Abstract
Prior to the now infamous event of 9/11 scholars debated the limits of sovereignty by focusing on the alleged transcendental powers of globalisation on the one hand and the requirements of humanitarian intervention on the other. But 9/11 poses a potentially fresh challenge to sovereignty while simultaneously reinforcing previous trends. As Amitav Acharya argues in this symposium (Acharya, 2007), the new Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive defence (outlined in 2002) extends the challenge to sovereignty from economic and ethical factors into the realm of national security issues. Paradoxically, this has also fed into the humanitarian interventionist challenge to sovereignty given that President George W. Bush justified the war on Iraq as a humanitarian-based intervention. Simultaneously, the associated rise of Islamic terrorists as militant non-state actors feeds into the growing literature on global civil society and the ongoing debate about the relationship between globalisation and state sovereignty. In this symposium leading scholars of international politics address these issues and, while offering a variety of arguments, it is clear that there are many similarities between them.
Acharya challenges the claim that the war in Iraq represents a transgression of sovereignty, arguing that it provides a means of preserving and protecting a ‘well-ordered system of sovereign states’ (Acharya, 2007, p. 276). As he puts it,‘the question is not whether sovereignty is at stake, but whose sovereignty’ (Acharya, 2007, p. 276). Moreover, that the rhetoric of humanitarian principles espoused by President George W. Bush (and, in an ex post facto way, by Prime Minister Tony Blair) was a sham merely reveals the war as a means to promote the national security interests of the most powerful states in the Westphalian state system. The reverse side of this coin reinforces his claim. For while many emphasise the challenge to sovereignty and the sovereign state system that terrorist non-state actors constitute, Acharya insists that their actions have, rather, led to a strengthening of the national security state vis-à-vis its domestic civil society on the one hand, and globalisation on the other. Preserving the Westphalian international order became an imperative for the US in the face of the American perception that Iraq would serve as a base for a new Islamic caliphate that would cut across states in the Middle East and beyond. But, he argues, paradoxically in the end the most likely outcome of a new caliphate would be a reinforcement of the Westphalian state system. Moreover, the war on terror has inverted the popular claim that globalisation is transcending sovereignty. For since 9/11 states have ‘reasserted control over global financial flows … [while] transborder flows of capital, people and goods are increasingly subject to state surveillance and control’ (Acharya, 2007, p. 286).
Robert Jackson extends this claim further by focusing more extensively on the relationship between globalisation and sovereignty (Jackson, 2007). He provides a robust case for the maintenance of sovereignty under globalisation. Specifically considering the potential threat that 9/11 posed in the ways mentioned above, he argues that security can only be provided by states rather than non-state actors, since unlike the former the latter lack the necessary institutional and territorial means. Moreover, the lack of institutional and territorial attributes means that global markets cannot function without state guarantees. As he neatly puts it, ‘Adam Smith's invisible hand of the free market is ultimately dependent upon the mailed fist of the sovereign state’ (Jackson, 2007, p. 311). And in the context of Islamic terrorism, he echoes Acharya by arguing that this phenomenon ultimately reinforces the sovereign state and Westphalian system. For terrorism works within the confines of the Westphalian system. Given that terrorist actions breach international law they provoke ‘foreign powers to intervene in their territorial jurisdictions … All of that is intelligible in the context of sovereign states and the states system, domestic law and international law. Indeed it is only intelligible in that context’ (Jackson, 2007, p. 314).
Finally, the third piece by Adriana Sinclair and Michael Byers provides a detailed analysis of how the concept of sovereignty is used and constructed by US scholars who work in international law and at the interface of international relations and international law. They note that there are two distinct conceptions of sovereignty in evidence in this broad body of literature – a ‘statist’ and ‘popular’ conception. The former privileges the territorial integrity and political independence of governments regardless of their internal characteristics. By contrast, the popular conception privileges the rights of peoples rather than governments, especially when widespread human rights violations are committed by a totalitarian regime. This much is generally known and accepted. But in the context of 9/11 they produce an important twist by arguing that at base these two conceptions reflect a single American concept of sovereignty – ‘one which elevates the United States above other countries and seeks to protect it against outside influences while, concurrently, maximising its ability to intervene overseas’ (Sinclair and Byers, 2007, p. 318). At the end of the article they offer some historical reasons why this view of sovereignty has come to be shared by American scholars of sovereignty. These include the impact of Frederick Jackson Turner's ‘frontier thesis’, which by the end of the nineteenth century had transmuted into a desire for the United States to expand overseas. Today, the belief that the US can and should intervene abroad is assumed to be governed by benign motivations. And while they make no explicit connections, it is possible to see in their argument a link with the emergent post-colonial critique of US imperialism, sovereignty and international law.
All in all, these three pieces provide important insights into the world since 9/11 and the linkages between sovereignty, security matters and globalisation. If there is a consistent thread that weaves them together, it is that sovereignty remains a robust institution today, even if it is often used to shore up the interests of various great powers.