Donald J. Devine

The Post-Westphalian State System and the Universal Challenge

Conference on Globalization
State of the World Forum
Brussels, June 18-19, 2003

It is a pleasure to be here. Gareth Evans has just presented an excellent summary of the topic that we were supposed to discuss today, the Post-Westphalian State System. So that allows me the luxury of pursuing a slightly different approach to the topic than I originally had planned.

For an American of a right-leaning persuasion, I found yesterday's discussions to be a profoundly interesting experience. Consequently, I will spend most of my time pursuing some themes developed by those speakers and relating them back to the topic. First, I will make a few brief points directly about the Westphalian system, so that my research is not totally wasted. As Gareth implied, the Westphalian system itself was a universalistic response in its own time. It was an attempt to transcend local, parochial, feudal power by building the national state, particularly, to control the wars of religion unleashed by the reformation. But, to the degree the Treaty of Westphalia was supposed to bring peace and order, it was not a success.

After the treaty was signed in 1648, in 1667 Europe faced the War of Devolution in Spain, then in 1672-1678, the Dutch wars, then from1688 to 1697 the War of Grand Alliance (we in America called it King Williams' War), from 1701 to 1714 there was the War of Spanish Succession, from 1740-1748 the War of Austrian Succession, from 1756-1763 the Seven Years (the French and Indian, we called it) War, and then from 1789-1815 the French Revolution and the Napoleoniac wars. The only peace since the treaty was the result of the Congress of Vienna, the so-called Concert of Europe, and that balance-of-power regime did provide some order for a hundred years. But this was followed by World War I, World War II, the Cold War, Korea and so forth. The Post-Westphalian System was a universalistic response but it was not very successful in providing peace and security. To the extent there was peace, it was the result of a pragmatic balance of power initiated by state systems.

Anders Wijkman, in his talk yesterday, was striking when he said he was "stunned" by how different "the Americans" were from his European Union delegation to Washington on the matter of the environment and fuel consumption. This shall be my point of departure--the stunning nature of the differences between the European and the American points of view. Of course, it is by no means all Europeans on one side and all Americans on the other. Indeed, the Americans Mr. Wijkman referred to were representatives of the Bush Administration. I could have recommended some Americans from the left who would have made him feel more welcome. Yet, he was correct in the larger sense-Americans in general, the majority, are different from the majority of Europeans. It is critical that this stunning difference be recognized if we are going to be able to have any useful discussion here over the next few days--and Mr Wijkman was correct in that we must have real dialogue--for both our sakes.

Let us begin with Mr Wijkman's view of the United Nations. The United Nations does not have a very positive image in the U.S., especially among those of us on the right of the political spectrum. But I must say that in all my time in the U.S., I have never heard such harsh terms directed against the United Nations as yesterday-not only by Mr Wijkman, who was himself associated with the U.N., but others too. He was unambiguous: "It does not work and it is unlikely to be reformed!" That is an enormous admission from someone both on the inside of the U.N. and generally supportive of universalistic solutions. If the U.N. does not work even by the assessment of its friends, what will convince the U.S. to grant it more power, much less convince conservatives?

We were also told that "democracy' might be a universal answer. An article by future participant R. James Woolsey has been distributed making the same point. Mr. Woolsey made the point that in the 89 years since 1914 the world had gone from a dozen to 121 democracies today, according to Freedom House. While he does admit that 32 are only "partially free" according to Freedom House' nomenclature, the actual case is much worse. Mr. Woolsey admits that political freedom must also exist for democracy to be worthwhile but he uses a very broad criterion, claiming 89 of the democracies are "free" as defined by Freedom House. Yet, this includes many countries marginally free at best (e.g., Botswana, Dominican Republic, Romania, Ghana, India, etc.). If one only includes the two highest Freedom House ratings, all of the countries are European or former European colonies except Japan and Taiwan. Democracies that include what most Westerners would accept as political freedom, thus, appear to be more parochial than universal. Contrary to his point that "democracies do not go to war with each other," the Nazis were elected and the American Civil War-among many others-was between democracies in the simple electoral sense of the term.

