, entiende el sistema como las diferentes distribuciones de capacidades o de poder entre los estados y las normas que regulan dichas relaciones, principalmente: la anarquía y la incertidumbre (Viotti y Kaupi, 1993: 45-46). Por los tanto, los realistas ven el mundo como una competencia constante por recursos limitados. Lo que cuenta no son las capacidades absolutas, sino el cambio relativo en las capacidades de los actores (Schweller, 1997: 928). Para reflexionar sobre la idea de seguridad y como ésta resulta indisociable de las nociones de poder y sistema, conviene profundizar sobre la brevemente mencionada noción de anarquía, para así reconstruir el encadenamiento lógico del realismo. La anarquía, pieza clave en el entendimiento de la teoría realista implica que, en un sistema internacional compuesto por estados soberanos y autónomos, no existe autoridad superior a la de los estados. La anarquía conlleva que no existe jerarquía entre los estados en el S.I. Si bien es cierto que hay estados más poderosos que otros, y he aquí la diferencia entre autoridad y poder, ningún estado tiene una autoridad superior, ningún derecho legal a gobernar a otro por el solo hecho de ser más poderoso. De esta visión de un mundo anárquico, podemos extrapolar por lo menos dos aspectos importantes que se relacionan con la falta de confianza, o la desconfianza preventiva en la que incurren los actores de las RR.II. y que afectará la seguridad de los estados y del sistema. El primero es que el estado sólo puede contar consigo mismo ya que no existe una autoridad central (a la imagen del Leviatán de Hobbes), capaz de hacer respetar las reglas y compromisos acordados a nivel internacional. Por lo tanto, los estados se encuentran en una situación de self-help. El segundo punto derivado de la anarquía del sistema es lo que ha pasado a denominarse como el dilema de seguridad, que funciona de la siguiente manera: en un contexto de desconfianza y self-help, un estado procederá a armarse para preservar su seguridad frente a cualquier posible amenaza. El dilema radica en que mientras un estado más se arma (aunque sus intenciones sean puramente defensivas), más amenaza la seguridad de terceros estados, quienes, desde una óptica puramente racional, recurrirán a un proceso similar para defenderse de cualquier posible amenaza del primer estado (es la lógica detrás de cualquier carrera armamentística). Así lo expone Waltz (1988: 619): "The uneasy state of affairs is exacerbated by the familiar security dilemma, wherein measures that enhance one state´s security typically diminish that of others. In an anarchic domain, the source of one´s own comfort is the source of another worry". En virtud de la anarquía del sistema internacional, por más que todos los actores conscientemente busquen la paz, la racionalidad del estado (salvaguardar su seguridad) lo conducirá a la única alternativa posible: igualar o superar el armamento rival. Así es como Tucídides explica la guerra entre Atenas y Esparta. Esparta, temerosa del aumento del poder militar ateniense se lanzó en su propia campaña de alianzas para contrarrestar cualquier cambio desfavorable en el balance de poder. Dadas las condiciones del sistema y la naturaleza de los actores que acabo de enunciar, los teóricos, realistas y otros, han pretendido siempre encontrar la fórmula mágica que garantice un S.I más seguro. Parte de esos esfuerzos tienen que ver con el estudio de la teoría de juegos que, aplicada al estudio de las relaciones internacionales, intenta descifrar los diferentes escenarios de cooperación y conflicto, las normas, los incentivos o las amenazas que provocarán determinados comportamientos (siempre entendidos desde la perspectiva de un actor racional) y promoverán la seguridad o la inseguridad en el S.I. Los escenarios más conocidos son los de la "caza del ciervo" de J. J Rousseau, y el dilema del prisionero. El problema de aplicar la teoría de juegos a las relaciones entre estados radica en que, para que la estrategia sea exitosa (o sea, que todos los casos posibles de "jugadas" puedan ser previstos), la información con que cuentan los actores debe ser perfecta (Wagner, 1983: 345). Sin embargo, para los realistas, y en particular para los neorrealistas, la incertidumbre es parte central de la estructura en el S.I. A menudo, los estados actúan como "cajas negras" que proveen escasa o nula información otra que el resultado directo de sus políticas exteriores (Glaser, 1997: 195). Una pregunta interesante es la de saber si ¿el dilema de seguridad es una resultante de la naturaleza del sistema o, si por el contrario, es construido por los estados? Para Alexander Wendt (1995: 73), uno de los principales teóricos de la escuela constructivista, el dilema de la seguridad, así como la idea de anarquía, no están dados por el sistema o por la "naturaleza", sino que son construcciones sociales. Para él, el dilema de seguridad es producto de percepciones intersubjetivas de los estados que, impregnados de una desconfianza generalizada, asumen siempre lo peor en las intenciones de los otros actores. Si, como asume Wendt, el dilema de la seguridad es una creación, o más bien una percepción de los estados, estaría también en ellos la posibilidad de llevar adelante políticas que eviten crear dicho dilema. La respuesta realista ha sido en parte de argumentar que los constructivistas, así como los liberales, magnifican el nivel de competición y conflicto en la teoría realista. Sería más correcto afirmar que muchos realistas (principalmente los realistas defensivos) no ven a los estados como entidades ontológicamente agresivas e identificadas negativamente con la seguridad de otros, sino más bien como actores egoístas, y, por lo tanto, indiferentes a la seguridad ajena, salvo en los casos en que esta los afecte negativamente (Glaser, 1997: 197). La anarquía y la incertidumbre del S.I, ligadas al dilema de la seguridad, han provocado un quiebre de la escuela neorrealista entre los defensores de un realismo ofensivo y los que apoyan un realismo defensivo. Tanto los neorrealistas ofensivos como defensivos parten de los mismos supuestos, algunos de los cuales comparten con los realistas clásicos: los estados poderosos son los principales actores de las RR.II (en esto difieren de los realistas clásicos); los estados son racionales (maximizan sus recursos para alcanzar sus objetivos, en este caso su seguridad) y, producto de la anarquía y de la incertidumbre del S.I, nunca pueden estar del todo seguros de las intenciones de los otros estados y se encuentran entonces en una situación de sef-help; por lo tanto, la principal preocupación de los estados es asegurar su seguridad y supervivencia (security seekers), es decir, minimizar la probabilidad de ser conquistados o destruidos por otros actores; por último, para asegurar su seguridad en el contexto de self-help, los estados procederán a armarse y contarán con capacidades ofensivas y defensivas. Los realistas ofensivos mantienen que los estados intentarán siempre maximizar el poder, mientras que los realistas defensivos proponen que los estados buscan antes que nada mantener el status quo y, por lo tanto, buscarán balancear el poder dentro del sistema internacional. John Mearsheimer (2001) ha sido el principal proponente del realismo ofensivo, mientras que Kenneth Waltz y Stephen Walt del realismo defensivo. Este debate ha provocado la emergencia de una teoría relacionada con el balance entre las estrategias defensivas y ofensivas. Los teóricos se han abocado a estudiar si es posible separar ambas estrategias (en particular en un contexto de supremo desarrollo tecnológico) y si las variaciones entre ofensa-defensa pueden alterar las probabilidades de la guerra y de la competencia en materia de seguridad. Esta teoría, desarrollada en los años 70, ha sido utilizada exhaustivamente para explicar los diferentes escenarios de cooperación y conflicto, las carreras armamentísticas o el control del armamento, la formación de alianzas o las formas óptimas de disuasión, e igualmente para estudiar si los estados buscan ganancias absolutas o relativas. La teoría ofensa/defensa (Offense-Defense Theory ) plantea que existe un balance entre ofensa y defensa que determinará la eficacia relativa de las estrategias de seguridad ofensivas y defensivas. Las variaciones en las dotaciones de ofensa y defensa afectarán los patrones de las relaciones internacionales y de la política exterior. La teoría avanza que el conflicto internacional y la guerra son más factibles de ocurrir cuando la ofensiva lleva la ventaja, mientras que la paz y la cooperación más factibles cuando la defensa tiene ventaja (Lynn-Jones, 1995: 660-661). En materia de seguridad y de relacionamiento internacional, los estados tiene dos estrategias básicas (o una combinación de las dos) para maximizar su seguridad: ofensivas o defensivas. La opción defensiva implica que el estado intenta defender el territorio y los recursos que controla e imposibilitar así cualquier tentativa de conquista sobre su territorio. La estrategia defensiva asume igualmente que dicho estado no busca expandirse, conquistar o destruir un estado rival. La estrategia ofensiva, por el contrario, utiliza la conquista militar para aumentar los recursos del estado, conquistar, intimidar o someter a otros estados que puedan representar una amenaza para el primero. Igualmente, a través de la expansión agresiva, el estado busca cimentar su fortaleza defensiva Lynn-Jones, 1995: 665). Para los ofensivos, la incertidumbre de las acciones contrarias, así como la capacidad de cualquier estado de contar en cualquier momento con determinadas capacidades ofensivas, lleva a que la mejor manera para sobrevivir en un estado de anarquía, sea la de ganar poder a expensas de un estado contrario (Mearsheimer, 2001: 31). El realismo ofensivo parte del supuesto que los estados buscan antes que nada (o exclusivamente) garantizar su seguridad y supervivencia (security seekers) y consideran a los otros estados rivales como agresores en potencia y deben por lo tanto asegurarse ganancias de poder relativas. Mearsheimer argumenta que los estados buscan maximizar su posición de poder relativa ya que la seguridad depende grandemente de la ventaja militar de un estado sobre otro (Mearsheimer, 1994: 11). Esto tiene dos consecuencias, la primera es que la noción de poder es relacional (o dinámica) para los neorrealistas y la segunda es que bajo esta suposición, el dilema de la seguridad corre el riesgo de agravarse. Para los neorrealistas defensivos, esta visión es errónea. Argumentan que el nivel de inseguridad se reduce cuando los estados adoptan una posición defensiva, o más precisamente, cuando el ratio defensa/ofensa aumenta. Una clara ventaja ofensiva hará que la expansión o la conquista sea más factible, provocando el comportamiento agresivo de los estados "codiciosos" y aumentando el dilema de la seguridad. Contrariamente, una fuerte posición defensiva hace de la conquista una posibilidad más remota y aumenta la seguridad colectiva (Montgomery, 2006: 156). Ciertos autores han criticado la offense-defense theory porque consideran que es imposible determinar el balance entre ofensa/defensa porque todas las armas modernas pueden ser utilizadas, casi sin excepción, tanto en una estrategia ofensiva como defensiva (Mearsheimer, 1994: 23). Por lo tanto, si no es posible determinar el ratio ofensa/defensa, la teoría carecería de aplicación práctica. En respuesta a estas críticas, los defensores de este enfoque han argumentado que resulta irrelevante el tipo de arma utilizado (ofensiva o defensiva), lo que cuenta y debe ser objeto de medida o evaluación, es la capacidad de las fuerzas atacantes de derrotar a las fuerzas defensivas (Glaser, 1997:199). En ese caso, podríamos preguntarnos ¿qué pasa, o qué es necesario para que una fuerza defensiva superior se transforme en fuerza ofensiva? *Este artículo fue presentado en la 9° sesión el Seminario Interno de Discusión Teórica 2013, organizado por el Departamento de Estudios Internacionales de la Universidad ORT Uruguay. Germán Clulow es Licenciado en Estudios Internacionales por la Universidad ORT –Uruguay, Master en Ciencia Política por la Université de Genève – Suiza, y Master en Estudios de Desarrollo por el Instituto de Altos Estudios Internacionales y de Desarrollo (IHEID-The Graduate Institute) Ginebra, Suiza.
In: Gratchev , D A 2004 , ' Problematika termina abstraktnyj avtor i charakternye certy abstraktnych avtorov v russkich bol'sich narrativach 20-30-ch godov XX veka ' , Doctor of Philosophy .
