Beate Jahn

Kant, Mill, and Illiberal Legacies in International Affairs

While the revival of the concept of “imperialism” appears to be a reaction to recent political challenges, I argue that it has always been at the core of liberal thought in international relations. While liberal internationalism enlists the authority of Immanuel Kant, at its heart one finds the security dilemma between liberal and nonliberal states as well as the propagation of particularist law under a universal guise. This un-Kantian liberal thought, however, has a classical precedent in John Stuart Mill, with whom it shares the justification of imperialist policies. A historically sensitive reading of Mill and Kant, however, can explain the striking failures of liberal internationalism in spreading liberal institutions as well as reducing international conflicts. I am profoundly grateful for the encouraging and exceptionally constructive comments of the two anonymous reviewers as well as the editor of International Organization , which triggered a substantial further development of the initial argument. I would also like to thank Barry Hindess for his comments as well as for his articles on liberalism pointing out the parallels between domestic and international liberalism. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Culture and International History Conference, 2002, in Wittenberg, and I would like to thank Jessica Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher for the organization as well as the participants for inspiring discussions. Special thanks are due to David Boucher for inviting me to speak about John Stuart Mill at a research seminar in Cardiff that gave me the opportunity to try out my interpretation of Mill on Political Theorists. Students and faculty at Cardiff University provided very interesting and fruitful suggestions. Thanks are also due to Robbie Shilliam, whose work as a research assistant in connection with another project turned up some of the literature for this article. Finally, as always, I am grateful to Justin Rosenberg for generously devoting his time to improving my English in style and grammar.

The tragedy of liberal diplomacy: democratization, intervention, statebuilding (part I)

Since the end of the Cold War, democracy promotion, intervention and statebuilding have once again been explicit features of American foreign policy. Current assessments of this return, however, overlook both their longer term history and their roots in liberal (and not just American) ideology. The contradictions and dynamics entailed in the liberal philosophy of history have already played themselves out once before, in the modernization theories and policies of the early Cold War period. Despite their academic and political failures at the time, the same assumptions now underpin democracy promotion in the post-Cold War period and show signs of the same dynamics of failure. In this two part essay, I argue that the repetition of such counterproductive policies constitutes a recurring ‘tragedy of liberal diplomacy’ in which the shaping of US foreign policy by assumptions deeply rooted in the liberal philosophy of history plays a central part in producing the very enemies that policy is designed to confront and transform.

Barbarian thoughts: imperialism in the philosophy of John Stuart Mill

Mills political and his international theory rest on a philosophy of history drawn in turn from the experience of nineteenth century imperialism. And yet, this philosophy of history remains unexamined in Political Theory and International Relations (IR) alike, largely because of the peculiar division of labour between the two disciplines. In this article I will argue that this omission results not just in a misconception of those aspects of Mills thought with which Political Theory and IR directly engage; in addition, and more seriously, it has led in both disciplines to an unreflected perpetuation of Mills justification of imperialism.

IR and the state of nature: the cultural origins of a ruling ideology

This article argues that the modern concept of the state of nature as the defining claim of IR theory was developed in the course of the intercultural/international encounter between the Spaniards and the Amerindian peoples after the discovery of America. The analysis of the Spanish debate at the time demonstrates that the concept of the state of nature was itself the product of a highly charged moral discourse. Its continuous and unreflected use in the discipline of International Relations, where it supposedly describes a precultural, presocial, premoral condition between states, therefore hides the cultural, social and moral meanings the concept carries with it and suppresses a normative discourse of International Relations past and present.