In many ways, the Speaker of the European Union, Pat Cox, was even more interesting to an American. He mentioned that the United Nations involvement in Bosnia is now going on 8 years--with no end in sight! He did not mention this but, in the just completed elections, all three nationalist parties that started the war in the first place were just voted back into power. We are right back were we started 8 years ago! Kosovo seems to be heading in the same direction. The only difference today is instead of discrimination and violence being aimed against Albanians it is now, after 3 years of occupation, directed against Serbs and Roma. I just read a quote in the paper a few days ago from a woman on the scene who told a reporter: "The UN and Europe know how to drop bombs on us but they don't know how to govern us." To those of us suspicious of universalistic solutions, how are we supposed to have any confidence in an institution with this kind of record?

Speaker Cox then mentioned the world treaty regime, as distinguished from the UN, and complained that the US had not participated in many of these treaties. But it is not just the US that does not want to join, it is many countries and it is this lack of participation that makes them significantly less than universalistic. Consider the biggest, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. First of all it excludes specifically the US, Russia, China, Great Britain and France. That is a rather large part of the world. And of course India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and probably Iran are outside too. It is not just the US by any stretch of the imagination. When I think of the Biological Weapons Convention, which he also mentioned, I think of Russia, Laos, Iraq as well as the United States. As far as Kyoto is concerned, it is not only the United States of course. First of all the treaty excludes all underdeveloped countries, more than half of the world and Russia, among others. The two largest countries in the world are not part of International Criminal Court, not just the United States but China too. A cynic could conclude that if a powerful nation does not want to sign these treaties for their own interests, they do not do so! This is not a universalistic treaty regime but, in Mr Bush's phrase, a coalition of the willing, and not much more.

Mr Cox was most enlightening about his own universalistic institution, the European Union. He admitted that Europe as a whole spends 50% of the US on the military but only gets 10% of the military product. This is an incredible statistic. At the same time it shows a lack of will to spend what is required and the inability of the second richest part of the world to effectively manage the most important function that government performs! He admitted Europe could not deploy a significant force anywhere. This is a statement not of a critic but of Mr Cox, the head of the Parliament of the Union. The other revealing admission was the shockingly low birth replacement rate of the EU nations, 1.4 children per potential mother. Even 10 years ago, this was 1.7. By contrast, it takes 2.1 children per childbearing age woman to reproduce the population. As Mr. Cox mentioned, immigration is a possible solution but that is politically difficult or impossible for the EU to resolve also. The question has to be asked, will there be a Europe at all, much less a universalistic one, in 50 or 100 years?

The critical point here is that this is not criticism coming from me, or Americans generally--it is coming from people who are sympathetic to universal solutions. These raise enormous questions about the viability of universal solutions, the United Nations, the treaty regime, democracy as a universal regime-type, the European Union, much less the ability to use them as a model to direct us down the road towards world universalism. Wars and insurrections continue under UN supervision, treaty regimes attract only those states whose interests are forwarded by the provisions, tyranny and lack of economic development remain consistent with democracy, and the most successful institution-the European Union cannot deal with essential questions of governance such as military defence and population.

Contrast that record of failure with Clare Cowan's description yesterday of the success of small business in North America. She noted that 50% of Gross National Product or more in Canada and the US is produced by small business. And it is only about 20% in Europe. The fact is that in the US there has been no net increase of jobs in companies of over 500 employees in many years. As in Europe, big business does not produce net new jobs. All of the U.S. increase in jobs comes from small business. There is actually a small net decrease in employment in companies of over 500 employees in the US. The difference is that the US has many, many more small firms that make up for the loss among large firms and the EU does not. Even large multi-national corporations are viewed very differently across the ocean. As Erik Jonnaert of Procter & Gamble said: we believe that every product is sold locally. That is how even large U.S. corporations think and how they have become more productive in the US since the 1980s. They think in terms of small and local firms and customers, with different ways of thinking, acting, managing and governing-not in universalistic market terms.