This study is based on the twin exigencies of introducing the concept of abstract author into the scheme of narrative construction, and distinguishing sharply between this object of analysis and the concepts of concrete author and narrator. In accordance with the definition advanced by Wolf Schmid, whose vision on the issues of narrative instances appears most judicious, the abstract author ('der abstrakte Autor') can be defined as 'the principle that, in a work, determines the articulatory layer, the semantic layer, and the layer of the objectivity deployed, as well as the aesthetic organisation and the hierarchy of these layers in the total structure in one specific way' ('dasjenige Prinzip, das in einem Werk die sprachlautliche Schicht, die Bedeutungsschicht und die Schicht der dargestellten Gegenständlichkeiten sowie die ästhetische Organisation und Hierarchie dieser Schichten in der Gesamtstruktur so und nicht anders beschaffen sein lässt', Schmid 1973. S.24). More succinctly and generally, the abstract author (henceforth: AA) is the principle according to which the meaning of a literary work is constructed. If we wish to switch from phenomenological to structuralist terminology, we can define the AA as the construction principle of the paradigmatic elements of the work. Thus the AA is fundamentally distinguished from both the concrete author and from the narrator in whose name (voice) the story is being told – itself a creation of the AA. This means that the latter is not directly represented in the text, in view of the fact that it is a reconstructed virtual construction. Naturally, this aspect of the AA considerably complicates a study devoted to the reconstruction of various types of AAs as regards concrete literary texts (in our case, great Russian prose forms from the 1920s and 1930s) in view of the fact that it cannot be based on the principle of the reconstruction according to which the AA must be reconstructed. Taking into account that a) no single reconstruction principle could ever be exhaustively explained, and b) various interpretations of facts and motives are possible even within a single analytical doctrine, the final result of this kind of reconstruction will unavoidably contain fairly controversial or debatable aspects. In principle, a certain objectivity could be achieved by blending a large number of different analytical strategies in order to arrive at a reconstruction of the AA, but in view of the fact that this kind of undertaking is not able to be carried out within the framework of a dissertation project, one is obliged to accept a priori a certain sketchiness in the results obtained. As regards methodology, we considered it better to base our undertaking on a structuralistic approach. This does not mean, however, that we regard structuralism as a methodological panacea. Our choice was ultimately determined by the fact that the conclusions reached on the basis of structuralistic analysis are highly illustrative, in the sense that the mechanism of deduction can be represented in the form of logically unambiguous causality. At points where the conclusions of the structuralistic approach appeared to us to be incomplete representations of a work's meaning, we resorted to other approaches. In order to analyse texts from the period in question (the 1920s and 1930s) we applied an analysis model first presented by B. A. Uspensky, and subsequently elaborated by W. Schmid, albeit it with a few specifications, which will be discussed shortly. The Uspensky-Schmid model is based on the division and analysis of the narrative into five levels: spatial, temporal, phraseological, psychological and ideological. It is a rather economic and practical scheme which provides a thorough analysis. Our refinement refers only to the last, ideological, level. We recognize J. Lintvelt's view (Lintvelt 1981) which does not see this as a separate layer, basing his argument on its intertwining with other levels. However, W. Schmid insisted on its retention, indicating that it could also manifest itself independently of the other levels, namely, as a direct, explicit evaluation. In this case the ideological level is then a facultative phenomenon only functional in the narrative scheme of the text when there are explicit ideological utterances. We propose using an old definition of ideology set down by A. J. Greimas and J. Courtés, who, in Sémiotique. Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langue (1979), define ideology as the syntagmatic aspect of the taxonomic concept of axiology. The acceptance of this definition brings with it a number of important consequences: 1) In view of the fact that the narrative text, a product of subjective consciousness, inevitably consists of axiologically meaningful relationships, the axiological level is an immanent element of every narrative text, independent of explicitly manifested ideological rhetoric. 2a) Regardless of its intertwining with the syntagmatics of other narrative levels, there is still the possibility of a paradigmatic reconstruction of the ideology, based on the axiomatics of these narrative levels. 2b) If the analysis of the other four levels is correctly executed, the ideology component will inevitably be the most concise, since it merely summarises all the conclusions that are drawn from analyses of the other levels and brings them into the required equilibrium. After all, to formulate it slightly differently, analysis means the exposure of the axiologically meaningful relationships that have been imposed on the text by the abstract author. Additionally, the mutual hierarchy of the narrative instances must be further determined, a specification one must consistently take into account as one reconstructs the AA. The point at issue here is the more detailed determination of the hierarchical dispositions of instances of abstract author and abstract reader due to Bely's death? Should Moscow be supplemented by the novel Petersburg by the same author because it is apparently symmetrical to Moscow? In that case, should we not also expand the notion of the analysed text to include the novel The silver dove, the first part of an unwritten trilogy of which the novel Petersburg is the second part, etc.? Such questions are allied to the concept of text itself and can arise in infinite shapes and quantities; it is clear that the AA's structure depends on how we respond to them. In our opinion the answers to such questions fall within the competency of the abstract reader who is, par excellence, sensitive to the literary work's nuances in meaning. For this reason we suggest representing the relationship between the abstract author and the abstract reader as an opposition between the principle to be reconstructed and the reconstructing principle, which presupposes a corresponding hierarchical disposition between both. Furthermore, more precision is needed with respect to the analytical methods used in this study. Taking into account the fact that, ideally, the perfectly accurate researcher should concur with the abstract reader, as outlined above, it is useful to call to mind the following aspects: a) the infinitely great competency of the abstract reader with regard to all intertextual connections of a given work and with regard to all meaningful connections, in all their variations, of the work with the extra-literary world – from social-political realia to the psychic circumstances of the concrete author. b) the infinite analytical flexibility of the abstract reader who uses the greatest possible quantity of analytical methods in his interpretative strategy, aiming at the most complete reconstruction of the AA. In view of the fact that, within the framework of a rather restricted study, it is not possible to present a more or less complete description of the AA of even a single work by means of the methodology of even a single analytical approach, it is advisable to limit the analysis to a single feature, albeit one that is shared by the majority of the chosen texts. This means we have mainly confined our efforts to the particular construction which governed the generation of the selected individual texts and which we could provisionally indicate as the abstract meta-author. We believe that the principle of negative anthropology, which – at least regarding Russian literature – was new in the first third of the twentieth century and which contains the denial or explicit 'denigration' of all manifestations of the specifically human, constitutes this kind of integral concept. We must emphasis that this concept – at least in its basic features – is not a twentieth-century invention. However, it does form a sharp contrast with literature of the nineteenth century imbued with humanism. For the analysis of this attitude, large-scale works of prose (novels, short stories) were chosen as the most representative for the 1920s and 1930s. The basis of the selection was the pursuit of maximum diversity with regard to ideology (in the narrowest sense of the word), genre and stylistics, and pragmatics. Taking their fundamental principles into account, the texts were chosen from the following literary movements or paradigms: (post)symbolism (Bely, Moscow), skaz (Klyèkov, Èertuxinskij balakir'), (post)modernism (Nabokov, The Gift), socialist realism (Gaidar, The Tale of the Military Secret). During the course of the analysis it became clear that the following two fundamental constructive principles that nourish the concept of negative anthropology could be identified in the above-mentioned texts. The essence of the matter is that W. Booth (Booth 1961) recognised the usefulness of designing a system of narrative hierarchy within communicative interaction. He defined a receptive side for each of the positions: in his scheme, the concrete author (Flesh-and-Blood Author) was correlated to the concrete reader (Fleshand- Blood Re-Creator), the narrator (or, in his terminology, Teller of This Story) was correlated to the fictive reader (Credulous Listener), and, finally, the abstract author (Implied Author) was correlated to the Postulated Reader, or the 'abstract reader', as Wolf Schmid would refer to him later. In Schmid's view, the abstract reader is the 'ideal recipient of the author', a definition with which we entirely agree. In our opinion, however, this does not apply to the phylogenetic constituent of this concept as Schmid tends to present it. In his view, the picture of the abstract reader seems to be determined in advance by the corresponding structural configurations of the work; in other words, it is a more or less passive communicative duplication of the AA. However, further examination indicates that in the reasoning in question the objectivity of the semantic configurations in the text is implicitly postulated; in other words, there is a presumption that the full (all-embracing) meaning of the work is not only given a priori but is also materially present in the text components themselves. In reality, however, the full meaning (and here we concur with W. Iser) is realised by the reader who fills in, as it were, the gaps in meaning intentionally or unintentionally embedded in the work by the author. In theory, there are an infinitely large number of such gaps and, correspondingly, every time a reader fills in a different number or group of gaps one can speak of a different structure of the total meaning of the work. Only God is capable of filling in all the gaps, making Him the most ideal recipient to figure in all models of narrative instances according to the communicative model. Nonetheless, we must also take into consideration the possibly less obvious fact that the text whose meaning is to be reconstructed in the analysis is not a protoplasmic entity but the product of certain conventions or analytic procedures. Both the conventions and the analytic procedures applied to the text belong to the competencies of the abstract reader. We shall explain this in more detail below. When dealing with, for example, Pushkin's novel Yevgeny Onegin, it is clear that the text itself provides no answer to the question whether this work has been completed. Our decision to regard this work as finished or unfinished affects its significance and, correspondingly, the picture of the AA. In our opinion, the instance of the abstract reader is responsible for the decision concerning the boundaries of the text; in other words, the decision to limit interpretative activity to eight chapters, or ten, or to state, as a matter of principle, that the work has only one boundary – a beginning. In each of these cases, the complete meaning of the work will have a different structure. The same argument can be applied with regard to varying editions of one and the same work. Consider the case of collected stories. How can one correctly determine this text's boundaries? Should we reconstruct each story's AA, so that something like a portrait gallery is created, or is it more sensible to regard a collection of stories as a single text and to reconstruct an integral AA on the basis of all the stories? Or, as in the case of the novel Moscow by Andrei Bely analysed in this dissertation: is it valid to regard the three sections of this work as separate texts – after all, they were published as separate books at different times, and the stylistic variations are evident? Is it valid to speak about an AA as a self-contained concept in view of the fact that the novel actually remained unfinished 1. Space destabilisation In view of the fact that it is only through history that man realises himself as an intrinsic integrity, he is most easily marginalised in the most unequivocal, i.e., most effective, way in a universe in which history in the usual sense of the term is seriously problematised by spatio-temporal ambivalence. The spatio-temporal continuum evaporates in this set-up, which may manifest itself in various ways but essentially involves the same mechanism. In some texts, normally seen as belonging to the modernistic paradigms (in our case, Moscow, Èertuxinskij balakir', The Gift), a destabilisation of the normal world view has occurred and this is more or less evident to the