Rethinking democracy promotion

Despite the fact that democracy promotion is a major part of liberal foreign policies, the discipline of International Relations has not paid much systematic attention to it. Conversely, the study of democracy promotion is dominated by comparative politics and pays hardly any attention to the international system. This mutual neglect signifies a core weakness in the theory and practice of democracy promotion: its failure to comprehend the development of liberal democracy as an international process. This article argues that a thorough engagement with John Locke explains the failures of democracy promotion policies and provides a more comprehensive understanding of the development of liberal democracy

Contemporary Liberal Theories

Understanding liberalism’s prominent, yet fickle, role in world politics requires, first of all, a definition of liberal internationalism. Yet, such a definition is not readily available. The term liberal internationalism’ is sometimes used to narrowly denote ‘missionary’ liberal foreign policies, sometimes to indicate more broadly the application of liberal principles and practices to international politics, and sometimes simply the foreign policies of liberal states. Conversely, all these practices have also simply been called ‘liberal’ or even, as the foreign policies of liberal states during the Cold War period, ‘realist’.

Classical Liberal Theory

Liberal internationalism is a composite and dynamic phenomenon: it is made up of a number of different political, economic, and ideational principles and practices which, moreover, change over time and take on different forms in different social and political contexts. The form and meaning of liberal internationalism is thus constantly in flux and it is this multifaceted nature and historical fluidity that presents a challenge to conventional forms of definition that aim to fix meaning in time and space.

The Tyranny of the European Context: Reading Classical Political Theory in International Relations

‘What was it which gave unity to the ideas about the structure and development of society generated in Europe during... the century traditionally described as the Enlightenment?’ (Meek, 1976:1). Against the deeply held beliefs of (almost all) European scholars I will argue in the following pages that the answer to this question is: the discovery of the American Indian. The ‘discovery’ of ‘natural man’, or rather the identification of the American Indian with man in the state of nature, triggered a revolution in, or perhaps even the emergence of what would later become, the modern social sciences. In the first instance, now that ‘natural man’ had been ‘discovered’ one could ‘apply to the study of man and society those “scientific” methods of enquiry which had recently proved their worth and importance in the sphere of natural science’ (1976: 1). Secondly, the identification of the American Indian with man in the state of nature led to a redefinition of history along a linear timescale providing a secular telos as the basis of the historical process (Lestringant, 1994: 174; Cro, 1994: 388f; Pagden, 1993: 93, 111, 115). Thirdly, the ‘discovery’ of man in the state of nature provided European reformers with a basis from which to criticize the particular historical development of their own societies and with the means to theoretically reconstruct an alternative, universally valid, political community.

The ‘Discovery’ of America as a Culture Shock

‘In our days’, wrote Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws, ‘we receive three different or contrary educations, namely, of our parents, of our masters, and of the world. What we learn in the latter effaces all the ideas of the former’ (1949: 33). This world, or rather that part of the world which Montesquieu would still 200 years later experience as contradicting all the teachings of parents and masters, was ‘discovered’ by the Spaniards in 1492. This ‘discovery’ triggered a unique and crucial debate among the Spaniards at the time. It was unique because it was the only case in which a European power accompanied the process of colonization with an officially sponsored public debate about its legitimacy. And it was of crucial importance because it was in the course of this debate that Spanish discussants developed the concept of the state of nature in its modern sense, a concept which subsequently came to underpin European political thought, in both its domestic and international varieties — in fact, eventually the concept revolutionized all branches of the sciences but, in particular, the social sciences (Parry, 1981: 15f; Meek, 1976: 3).

The Politics of the State of Nature in the ‘New’ World

Sepulveda and his supporters interpreted the biblical parable of the wedding feast as Justifying the use of force in bringing the Amerindians into the folds of the Church. This was too much for Las Casas: What do Joyful tidings have to do with wounds, capitivities, massacres, conflagrations, the destruction of cities, and the common evils of war? They [the Amerindians] will go to hell rather than learning the advantages of the gospel. And what will be told by the fugitives who seek out the provinces of other peoples out of fear of the Spaniards, with their heads split, their hands amputated, their intestines torn open? What will they think about the God of the Christians? They will certainly think that the Spaniards are sons of the devil, not the children of God and the messengers of peace. Would those who interpret that parable in this way, if they were pagans, want the truth to be announced to them after their homes had been destroyed, their children imprisoned, their wives raped, their cities devastated, their maidens deflowered, and their provinces laid waste? (Cf. Hanke, 1974: 96)