Oliver Giscard d'Estaing said yesterday that he wants to build a world government and many others here look to large international organisations like the EU and the UN and even to large private corporations and large Non-Government Organizations The difference between the focus in Europe on large, hierarchical, structural organisation as opposed to a North America with our emphasis on the small, the dispersed, the local, even the individual entrepreneur could not be more profound. Britain might be in a middle position. This is an enormously different view of how the world works. Several ideas were mentioned yesterday - economy of scale as a reason for developing large institutions was one-that were presented as obviously true, ones not subject to debate. I think it is very important to realise that this is a concept that is questioned, especially in the US, regarding whether economies of scale apply at all to government or even to most of what the private sector does.

Or take the question of the environment. There is a very different perspective on how to solve the problems of the environment, at least among the conservatives in the US. Here Kyoto is accepted as the only way to improve the environment. I do not have enough time to deal with this matter in the short time remaining. But it is important to recognise that we think that there is a solution that is not based on large organisation but is based around property rights. Indeed, we would argue that where property rights are well defined, there is no pollution. At least from out point of view, the idea that government bureaucracy must solve this or other problems is a proposition that can be questioned.

The World Bank did a study over a 40-year period that found that the highest negative correlation between any of its hundred indicators and economic prosperity was the percent of national wealth spent by the national government. This is especially apparent when one looks at the developing world only. The more government activity relative to the nation's wealth, the less prosperous was the nation. That is why the world has turned against government control and toward the market and local solutions. In Europe, you see this in the movement to find a "third way" between its traditional democratic socialism and raw capitalism.

There is a different way of looking at solutions in the post-Westphalian, especially in the post-post-Westphalian period. And the interesting thing is, the U.S. learned this new view from Europe. Four Europeans in particular: Frederic Hayek, the Nobel Prize winner, Ludwig von Mises, Sir Karl Popper and Joseph Schumpeter- all Austrians interestingly. If I could suggest one major way to increase understanding between our two shores and our different ideological positions, I would ask you to read a wonderful little book by Ludwig von Mises called "Bureaucracy," from Yale University Press. It is a wonderful description about how bureaucracies work and the difference between government bureaucratic structures and private ones. In sum, communication is essential and large bureaucracies stifle and suppress it. I don't intend to convince anyone here, but I would like to at least start the discussion. We have read most of your classics but we will need you to understand ours if there is to be any mutual understanding.

As MEP Wijkman said, dialogue is essential and if we cannot understand where each other are coming from, I do not see how we can communicate at all when it is so essential. This Post-Westphhalian State System has some very serious difficulties facing it today-one example is the doctrine of pre-emption-and some international forum would be quite useful to try and deal with it. Some simple UN resolution based upon majority or even Security Council will cannot work. As Secretary Kissinger has said, it is a very dangerous doctrine and has to be dealt with in a serious, sustained way. We cannot do so unless we understand each other better.

Another serious problem-of great concern to most here--is the lack of a counterweight to the power of the US military forces. History demonstrates that balances of power can deliver peace and security. If a balance of power is to be established without acerbating the problems between the US and EU, both of us must be creative. It is helpful that Speaker Cox has the courage even to raise the issue from the European side. Australian Coral Bell suggests that the United States must use an "as if" solution to the problem. By this he means that the US must look at the world as if there were a balance of power, even if there is not. This is not as difficult as it sounds, especially if one looks at India, China, Russia and an energized Europe.

Still, nothing constructive can be accomplished if Europeans and Americans continue talking past one another, too often with unproductive name-calling. We must try to understand each other so that we can communicate better and build a better world together. Thank you.