reader: the attributes of a certain point in space can easily belong to a different point, just as the attributes of a certain object can turn out to be the attributes of a different object. One spatial area can be projected upon a different spatial area, and, in such cases, the boundaries between the areas become so transparent that distinction between them is no longer possible. All objects and points in this kind of space enter, as it were, into relationships of mutual equivalence, or if we regard it in semiotic terms, all objects enter into relationships of crosswise reference without having an unambiguously phraseable singular denotation. Another way to destabilise space, however paradoxical it may sound, is by structuring space by means of mythopoetic patterns. We believe that mythopoetic structures occur in every narrative text, which seems largely self-evident. In view of the fact that in narrative texts we deal with subjectivity pur sang, it is perfectly logical that this subjectivity will lend varying axiological colour to the different segments of space. In conjunction with our cognitive schemes, i.e., the structure of our brains, this colour is generated according to the principle of binary opposition. In this way each narrative space has an axiological marking on the basis of duality (high-low, here-there, citycountry, etc.), for which in historical terms the priority lies with the myth as the first (spontaneous) project in human history to be given structure. The issue is merely one concerning the extent to which this mythopoetic – or as one may prefer, quasimythopoetic – scheme becomes manifest, and even the rather confined analysis we have performed demonstrates that this is largely the situation in Russian prose of the 1920s and 1930s. It is understandable that in both cases space destabilisation results in the elimination of the human subject. In the former case, when space is characterised by a high degree of relativity, man adopts in a metonymic way space's capacity to undergo all kinds of metamorphoses whose degree of radicalness can vary: from the possibility of metempsychosis, as in the case of the reincarnated protagonists in Nabokov's The Gift, to the division of protagonists in a synchronous system of look-alikes, of which each one has a role in the distinction of meaning and which only begin to acquire consolidated meaning when they have been conceptually united (cf. the Korobkin brothers, Mandro – Dromarden, Lizaša – Leonora, and Kierko – Titelev in Moscow; Ul'jana – Maria in Èertuxinskij balakir'; the whole herd of doubles in The Gift). In the latter case, when space has been structured according to the myth, for a number of reasons man is also eliminated: a) man, as we know him, necessarily realises himself in history (only God realises himself in infinity), whereas myth knows no linearity and therefore no history. Thus only a certain notion of man or a model of subjectivity can possibly realise itself in myth, but not man as such b) the concept of realisation itself (of man or of other objects that occupy mythical space) is weakened here by virtue of the fact that determinism rules in myth – a genuine paradigmatic formation – which substantially weakens the independence and the responsibility of the protagonists somehow engaged in realising themselves c) which also directly combines points a) and b): myth, which does not recognise the singularity of here and now, does not accommodate the aspect of subjectivity, which is a constitutive element of man (and without this relationship, there can be no subjectivity). 2. Theatricalisation of narrative space An important factor in the construction of the great narrative forms of this period is the theatricalisation of space: in some cases the accent is placed on an analogous segmentation of space (Gaidar) when, for example, the entire adventurous part of the narrative is linked to a concrete topos, while the lyrical part, as a whole, is connected to another area, etc.; in other words, the narrative space, just as in theatre space, is divided into semiologically clearly delineated segments. In other cases the theatricalisation can be achieved by assigning purely dramatic characteristics to the protagonists. In this latter case there is a strikingly varied list of procedures that can be applied to create a 'theatrical text' in which the majority of the protagonists, or even all of them, are assigned a role. The most prominent technique is the construction of a character on the basis of a marionette or automatic dummy (Bely) with the corresponding imitation of its expressiveness and speech which become isomorphous with the discrete, emphatically affected expressiveness of a doll, where the character disintegrates into disassociated sememes and is only held together by the context. In such cases, to emphasise the artificiality a complicated, deviating syntax and an extremely extensive vocabulary of occasionalisms is employed. A less conspicuous strategy (as in Gaidar and also in many social-realist authors of the 1920s and 1930s) consists of a return to the constructive configurations of pre-realistic theatre in which the only possible actors are masks or, to use a more recent term, types, whose dynamics are determined entirely by fable and not by any intrinsic structure or stratification of character. Each of them has an ontologically determined role (of course, this concerns only the ontology of that specific space) and the mode of existence here is such that there are no a priori opportunities to switch roles; this space simply does not enable this kind of transformation. A strictly natural effect of this type of situation is the extremely normative behaviour of the characters in both their actions and their verbal expressions. Another method of desecrating narrative space is rooted in the symbolistic paradigm (or to be more precise, in the paradigm of early Russian symbolism) which is typified by the representation of this world as a close-knit semiotic universe whose characters refer to a supratextual substance that governs this world. A consequence of this worldview is the acceptance of fairly strict definitions of determinism and its unavoidable companion destiny. The concept of destiny assumes a certain marked role for each of the characters; after all, a complete behavioural paradigm (as regards destiny) can be created for a (marked) role, whereas this is impossible for the vital realisation of a person in his existence: in this latter case only the syntagmatic logical coherence can be determined, and that coherence is incomplete by definition. The narrative in The Gift (as in several other of Nabokov's novels) is constructed in this way, i.e., in functional-behavioural terms of destiny. This is also the case in Èertuxinskij balakir' by Klyèkov, in which the centre of the narrative is occupied by a kind of minus type: a character that not only lacks psychology (in as much as this kind of reduction is possible for humans), but also every manifestation of his own will which could testify to even an illusory independence from the functional universe. We must consider that a person's dramatic accessories (e.g., a person on stage) are essentially emancipated from existence and as a result revealingly attest to the nature of the processes that eliminate humans from the prose of the era. The observation of AA structures in 1920s and 1930s Russian prose thus offers the opportunity to bring to light a collection of these texts' implicit features, which manifest themselves in the first third of the twentieth century and which consequently enabled radical qualitative change in the entire structure of Russian prose. If executed with sufficient accuracy, the reconstruction of AAs in works from different periods can offer new insight into the history of literature. In more precise terms, it can open a new history of literature, a history engaged in the diachronous modification of the models according to which creative texts are generated at a certain points in time.
Ziele und Befunde der Arbeit Das durchgeführte Forschungsvorhaben zeigt durch einen holistischen, gleichzeitig politikwissenschaftlichen wie auch historischen Ansatz Folgendes: Nämlich, warum und wie das liberale, regelbasierte Weltordnungssystem im Untersuchungsraum der US-Präsidentschaften von Clinton bis Obama kontinuierlich durch ein System der realistischen, kurzfristig wirkenden Durchsetzung vitaler Interessen mittels militärischer Instrumentenpräferenz unter fortlaufender militärischer Optimierung ergänzt bzw. ersetzt wird. Dies erklärt auch, warum die "transaktionale Führung Trumps"(1), die nach dem Untersuchungsraum von 1993 bis 2017 mit Außenwirkung die Reduktion idealistischer "Grand Strategy"-Elemente bzw. wohlwollender Ordnungsmacht unter Kostenabwälzung und Vorteilsverringerung europäischer Nato-Verbündeter vornimmt, in Kontinuität zur ausgeübten Führungsmacht der Amtsvorgänger steht. Ergebnisse dieser Dissertation wie die sich ab 1993 immer nachdrücklicher abzeichnende Auflösung der multilateralen Grundordnung legen damit nahe, Trumps bisherige Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik als deutlich spürbares Krisensymptom und nicht als Ursache dieses Abbaus der nach 1945 eingerichteten Weltordnung einzustufen. Diese Auflösung ist mit einer Erosion des letztlich transatlantisch angestoßenen bipolaren "amerikanischen Systems" gleichzusetzen. Die Implementierung dieses Systems erfolgte als "Lernstunde zweier Weltkriege" auf Basis der mit der Aufklärung und den amerikanischen Gründungskennziffern eingeleiteten neuzeitlichen Ordnungskonzeptionen: Daher ist diese Auflösung auch ein Indikator für das Scheitern neuzeitlicher Ordnungskennziffern, die sich im "American way of life" entfalten konnten. Als ursächlich für die geschilderte Entwicklung wird eine von Clinton bis Obama konstant ansteigende Gesamtbedrohung nachgewiesen, mit der die konsequente Schwächung amerikanischer Vormacht verknüpft ist. Diese fußt u.a. auf der Basis von seit 1979 postulierten Klimawandeleffekten als Bedrohungsverstärker bei erreichter amerikanischer Förderspitze in fossilen Rohstoffen und ansteigendem Ressourcenbedarf im Kontext schrumpfender Rohstoffvorkommen. Weiter sind für den Untersuchungsraum die zunehmende Einwirkung der in den 1980er Jahren begonnenen "US-Konservativen Revolution" auf die Ausübung der Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik unter Einflusszugewinn von Konzernen und Lobbygruppen auf beispielsweise policy-Implementierung sowie die neuen Rahmenbedingungen zu addieren. Darunter fallen die sich ausformende Digitalisierung, die hohen Ressourcenverbrauch mit sich bringt, und die ansteigende Weltbevölkerung unter spezifischen demographischen Vorzeichen. Darüber hinaus sind beispielsweise die Beibehaltung des bipolar angewachsenen Rüstungssektors als ökonomische Basis militärischer Vormacht und das langsame Abbröckeln der Dollar-Hegemonie seit etwa 1973 zu berücksichtigen. Durch komplexes Zusammenspiel von "Grand Strategy"-Umsetzung gemäß der Prämisse amerikanischen Führungsmachtausbaus unter neokonservativem bzw. christlich-rechtem Einfluss mit asymmetrischen sowie reaktivierten konventionellen Bedrohungsgegenständen, Bedrohungsverstärkern und neuen Rahmenbedingungen wird der lineare Verlauf der Gesamtbedrohung im Zeitraum von 1993 bis 2017 verständlich: Im Kontext der "Grand Strategy"-Ausführungen erklären insbesondere das Bedrohungsabwehr-, Bedrohungsverstärker- und Marktwirtschaftsverständnis der US-Far Right in komplexer Wechselwirkung mit erstarkenden transnationalen Konzernen, Lobbygruppen, Individuen(2), informellen Netzwerken und staatlichen Akteuren in Bezug auf Bedrohungsgegenstände sowie Bedrohungsverstärker(3) im Zusammenhang mit der post-bipolaren, globalen Verankerung amerikanischer Wirtschafts- und Konsummuster das Folgende: Nämlich die Anpassung der amerikanischen Bedrohungsabwehr - unter Aufbau der "imperial presidency"(4) bzw. Einhegung des Systems von "checks and balances" - samt deren Implikationen auf das bipolare liberale Ordnungssystem. Sodann wird die notwendige Weiterführung in der Nato durch amerikanisch aufgeworfenen Nato-Umbau zur entsprechenden Umsetzung transformierter amerikanischer Bedrohungsabwehr bzw. Legitimierung der systemischen Anpassung begreifbar. Genauso wird nachvollziehbar, dass die so eingerichtete Bedrohungsabwehr nur kurzfristig abwehrt: Stattdessen verstärkt sie asymmetrische und konventionelle Bedrohung wie auch Bedrohungsverstärker - unter Einleitung von Rüstungsspiralen bzw. Demontierung der Rüstungskontrolle - und damit die Gesamtbedrohung. Dies lässt einen Konfliktausbruch jenseits des bisher Vorstellbaren konstant näher rücken. Gleichzeitig ist der dringende Bedarf an Mobilisierung der transatlantischen Zusammenarbeit im Hinblick auf Förderung der globalen Kooperation staatlicher, aber auch nichtstaatlicher Akteure hinsichtlich der Bedrohungswurzeln samt der sich verschlechternden Voraussetzungen illustriert: Denn mit jedem Anstieg der Gesamtbedrohung ist durch die eingeleitete amerikanische sicherheitspolitische Anpassung und deren Weiterführung in der Nato ein Abbau der regelbasierten Basiskennziffern im Untersuchungsraum verknüpft. Dies reduziert in fortlaufender Konsequenz die Grundlage für oben genannte, konstant zentraler werdende Zusammenarbeit, um eine sukzessive Erosion