Just got back from a trip to, among other places, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria. Lots of fresh thoughts and insights, too many to list in one piece.
For now though, the main takeaway was further confirmation of two thoughts I’ve been trying wrap my head around for some time: first, that the constitutional order of nation-states, and indeed of the international system itself, is currently experiencing a devolution in the nature of statehood, from full to limited sovereignty; and second, that that devolution is opening up new possibilities for violence and counter-violence, which in turn are both accelerating the process of state diminution and constraining the kinds of constitutional orders that might result.
To be sure, that’s a mouthful. And in future posts I hope to clarify further what I mean. But for now the salient point is that the two trends above lie at the core of every major political event and debate today. Right now we can see them most conspicuously in the reports coming out of Iran and Honduras, but they are evident as well even in the latest US attempt at health care reform. (More on that in a separate post.)
The main beneficiaries of this movement are twofold. The first is what might be termed the Davos class—the investors, consultants and politicians who can allocate capital and coordinate markets on such a global scale that states have no choice but to cede partial sovereignty in return for access to the resources necessary to maintain even limited sovereignty. The other is what John Robb has called Global Guerillas—the men and women who meet the demands of a global illicit marketplace (now worth some $2 trillion annually), and in whose interest it is to erode state sovereignty to the point where the state is too weak to interfere in the operations of its markets, but strong enough to sustain an economy in which the general populace can afford to consume its products.
Meanwhile, the main losers have yet to be determined. Certainly they include the anguished victims of urban statelessness—those whose states are too poor to protect them and whose meager productivity is easy prey for the local franchises of transnational gangs. (If you’re not clear what I’m talking about, see this article on life in Johannesburg in today’s NYTimes.) Beyond such victims, however, it’s not yet clear who else will get short thrift. At worst, if the Davos class gets things wrong—which is to say, if the devolution of state sovereignty continues apace without concomitant constitutional reform—then it will be all of us caught in the middle, those who are neither rich enough nor violent enough to personally provide for our own security.
But at best such reform will take place. In that case the world would still be very different than it is now; paradoxically, there would be both more peace and more violence. Yet it would at least remain possible for each of us to live lives of conscience. Governance and security would look and feel very different, but the principle of individual consent would remain intact.
Such are the possible worlds before us. Again, over time I’ll try to flesh out more fully all that I mean. But for now suffice it to say that the international order is undergoing a profound transformation, on par with the shift following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and whether we are able to retain moral and political autonomy for ourselves will depend a good deal on whether we revise our laws and policies accordingly.