des bipolaren "amerikanischen Systems" unter künftigen Dystopien zu verhindern bzw. zumindest zu begrenzen. Durch die Forschungsergebnisse wird der bisherige Forschungsstand auf den Kopf gestellt, da so beispielsweise gezeigt werden kann, dass mittels der Transformation der Nato keine gleichberechtigte transatlantische Lastenteilung oder eine Weiterentwicklung der Nato gemäß der Nato-Gründungskennziffern erzeugt wird. Dies gilt auch für den europäischen Widerstand gegenüber der tatsächlichen Verankerung der Natotransformationspositionen(5), der auf die Erosion des bipolaren liberalen Ordnungssystems bzw. der US-Vorteilsgewährung sowie so begünstigter Partikularinteressensicherung abhebt. Außerdem wird deutlich, dass eine Kontinuitätslinie in der Bedrohungsabwehr von Clinton bis Obama unter unterschiedlicher Außenwirkung und dem Grundmuster "Battleship America" vorliegt - und eben nicht eine multilateral ausgerichtete Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik unter Clinton, die als Folge von 9/11 in einen unilateralen Pendelausschlag unter G. W. Bush 43 mündet, der durch die Obama-Administration wieder zurückgenommen wird. Die Arbeit basiert auf einer umfassenden Fülle an Literatur, die das aufwendige Literaturverzeichnis widerspiegelt: Darunter fallen vielfältige amerikanische und europäische Publikationen, Monographien und entsprechende Sekundärliteratur, wie Biographien, Veröffentlichungen unterschiedlichster Natur wichtiger Vertreter der transatlantischen Forschungselite, Akteure der entsprechenden Politikplanung und -ausführung und wissenschaftliche Artikel aus Fachzeitschriften zu allen Forschungsbereichen bzw. politikwissenschaftlicher Methodik und Theorie. Weiter wurden u.a. Veröffentlichungen bzw. relevante Dokumente von Regierungen, Außenministerien, Verteidigungsministerien, Regierungsorganen, Denkfabriken, universitären Forschungszentren sowie der Nato verwendet. Struktur der Arbeit Konkret ist die vorliegende Dissertation in zwei Bände sowie einen Anhangsband unterteilt: Band 1 umfasst Schwerpunkt 1, eine Prozessanalyse unter offensiver neorealistischer Verortung, Band 2 den darauf aufbauenden Schwerpunkt 2, einen Vergleich ("structured focussed comparison") unter defensiver neorealistischer Verortung. Im Anhangsband finden sich ergänzende Ausführungen zu Kapitel 1, Band 1 in Bezug auf den Forschungsstand, Literatur und Quellenlage, theoretische Verortung sowie Wahl des Untersuchungsraumes bzw. ausgewählter europäischer Nato-Partner. Weiter sind ein historisches Kapitel als Voraussetzung zum "process-tracing" in Kapitel 2, Band 1 und ein Abbildungs- und Abkürzungsverzeichnis wie auch ein Literaturverzeichnis enthalten. Insgesamt ermitteln die beiden aufeinander aufbauenden Schwerpunkte mittels qualitativer Methoden das Folgende: Nämlich die übergeordnete amerikanische sicherheitspolitische Reaktion auf eine neue Gesamtbedrohung sowie deren Weiterführung und Legitimierungschance in der Nato im Untersuchungsraum von Clinton bis Obama. Auf Basis des ersten Teils der Hypothese wird in Schwerpunkt 1, Band 1 ein Zusammenhang zwischen der Beibehaltung des bipolaren "US-Grand Strategy"-Ziels amerikanischer Führungs- und Ordnungsmacht sowie bipolarer außenpolitischer "Grand Strategy"-Kennziffern bzw. einer sich komplex entwickelnden neuen Gesamtbedrohung, amerikanischer sicherheitspolitischer Anpassung und der notwendigen Weiterführung in der Nato durch Natotransformation mittels amerikanisch aufgeworfener Natotransformationspositionen hergestellt. In Schwerpunkt 2, Band 2 wird auf Basis des zweiten Teils der Hypothese der transatlantische Aushandlungsprozess zur Etablierung der amerikanisch vorgeschlagenen Natotransformationspositionen in Augenschein genommen: Vor diesem Hintergrund wird überprüft, ob diese tatsächliche Verankerung bzw. Konkretisierung des Ausbaus amerikanischen Vormacht am Widerstand der ausgewählten europäischen Nato-Bündnispartner Frankreich, Deutschland und Großbritannien scheitert. Im Gesamtergebnis zeigt sich, dass aufgrund einer sich entwickelnden komplexen, linear ansteigenden Gesamtbedrohung die Chance zum Ausbau amerikanischer Führungsmacht konstant abnimmt. Dies muss mittels amerikanischer sicherheitspolitischer Anpassung kompensiert werden. Die daher erfolgende amerikanische sicherheitspolitische Neuausrichtung auf Basis der eingeleiteten "Revolution im Militärwesen" modifiziert wiederum die Kennziffern bipolarer kollektiver Sicherheitsgewährleistung. Alles wird mittels tatsächlicher Verankerung der amerikanischen Natotransformationspositionen ermöglicht bzw. legitimiert. Das tatsächliche Erreichen der - die sicherheitspolitische amerikanische Anpassung konsequent weiterführenden - Transformation der Nato ermöglicht eine missionsorientierte, reaktionsbeschleunigende, flexible und globale Sicherheitsprojektion. Außerdem ist die Voraussetzung für "alliances of choice" innerhalb der Nato geschaffen. Weiter zementiert die Modifikation der "bipolaren Nato" die mittels sicherheitspolitischer amerikanischer Anpassung eingeleitete Erosion zentraler zivilisatorischer Errungenschaften bzw. Aufgaben bipolarer kollektiver Sicherheitsgewährleistung unter Vorteilsverringerung europäischer Nato-Bündnispartner. Die tatsächliche Verankerung der Natotransformationspositionen erfolgt mittels der Reaktivierung konventioneller Bedrohung im Kontext der Ukraine-Krise von 2014 und der Erweiterung der Nato-Partnerschaftsringe auf globaler Ebene, ohne diesen den Status eines Nato-Mitgliedsstaates zu gewähren. Damit wird der Bündnisfall nicht globalisiert. Der ausgeübte deutsch-französische Widerstand wird besonders intensiv durch den Einbezug der europäischen Gründungsstaaten befördert, dagegen unterbleibt die Ausbildung einer europäischen Führungstroika durch Frankreich, Deutschland und Großbritannien. Darüber hinaus zeigt insbesondere die entsprechende Ursachenermittlung, dass trotz konstanter, aufeinander aufbauender amerikanischer sicherheitspolitischer Reaktion unter unterschiedlicher Außenwirkung sowie tatsächlicher Weiterführung in der Nato die Gesamtbedrohung nicht langfristig abgebremst wird: Dies führt zu einem konstanten Anstieg der Gesamtbedrohung unter fortlaufendem Einflussverlust staatlicher Akteure bzw. Machtdiffusion und -konzentration samt einer sukzessiven Chancenerhöhung reaktivierter konventioneller, nuklearer, Cyber- und ökologischer Zerstörungsszenarien. Auf dieser Basis entsteht die Konsequenz einer immer umfassenderen und die Reaktion beschleunigende Präzisionsabwehr unter ansteigender Versicherheitlichung, um die kontinuierliche Einengung amerikanischer Vormacht auszugleichen. Dies erzeugt im Fortlauf einen konstanten Abbau der Strahlungs- und Schlagkraft des liberalen, regelbasierten, bipolaren "amerikanischen Systems" sowie der Etablierung "idealistischer, liberaler" "Grand Strategy"-Elemente. Weiter ist damit - auf der Grundlage der aufeinander aufbauenden Natotransformationspositionen sowie Obamas "smart power"(6) im Untersuchungsraum - eine zunehmende Vorteilsverringerung der europäischen Nato-Verbündeten bzw. ein ansteigender Bedarf an US-Kostendämpfung verquickt. Zudem entwickelt sich eine immer geringer werdende Chance zur Entfaltung des postbipolar als "nicht verhandelbar" postulierten und global ausgebreiteten amerikanischen Lebensentwurfes in individueller, innerstaatlicher Ausprägung: Deren Artikulation erfolgt beispielsweise mittels zunehmendem Rechtspopulismus, Wahl von Außenseiterkandidaten, Zerfall traditioneller Parteiensysteme, isolationistischen Tendenzen unter ethnischer, regionaler Erstarkung, und Ablehnung von Supranationalität oder religiösem Fundamentalismus. Gleichzeitig ist die fortlaufende Erosion der globalen öffentlichen Güter identifizierbar. Damit ebnet all das oben Genannte den Boden für die Begrenzung amerikanischer wohlwollender Ordnungsmacht bzw. der Handlungsspielräume staatlicher Akteure - und für die Rückkehr zu klassischer Machtpolitik im Kontext entstandener Machtdiffusion bzw. -konzentration. Dies erschwert angesichts der Dringlichkeit einer langfristigen Eindämmung asymmetrischer bzw. konventioneller Sicherheitsbedrohungsgegenstände, -verstärker, -cluster und globalen Rahmenbedingungen folgende Chance: Nämlich die zu transatlantischer Zusammenarbeit in der Nato unter Wiederbelebung der politischen Organisation derselben sowie Erweiterung auf zusätzliche Ebenen und Akteure im Sinne von Vorbeugung bzw. vernetzter Sicherheit zur Erreichung entsprechender globaler Kooperation in Bezug auf Einhegen der Bedrohungswurzeln. Insgesamt wird durch diese Forschungsarbeit transparent, wie und warum die für den Untersuchungsraum von 1993 bis 2017 antizipierte "Friedensdividende" und das durch Präsident Clinton postulierte "age of hope" kaum spürbar wurden. Fußnoten (1) Vgl. Braml, Josef (2018), Trumps transaktionaler Transatlantizismus, in: Jäger, Thomas (Hrsg.), Zeitschrift für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik, Oktober 2018, Volume 11, Ausgabe 4, S. 439-448, Wiesbaden. (2) Vgl. National Intelligence Council (Hrsg.) (2012), Global Trends 2013: Alternative Worlds (NIC 2012-001), https://publicintelligence.net/global-trends-2030/, letzter Zugriff: 12.04.19. Vgl. dazu auch das "international financial leadership, self-selected at Davos" bei McCoy, Alfred W. (2017), In the Shadows of the American Century. The Rise and Decline of US Global Power, Chicago. (3) Vgl. zu Bedrohungsverstärkern beispielsweise Mazo, Jeffrey (2010), Climate Conflict. How global warming threatens security and what to do about it, London, Abingdon. 1990 wurde bereits in Bezug auf den Bedrohungsverstärker Klimawandel für die entstehenden asymmetrischen bzw. konventionellen Bedrohungsgegenstände komplexe Cluster konstatiert: "Over the next half century, the global average temperature may increase by approximately 4 degrees C. (…) All nations will be affected. (…) How much time will there be to confirm the amount of change and then to act? (…) However, many believe that we will have waited too lang to avoid major dislocation, hardship and conflict - on a scale not as yet seen by man". Vgl. Kelley, Terry P. (1990), Global Climate Change. Implications For The United States Navy (The United States Naval War College, Newport, RI), http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/weather/climatechange/globalclimatechange-navy.pdf, letzter Zugriff: 30.03.19. Dies lässt Hinweise auf die sich entwickelnde, konstant ansteigende Gesamtbedrohung im Untersuchungsraum von 1993-2017 zu. (4) Vgl. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. (1973), The Imperial Presidency, Boston. (5) Die amerikanisch vorgeschlagenen Positionen zur Anpassung der Nato, die Nato Response Force sowie die Global Partnership Initiative, werden als "Natotransformationspositionen" bezeichnet: Mit deren tatsächlicher Etablierung war eine Transformation der Nato in konsequenter Weiterführung amerikanisch erfolgter sicherheitspolitischer Anpassung verknüpft. (6) Smart power geht auf Suzanne Nossel, Mitarbeiterin des UN-Botschafters Holbrooke während der Clinton-Administration, zurück: Vgl. Nossel, Suzanne (2004), Smart Power. Reclaiming Liberal Internationalism, http://www.democracyarsenal.org/SmartPowerFA.pdf, letzter Zugriff: 26.08.17. Weiter wird er Joseph Nye im Jahre 2003 als Reaktion auf die unilaterale Konzentration auf das militärische Instrument der G.W. Bush–Ära zugeschrieben. Vgl. Nye, Joseph S. Jr. (2011), The Future of Power, New York bzw. Nye, Joseph S. Jr. (2011), Macht im 21sten Jahrhundert. Politische Strategien für ein neues Zeitalter, München. Vgl. Rodham Clinton, Hillary (2010), Leading Through Civilan Power. Redefining American Diplomacy and Development, in: Foreign Affairs, November/December 2010, Vol. 89, No.6, S. 13-24. ; Aims and findings of the dissertation The completed research uses holistic, politological and historical approaches to present how, during the studied period of the administrations of Clinton to Obama, the liberal, rule-based world order system is gradually supplemented and replaced by a system of realist imposition of vital interests that have short-term effects, preferring military means combined with continuous military optimisation. This also explains a continuity between the leading-power policy of administrations in this study (1993-2017) and the subsequent period of the "transactional leadership of Trump"(1), with its recognizable, far-reaching effects of aiming to reduce idealistic Grand Strategy elements and measures of a benevolent order by passing on costs to and reducing the benefits of European NATO allies. The results of this dissertation, such as the increasingly evident dissolution of a multilateral fundamental order, therefore indicate that Trump's foreign and security policy to date should be regarded as a clearly noticeable crisis symptom, rather than the cause of a decline in the world order established after 1945. This decline is synonymous with the erosion of the transatlantically initiated bipolar "American system". Its implementation was the result of the "lesson of two world wars", based on modern concepts of order introduced by the Enlightenment and the founding criteria of the United States: thus its dissolution is also an indicator of the failure of contemporary criteria of order that thrive in the "American way of life". The cause of the described development is shown to be a constantly exacerbating overall threat, from Clinton to Obama, which is connected to the consistent erosion of US supremacy. Among other aspects, this is based on climate change effects postulated in 1979, which multiply the threat while coinciding with American peak production of fossil fuels and increased demand on resources in the context of dwindling raw material resources. Furthermore, during the period of this study, the "US conservative revolution", which began in the 1980s, increasingly affected foreign and security policy, combining with a consolidation in the influence of corporations and lobby groups in fields such as policy implementation and new underlying conditions. They include the onset of digitisation, entailing a high consumption of resources, and a growing world population faced with specific demographic indicators. Additionally, the maintenance of the armaments sector, originally a result of bipolar development, as the economic basis of military supremacy and the slow decline of the Dollar hegemony since around 1973, should also be taken into account. Complex interaction between Grand Strategy implementation according to the premise of expanding US-American dominance under neoconservative and Christian Right-wing influences, as well as asymmetrical and reactivated conventional security threats and threat multipliers clearly indicate the linear development of the overall threat in the period between 1993 and 2017: in the context of Grand Strategy statements, above all the understanding of defence against this threat, of the latter's multiplying factors and the market economy explains the following with respect to the US far-right in a complex interaction with the growth of transnational corporations, lobby groups, individuals(2), informal networks and state actors with respect to objects of threat and threat multipliers(3) in connection with the post-bipolar, global anchoring of US economic and consumer patterns: US adaptation of its reaction to this threat – while consolidating imperial presidency(4) and weakening the system of checks and balances – including its implications of a bipolar liberal order. In this way, the necessary continued leadership within NATO through the US-proposed NATO reform can be seen as an appropriate implementation of transformed threat-reaction measures and the legitimisation of systemic adaptation. It equally becomes clear that the established threat reaction measures only provide a short-term defence: instead, they enhance the asymmetric and conventional threat, as well as threat multipliers – by introducing arms races and breaking down arms control – thereby heightening the overall threat. The consequence is the consistently growing likelihood of a conflict of hitherto unimaginable proportions. At the same time, the urgent need to mobilise transatlantic cooperation with respect to supporting global cooperation between state and non-government actors is illustrated with respect to the roots of the threat and its deteriorating underlying conditions: each increase in the overall threat, the adapted US security policy and its continuation in NATO is connected to an erosion of rule-based underlying criteria during the studied period. This continuously and consistently undermines the basis of the above-stated, ever-increasingly important cooperation, to prevent or at least limit the successive erosion of the bipolar "American system" under future dystopias. The research results completely overturn the state of research to date, since for instance it is possible to show that, by means of NATO transformation findings, no transatlantic sharing of burdens on an equal footing and no NATO reform in accordance with its founding principles can be achieved. The same also applies to European opposition to the actual anchoring of NATO transformation positions(5), which is based on the erosion of the bipolar liberal order system and the maintenance of US advantages as well as the consolidation of particular interests they facilitate. Furthermore, it is apparent that a line of continuity in the threat-reaction measures from Clinton to Obama exists with varying external effects, along with an underlying pattern of "Battleship America" – as opposed to a multilaterally orientated foreign and security policy under Clinton, which merged into a unilateral, radical swing under G. W. Bush 43 following 9/11, but was reverted by the Obama administration. A comprehensive wealth of literature was used of the doctoral thesis, as reflected by the extensive bibliography: they firstly include diverse American and European publications, monographs and relevant secondary literature, including biographies, publications of various kinds of important political planning and implementation, as well as collected volumes and research articles from specialist journals on all fields of research and politological methodology and theory. The same applies to publications by leading European and American institutions, research centres and think tanks. Furthermore, this author used publications and documents by governments, foreign ministries, defence ministries, other government bodies and Nato. Dissertation structure This dissertation is divided into two volumes and one Appendix: Volume 1 discusses Focus 1, namely a process-tracing in the context of offensive neorealist positioning. Volume 2 presents Focus 2, which is based on the preceding focus in making a structured, focussed comparison in the context of defensive neorealist positioning. The Appendix volume contains further discussion of Chapter 1, Volume 1 with respect to the state of research, literature and sources, theoretical positioning and the choice of the region of study and selected European NATO partners. Furthermore, a historical chapter provides underlying information for process-tracing in Chapter 2, Volume 1, an index of images and abbreviations, and a bibliography. The entire dissertation uses qualitative methods to focus on these two mutually supporting, building on each other, themes to investigate the following from a US-perspective: firstly the overriding US security-policy reaction to a new overall threat and secondly, its continuation combined with the opportunity of for enabling and legitimising it within and through NATO during the studied period from Clinton to Obama. Based on the first part of this hypothesis, Focus 1 (Volume 1) establishes a connection between, on the one hand, maintaining the bipolar Grand Strategy target of consolidating the USA as a leading, regulating power, bipolar foreign-policy Grand Strategy indicators and a new overall threat that is developing in a complex way, and, on the other, the necessity of its continued leadership within NATO and the required NATO transformation according to US-proposed NATO transformation positions. Focus 2 (Volume 2) is based on the second part of the hypothesis, investigating the transatlantic negotiation process to establish these US-proposed NATO transformation positions: in this context, Volume 2 investigates whether the attempt to actually secure and consolidate such US supremacy was unsuccessful in the face of resistance from selected European NATO partners, namely France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The overall result shows that due to a complex, developing, linear increase in the overall threat, the chance for the USA to consolidate its status as a leading power is steadily diminishing. This must be compensated by adapting US security policy. The resulting American security-policy realignment based on the initiated "revolution in military affairs" in turn modifies the indicators of bipolar collective security guarantees. Everything is enabled and legitimised by means of actually securing US NATO-transformation positions. The actual implementation of such NATO transformation – representing the consistent adaptation of US security policy – enables a mission-orientated, rapid response, flexible, global security projection. It also creates conditions for "alliances of choice" within NATO. Furthermore, the modification of a "bipolar NATO" exacerbates the erosion of key achievements of civilisation as a result of adapted US security policy, as well as undermining the tasks of bipolar collective security guarantees through diminished benefits to European NATO partners. The actual anchoring of NATO transformation positions is achieved by reactivating the conventional threat in the context of the Ukraine crisis of 2014 and the extension of NATO partnership rings on a global level, without providing them with NATO membership status, thus avoiding globalisation in a mutual defence case. The German and French resistance is particularly intensive through the involvement of European founder states, while the formation of a European leadership triumvirate consisting of France, Germany and the United Kingdom does not take place. Moreover, a relevant investigation of causes particularly shows that despite constant mutually supporting US security reaction measures with varying international effects and actual continued leadership within NATO, the overall threat is not receding: this leads to a constant increase in the overall threat, a loss of influence of state actors, the diffusion and concentration of power and the increased probability of reactive conventional, nuclear, cyber and ecological destruction scenarios. On this basis, the consequence is an increasingly comprehensive and rapidly responding precision defence combined with growing securitization to compensate for the ongoing containment of US supremacy. This developing process steadily diminishes the reach and power of a liberal, rule-based, bipolar "American system" and the establishment of "idealistic, liberal" elements of US-Grand Strategy. This entails a further reduction in benefits for European NATO allies and increasing US cost-cutting demands – based on the successive NATO transformation positions that build on each other and Obama's "smart power"(6) during the period studied in this dissertation. Thus the chance is receding of developing the post-bipolar, globally adopted American way of life with individual national character, which is regarded as "non-negotiable": for instance its articulation is expressed through increasing right-wing populism, the election of outsider-candidates, the dissolution of traditional party systems, isolationist tendencies combined with burgeoning ethnic, regional movements, the rejection of supranationalism, and religious fundamentalism. At the same time, the ongoing erosion of global public goods is apparent. This all paves the way to limiting the benevolent American regulating power and state actors' leverage – and therefore to a return to classic power politics in the context of a resulting diffusion and concentration of power. In view of the urgency of a long-term containment of asymmetrical or conventional threats to security, or aspects that exacerbate such threats or clusters thereof, as well as underlying global conditions, this undermines the ability to achieve the following: to achieve transatlantic cooperation by broadening the range of levels and actors in the spirit of proactive and expanded, networked security to achieve according global cooperation with respect to containing the root causes of threats. Overall, this research work reveals how and why the anticipated "peace dividend" and the notion of an "age of hope", as postulated by President Clinton, were hardly perceptible during the period of study between 1993 and 2017. Notes (1) Cf. Braml, Josef (2018), Trumps transaktionaler Transatlantizismus, in: Jäger, Thomas (Hrsg.), Zeitschrift für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik, Oktober 2018, Volume 11, Ausgabe 4, S. 439-448, Wiesbaden. (2) Cf. National Intelligence Council (Ed.) (2012), Global Trends 2013: Alternative Worlds (NIC 2012-001), https://publicintelligence.net/global-trends-2030/, last accessed: 12.04.19. See also the "international financial leadership, self-selected at Davos" cit. McCoy, Alfred W. (2017), In the Shadows of the American Century. The Rise and Decline of US Global Power, Chicago. (3) In 1990, the threat-enhancing nature of climate change was already postulated with respect to asymmetric objects of threat as well as conventional and complex clusters: "Over the next half century, the global average temperature may increase by approximately 4 degrees C. (…) All nations will be affected. (…) How much time will there be to confirm the amount of change and then to act? (…) However, many believe that we will have waited too long to avoid major dislocation, hardship and conflict – on a scale not as yet seen by man". Cf. Kelley, Terry P. (1990), Global Climate Change. Implications For The United States Navy (The United States Naval War College, Newport, RI), http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/weather/climatechange/globalclimatechange-navy.pdf, last accessed: 30.03.19. Cf. Mazo, Jeffrey (2010), Climate Conflict. How global warming threatens security and what to do about it, London, Abingdon. This supports the thesis of a developing, constant overall threat during the period between 1993 and 2017. (4) Cf. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. (1973), The Imperial Presidency, Boston. (5) In this dissertation, the proposed US positions on NATO adaptation, the NATO Response Force and the Global Partnership Initiative are described as "NATO transformation positions": Their actual establishment was connected to a NATO transformation with the consistent continuation of adapted US security policy. (6) Cf. Nossel, Suzanne (2004), Smart Power. Reclaiming Liberal Internationalism, http://www.democracyarsenal.org/SmartPowerFA.pdf, last accessed: 26.08.17, Nye, Joseph S. Jr. (2011), The Future of Power, New York, Nye, Joseph S. Jr. (2011), Macht im 21sten Jahrhundert. Politische Strategien für ein neues Zeitalter, München, Rodham Clinton, Hillary (2010), Leading Through Civilan Power. Redefining American Diplomacy and Development, in: Foreign Affairs, November/December 2010, Vol. 89, No.6, S. 13-24.
The subject of this study – The Youth in Croatia and the European Integration – is the relationship of youth toward the European integration process, including the Croatian accession to the European Union, as well as their sociopolitical readiness for integration into a united Europe. The analysis is based on a section of data gathered in early 2004, on the entire Croatian territory, and conducted within the scientific and research project Youth and the European Integration Process. The basic sample of youth, aged 15 to 29, consisted of 2000 examinees, and the control sample of persons older than 30 consisted of 1000 examinees. The obtained findings on youth have been systematically compared to results from the previous research project, The Value System of Youth and Social Changes in Croatia, conducted in early 1999, on an identically structured sample of 1700 young examinees. Data on Croatian youth has also been compared to the corresponding findings of several European researches. European integration is a dynamic and multidimensional process, and in this research, the accent was on the political and normative dimensions of integration. The genesis of the political development of European Union has indicated that, in spite of the oscillations in the process of integration, there is a recognizable progress toward the construction of a Europe of values, where all the included countries meet with equally high democratic demands. The existing research into the European integration process has undoubtedly shown that the relationship of citizens toward the EU varies as a function of time, and depends on the specific situation in certain countries or societies. Croatia is a transitional country that has stepped into the process of democratic consolidation, and after the year 2000, it had also stepped out of a certain kind of international isolation. Today, Croatia is a country trying to join the united Europe, which has managed to obtain the status of a candidate country for accession into the EU, albeit with an uncertain date for accession negotiations. Even though the main obstacle for the start of negotiations is supposedly the lack of satisfaction of the EU with the Croatian cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, the existing tendencies and events in the country indicate that Croatia is not adequately prepared to join the Union: not at the political, nor the social, and especially not at the economic plain. The indicated findings are also the starting points in the research of the relationship of Croatian youth toward the European integration process. A valid analysis of this relationship demands a previous insight into some aspects of the political readiness of youth for European integration of Croatia. With that in mind, special attention was dedicated to political values, attitudes and participation of youth, whose longitudinal monitoring enables a detection of changes that took place during the past five years. The data comparison showed that during the observed period of time, the young people' s otherwise relatively high acceptance of almost all the constitutional values, as well as the harmonious perception of politics and institutional trust have increased, while the lack of hard work, discipline and responsibility are now perceived as a social problem to a greater extent than before. The recent data also indicates that today' s youth perceive the existence of educational, gender and age inequalities in the Croatian society to a larger degree, as well as the worsening of political representation of all marginal groups. On the other hand, the understanding of conflicts and democratic rules (especially the role of the opposition) has weakened, the perception of crime in ownership conversion and privatization as a problem has decreased, there is also a weaker perception of the existence of social and religious inequalities, the social activism and political participation have decreased, and the attitude about inclusion into youth organizations of political parties and the establishment of independent youth parties as forms of activities that might contribute to a more active participation of youth in the society has decreased. From hence comes the conclusion that certain changes tend to lead to further social, most of all political, (self)passivization and marginalization of young people. The continuity of tendencies established in the previous research projects, confirm the finding that the young are not a monolithic group when it comes to acceptance of political values, expression of political attitudes and the level of political participation. The greatest differentiation is present regarding the not so present tolerance toward most observed social phenomena and groups, the perception of unemployment as the most important social problem and the cause of existing difficulties, the perception of existence of political inequalities and the stated interest in politics, as well as the perception of the role of the " diaspora" in the Croatian political life. When these results are observed integrally, it is obvious that the young are mostly differentiated by the level of obtained knowledge and their socio-professional status, then party identification, social origin and the phase of maturity. All the mentioned differentiations of youth can simply be summarized by outlining two large, relatively polarized groups: one consists of socially more competent youth, inclined to the ideological and political options of the left center, and the other consists of a socially inferior youth, inclined toward the right pole of the ideological-political spectrum. The socially more competent youth is more liberal, more critical toward the social reality and the political actors, they manifest a greater respect for democratic institutions and procedures, which is an indicator of the importance of favorable circumstances in the process of political socialization. The recent data enabled us to establish the existence of inter-generational differences, which are not enormous but are significant. The comparative analysis of the attitudes of both the young and the older examinees, demonstrated that the young state a higher degree of trust in the media than the older examinees, that they are more tolerant toward a number of social phenomena and groups, which cause dispute both in the Croatian and the European public opinion arena, as well as more sensitive regarding ethnic inequalities. The young perceive war as the main cause of current difficulties to a greater extent than the elders, they have considerably more trust in their own generation as a social force that could initiate positive trends, they express a greater readiness for inclusion in different civil society activities, and believe more that television and youth organizations could mobilize them into active participation in social affairs. At the same time, the young are slower than the older examinees to accept the value of a democratic order, however, they are also less prone to have a harmonious understanding of politics, they are less socially sensitive, they express less trust in the institutions of power, the socioeconomic goals and the preservation of tradition are less often among their political priorities, they less often think immorality and criminal activities in the privatization process are the cause of current problems, they perceive a smaller level of corruption in all areas of social life (aside from education), they believe less in the positive contribution of experts and entrepreneurs to overcoming the trends of crisis, they are less interested in politics and participate less in political parties, and they have a smaller level of faith in the mobilization role of education for democracy, volunteer work, political parties and non-governmental organizations, as well as the contribution of the family and education system in the stimulation of the young people' s social engagement. The established inter-generational differentiation can be explained through the life cycle theory, meaning the mentioned differences are mostly the effect of differing social statuses and the complete experiences of the young and the older examinees. That means that most young people have not assumed some of the permanent social roles, and that their immediate experiences are limited only to some social areas among which politics do not have a prominent place. The existing inter-generational differences are also the result of the fact that most older examinees draw on their experience gained in a different social and political regime, which to a certain measure forms their existing system of political values that is, in certain elements, especially those related to the social dimension, different than the youth' s system of political values. On the other hand, the congruence of the young and older examinees is contributed to by a common experience of an era, that is, life in a specific socio-historic period. The absence of deep inter-generational ambiguities also indicates that, in spite of the radical changes that have appeared through the decomposition of the old and the set-up of a new social and political order, the mechanism for transposing political values from the older generations to the young ones, functions to a considerable degree, along with the transfer of the shortcomings that exist in the structured political awareness of the older generation. Even though it was established that the youth in Croatia accept the traditional values to a smaller degree compared to the elders, the young are at the same time somewhat more conservative in certain areas than their European counterparts. Pointing to this finding is the greater orientation of the Croatian youth toward the family and a smaller extent of tolerance of certain phenomena and groups in the contemporary society. At that, the social participation of the Croatian young generation is at a lower level than the participation of their European peers. The attitude toward human rights is also one of the indicators of political preparedness of Croatian youth for integration into a democratic Europe, which promotes high standards in the protection of human rights and freedoms. The research results about the evaluation of individual human rights and freedoms, show that the youth accept the right to an education, the right to work and personal security, the right to privacy, the social protection of the elderly and those in other precarious situations, the equality before the law, the rights of women and the right to ownership the most. The analysis has shown that the preference of individual human rights and freedoms is not caused by the observed socio-demographic and socio-structural characteristics of the young, aside from education, which points to the significance of the education system as an agent of improvement of the state of human rights. Approximately a third of the young examinees were not satisfied with the respect for human rights in Croatia today nor were they satisfied five years ago, the percentage of the undecided has decreased in that period of time, and the number of those that think human rights in Croatia are mostly or completely respected has increased. The results of the analysis of social attributes of youth indicate that the ability of assessment and a higher degree of criticism toward the status of human rights in Croatia is related to life in economically more prosperous regions, a left ideological-political orientation as well as the female gender. The comparison of the evaluation of the contribution of institutions, organizations and significant individuals in the population of youth in 1999 and in 2004, established that the generation of youth today perceives a higher level of contribution of all observed participants (except for the opposition) to the protection of human rights and freedoms in Croatia. More precisely, most of the young assess that all the participants, completely or mostly, contribute to the realization of human rights in Croatia, which especially refers to the perception of the contribution of the highest institutions of power. The perception of the status of human rights in Croatia and the contribution of the observed actors to the realization of those rights, are considerably highly influenced by regional affiliation and party identification, followed by their social background, their gender and the religious self-identification of the young. The comparison of acceptance of the observed human rights and freedoms of the populations of young and older examinees in Croatia, indicates that the elders accept most individual human rights and freedoms more than the young, and that they also express less criticism toward today' s respect for those rights and freedoms in Croatia, while validating the contribution of all the observed actors to a higher degree. To summarize, the analysis has shown that the young accept human rights and freedoms very highly at the level of principle, but that there is a certain disagreement when it comes to concrete rights and practices in Croatia. Even though the degree of acceptance of the value of human rights and freedoms is high among the young, there are also deviations indicating an increased need for additional engagement of certain agents of socialization, especially the education system and the political actors. The national affiliation of youth is another indicator relevant to its relationship toward the European integration. The research has shown that the attitude most represented with the youth is one of moderate national identification, then the ones signifying an openness toward the world, while ethno-centric statements are at the back of the obtained hierarchy. The attitude that had demonstrated the highest representation of national identification is for the first time at the top of the rank in all our research projects, just as it is evident that nationally tinted attitudes, both moderate and extreme, are more represented now than in 1986 or in 1999. Such an increase of the national affiliation of the young can be interpreted by the fact that there is more emphasis on existential problems and that there is a higher uncertainty regarding the future, then the increase of differences between the rich and the poor, as well as a smaller degree of trust in the political leadership. The immediate confrontation with this type of social instability, results in a search for safer modes of relationships with other people, the society as a whole and some of its parts, where the nation represents one of the safe havens, much like family and church. However, it is necessary to emphasize that the attitudes of openness toward the world are quite stabile, and that they are often complementary instead of being opposite to attitudes of national identification. At the same time, this points to the complexity of the problem of national affiliation and the fact that it does not have to be exclusive, but can actually coexist with attitudes that enhance the process of European association. Regarding their national affiliation the young are, of course, not homogenous. The results of the analysis have shown that the nationally oriented youth is significantly more religious than the others, they prefer the conservative parties, live in Dalmatia, Central and Eastern Croatia, they originate more often from rural areas and families, where the father has a lower degree of education, they personally have a lower level of education and, within the youth sample, they belong to the youngest age cohort (age 15 to 19), and the groups of pupils and the unemployed. On the other hand, a significantly lower national affiliation is expressed by youth coming from the Istrian, Zagreb and Northern Croatia provenience, those indecisive about religion or atheists, youth of urban background and a higher family and personal education status. However, regarding cosmopolitism, the young demonstrate significantly more homogenous results. It is especially indicative that the more ethno-centric examinees and, to a smaller degree, those with a pronounced national identification, more often have a negative perception of the European Union, while the nationally more exclusive examinees refuse to even support the accession of Croatia into the European Union. The examination of the social (ethnic) distance toward certain nations has demonstrated that the young have put members of the former Yugoslav federation and Russians at the back of the scale, while, with an under-average evaluation, the center of the scale is occupied by members of certain Central and Eastern European nations (the Czech and the Hungarian). Inhabitants of the European Western and Southwestern territories, especially the Italians, which occupy the first position after form the Croats, and the Germans, demonstrate satisfactory results just by being evaluated by average grades. However, the degree of social closeness that the young citizens of Croatia feel toward other Croatian men and women, indicates a certain dose of self-criticism, because approximately one third of the young do not feel an especially high level of affinity toward, for the most part, their own nationals. The older examinees differ from the young in that they more pronouncedly represent attitudes at the center of the national affiliation scale, as well as indicate a higher ethnical distance on average. However, the fact is that, in spite of the existence of inter-generational differences when it comes to national affiliation where the older examinees dominate, there are also inter-generational differences that indicate a better position of the youngest examinees in our sample (aged 15 to 19). This phenomenon has already been described in literature by the so-called U-curve, which vividly illustrates a higher national affiliation of individuals at their earlier and later periods of life. Thus, the greater national affiliation, on the one hand, seems to appear as an expression of an adolescent transitional crisis, and on the other, as a consequence of a long-term perseverance of the perception and production of (most probably) negative experiences with a specific out-group. The relationship of the examinees toward the European integration and the European Union has been investigated via numerous indicators, where the emphasis was on the perception of the possible consequences of Croatian accession to the EU. However, other aspects of the relationship toward Europe and the EU have been the object of research, presenting a wider context for understanding the perception of consequences of joining the Union. The obtained results demonstrated that most of the young and of the older examinees in Croatia actually had a neutral image of the EU, even though those with a positive image exceed those that perceive the EU negatively. Actually, nine tenths of the examinees have in the beginning of 2004, supported the Croatian integration into the Union, but among those examinees, there is a highest number of euro-skeptics, that is, those that believe that too much is expected from the accession. At the same time, there were considerably less euro-enthusiasts (those that expect all-around benefits from the integration) and euro-realists (who believe that integration is inevitable for the survival of small countries). As for the difficulties standing in the way of the Croatian road to a united Europe, the examinees had equally addressed them to both Croatia and the European Union, however, the number of young emphasizing the accountability of the EU has increased from 1999 to 2004, and the number of those accenting Croatia' s responsibility has, in the same period of time, decreased. The finding that the young expect significantly more positive than negative consequences after the Croatian accession into the European Union, is especially important. However, in this regard, there has been a mild decrease in the expectation of the positive, and an increase of the negative consequences among the young during the last five years. The highest positive expectations have been registered at the individual and the socio-cultural planes, while the optimism regarding the socio-economic progress has decreased. Indeed, the lack of socio-economic preparedness of Croatia for the entrance into the developed European surrounding is expected to yield the most negative consequences. The research of the expected development of the EU in the coming ten years, has shown that only the possibility of easier travel, work, study and life in Europe is expected by most of the examinees, especially the young ones. The young are quite fearful of the costs Croatia might have from the integration and of the worsening position of the agricultural population. The negative conesquences expecting their own country are, however, less perceived by the youth in Croatia, than by their counterparts in Europe. Related to the fears from the construction of a united Europe and European Union, we have established that the youth in Croatia is most afraid of the abolition of the Croatian currency and the increase of crime, and its smallest fear has to do with the potential loss of social privileges. The fears of examinees in the enlarged Europe are somewhat different – the most expressed fear is that of labor transfer into other countries, the increase of crime and drug trade, the difficulties expecting the farmers and the price their country has to pay due to the development of the EU. Both the young and the old examinees in Croatia are less worried about the loss of national identity, language and their social privileges than the European examinees. All our examinees emphasize the multiple benefits of the EU enlargement, followed by the positive effects of that enlargement for Croatia, while the efforts of the Croatian government, regarding the accession to the Union, are valued quite poorly. The potential accession of Croatia into the European Union shall also signify a change in the decision-making process, meaning that some of those decisions will be reached at the national level, and some jointly with the EU. Our examinees have, in this regard, demonstrated a high level of readiness for integration, because more than half of them believes that four fifths of the observed areas should be the object of joint decision-making by the EU and Croatia. The only areas in which, in the opinion of the young examinees, Croatia should decide autonomously are the acceptance of refugees, the judiciary, culture, agriculture, fisheries and the police. The Europeans differ in their opinions on these issues from the Croats, and believe two thirds of the observed affairs should be decided on jointly by their country and the EU, while their country should be autonomous in deciding about education, basic rules about the media, health and social care and unemployment. Different social groups have, based on the perception of youth, been grouped into potential losers of the integration (farmers, the retired, workers, the unemployed), potential winners of the integration process (such as the inhabitants of the capital and certain regions, the young, as well as the Croatian population as a whole), and certain winners of the process of integration, which are also the best prepared for Croatian accession into the EU (experts, foreign language speakers, the political elite, managers, large companies). Actually, it was shown that the young consider the social groups which are in a relatively better position in the Croatian society today to be the greatest winners of EU integration, and those whose current status is unenviable, who are in the greatest need of a better future, were perceived as those that will potentially gain the least. The only encouraging fact is that the young are seeing themselves as the potential winners, meaning they believe the existing abilities and potentials of the young generation only need optimal circumstances in order to reach their peak. However, the data about the knowledge of foreign languages in Croatia are not very exhilarating, especially compared to the knowledge of foreign languages of the youth in the European Union countries. Within this research, we have also found that approximately three quarters of our examinees are proud of being Croatian citizens, while around half of the young, and somewhat less of the elders are proud to be European. The young are the ones to be more critical toward their national identity, and at the same time they lead in the positive validation of their European identity. However, the most interesting finding concerns the fact that all the Croatian examinees feel less national pride than the inhabitants of the European Union, while it is understandable that the examinees in the EU emphasize their pride of being European more. The answers of the examinees regarding the question about the contents of the concept " being a citizen of the European Union" indicate that neither the young, nor the older examinees posses a coherent understanding of the EU citizenship. Still, the right to work, live and study in any EU member, represents the key element for the understanding of EU citizenship, both with the young people in Croatia and with the youth in the Union. The young and the older Croatian examinees believe that active suffrage is the least important, regardless of whether the elections in question include the European Parliament, the national or the local representative bodies. Only one out of four Croatian examinees believes the Croatian membership in the EU might benefit them personally, while almost half of all the young and a third of the older examinees do not posses a defined opinion on this issue. It is clear that this feeling is closely related to the question of the personal meaning the European Union holds for the examinees, where neither the young nor the elders have a homogenous perception of the meaning of the EU. A single response appeared in an above-average number of cases – the EU is a way of creating a better future for the young – while the claim that the EU signifies a sort of " European government" , superimposed to the national states which are members of the Union, received a small level of support. Unlike that, the young from the Union countries emphasize the freedom of movement most often, while in time, the very concept of " European government" became more pronounced in the attitudes of the European youth. The young people in Croatia, as well as in the EU, express an equally small level of fear of the euro-bureaucracy, the loss of cultural diversity and the utopian idea of Europe. Considering the readiness of the young to live outside of Croatian borders, we have found that almost two fifths of them would like to live (and work and study) abroad for a while, while a quarter of the Croatian youth would like to leave the country forever. The older examinees, on the other hand, demonstrate a higher level of conservativeness toward the possible departure of their children into one of the countries of the Union, but they are, however, ready to accept their possible studying and training in the EU, while only one out of seven examinees would like his/her children to permanently live or spend their entire working life in one of the countries, which are members of the European Union. The analysis of the differentiation of the young in their relationship toward the European integration and the EU, has indicated that the used social characteristics have a limited influence. In other words, the young are relatively homogenous in their perception of a united Europe and the expectations from the Croatian accession to the European Union. However, certain differences do exist, and they are mostly caused by party identification, socio-professional status, regional affiliation and religious self-identification. This means that the most influential attributes, when it comes to attitudes toward the European integration process, are the ones consisting of ideological-political attitudes and the current social status along with the specifics of the wider environment. Thus, we have found that the sympathizers of parties that belong to the left center, then pupils and students, the inhabitants of the more developed regions and the non-religious examinees are more inclined toward the EU and the integration process, and at that, they emphasize the positive consequences and the potential gains from the Croatian accession into the Union, more than they express their concerns with the negative consequences. Hence, the concise conclusion would be that the greater social competence of the young is reflected in the establishment of a stable and more consistent pro-European orientation. Otherwise, the young differ from their older counterparts in their higher expectance of positive effects from the Croatian integration into the EU and, at the same time, in the lower perception of expected problems and undesirable consequences. Considering information sources and the level of information of the young in Croatia, the results show that the young follow the news in all the media outlets relatively often, but that they do lag behind the older examinees, and the examinees coming from the former EU candidate countries. This finding does not apply only to the use of the Internet as a source of information, where the young people are far superior to the older examinees. With that in mind, it is interesting that the young differ the most among each other, in the use of Internet and the reading of daily newspapers, where the socially more qualified young examinees (the more educated, coming from an urban environment and richer regions and averagely older ones) are the ones that use both media for obtaining information more often. As for the contents the examinees look for in the media, it is visible that the young are much more interested in events from the social and cultural life, and much less in issues related to politics. A comparison with the examinees from 13 countries that were EU candidates, demonstrated that they are far more interested in all the contents (aside from sports) than the Croatian examinees. Regarding the assessment of their own level of information about the EU, somewhat more than half of the young have stated that they are well informed about the European Union and events in it, compared to two thirds of the older examinees believing they are well informed. On the other hand, the results of both the young and the older examinees are surprisingly high, compared to the data on the level of information of the inhabitants in the 25 countries of the European Union, where three quarters of the examinees thought they were poorly informed about the issue. Closely related to the question of the level of information about the European Union itself, is the question about the general level of information about the Croatian accession to that association. The results demonstrate a somewhat different trend than the previous finding. In this case, less than half of the young consider themselves to be well informed about the process. It is interesting that the identically gathered data on this issue, from the former EU candidate countries, yielded a much lower evaluation by the examinees on their own level of information. Regarding issues and problems related to the EU that the examinees would like more information on, we have established that both the youth in Croatia and the examinees from the former EU candidate countries, find issues related to the Union' s policy on youth and education to be the most interesting, followed by the economy and social policy. Along with that, the issues regarding the enlargement of the EU, the cultural policy, the international relations, the regional policy and the EU budget are the ones the young find to be the least interesting. The manner in which the examinees gather information on the European Union mostly include the mass media outlets (the press, the television and the radio), and only then other forms of information gathering, such as discussions with their families and friends, surfing the Internet, specialized books and other published material, and the activities of non-governmental organizations. There are no significant differences in the use of the stated sources of information between the young and the older examinees, except in the case of the Internet. Considering the examinees from the 25 EU member countries, they use all of the observed sources as a way of getting information about the European Union, its policies and institutions, in a smaller amount. The examination of the objective knowledge of the examinees on specific issues related to the European Union has yielded devastating results. Thus, when asked about the phase Croatia was in, regarding the accession process into the EU, at the moment the research was being conducted, the correct answer was given by only a third of both the young and the older examinees. The second question asked, dealt with the familiarity of certain institutions of the European Union. The young and the older examinees do not differ very much from each other regarding their knowledge of this issue: the most familiar institution to both of them is the European Parliament, followed by the European Commission, then the EU Council of Ministers, then the European Central Bank, while all the other institutions were familiar to less than two fifths of the Croatian examinees. The examined citizens of the European Union are, understandably, more familiar with each of the observed institutions. The social attributes of the young, causing the greatest differences regarding their level of information, are mostly the ones connected to their level of socio-cultural qualifications (the socio-professional status and the level of education), followed by gender, and then provenience, regional affiliation and the age of the examinees. The highest level of information and knowledge belongs to men from the oldest age cohort of youth, those born and living in large cities, the inhabitants of the most developed regions, students and the employed examinees, as well as those with a higher education degree, the non-religious and examinees preferring liberal and left-wing parties. Along with all that, it is important to stress that a better level of knowledge and information about the European Union, its policies, institutions and enlargement process, correlates to positive attitudes about the different aspects of the European Union (the image of the EU, the following of issues related to it, the support for the Croatian accession to the Union, and so on), which, most probably, means that they are mutually determined. The inter-generational comparison has, on the other hand, indicated that the older examinees are more interested in most issues appearing in the media, especially politics, and that they assess their level of information to be better than do the young examinees. To put it shortly, the results of the research on the information level and knowledge of the Croatian citizens – both young and old – about the European Union, have indicated that they are not that interested in the European Union issues, as much as their level of presence in the media and the political agenda might imply, and the examinee' s knowledge about the relationship of Croatia and the EU is at an even lower level. Henceforth, it is necessary to conduct a strong and comprehensive public campaign directed precisely at the increase of the level of information and knowledge of the citizens about the European Union and what it represents, so that when the issue comes to the agenda, the Croatian inhabitants might make an educated decision about their country' s accession to that community of European states. The research results presented above may be summarized into a number of tendencies and statements of a wider nature. The political culture of the young testifies, in a number of aspects, to an approximation to the desirable democratic standards – especially regarding the acceptance of basic liberal-democratic values and the readiness for social engagement, at lease in principle – however, their social power and social capital are at a low level. At that, the young are aware of their own social and political marginalization, and recognize an entire plethora of measures that might help them gain a certain measure of power and become active citizens, as is desirable in a democratic society, but they do not use sufficiently the channels of social and political promotion, which are at their disposal. Today' s generation of youth expresses a lower level of social sensitivity and is more oriented toward individual efforts and family resources in the realization of life goals. At that, it seems that the young are not aware of the fact that an unequal access to existing social resources of the young generation today will have generated an unequal social status when they come of age. Hence, we can expect a widening and deepening of the process of social decomposition, that should be corrected through mechanisms that are supposed to ensure the highest possible equality of chances in the access to social resources (most of all, education). What we mean to say is that human capital is what Croatia, as a small and an insufficiently developed country, should deal with very thoughtfully. This, at the same time, signifies a maximum of investment into the development of human potentials, where the young generation certainly comes first. The inter-generational differences regarding the readiness of Croatia for accession into the European Union, and the relationship toward the European integration, are not of such a type and scale that there could be any mention of a generational gap, however, they are indicative. The most visible fact is that the young have demonstrated a more liberal, tolerant and flexible disposition, that they have a higher belief in the potentials of their own generation, and that they are consistent in their pro-European orientation, where they see their own generation as one of the certain winners of the Croatian accession into a united Europe. These trends suggest that the potentials of the young are a resource to be seriously reckoned with on the Croatian road into the EU. The process of the Croatian accession into the European Union is linked to different difficulties that affect the attitudes of citizens about the importance of Croatian entrance into the EU. Through this research, we have clearly detected that, unlike the Croatian political elite, both the young and the older citizens do not consider the Croatian integration into EU, to be the most important political goal. The political priorities of the citizens seem to be quite different, and their support to the project of European integration is weakening. It is, then, realistic to expect this trend to continue if the problematic events in the European Union persist, just as the difficulties in the relationship of Croatia and the EU, as well as the unfavorable economic and social trends in Croatia itself. This is why there are two equally important political tasks facing the ruling political elite: the initiation of the development of Croatia and an well-argumented explanation to the Croatian citizens why the country' s integration in the united Europe is purposeful.
