The Governance of Global Order (Essay)

Global governance can be defined as the formal and informal mechanisms for managing, regulating and controlling international activity and international systems of interaction. It could be carried in two realms, domestic and international. In the domestic realm, government defines a system of rule, backed by constitutional authority and an administrative and enforcement apparatus. In the international realm, there cannot be government or formal authority. But with the co-operation among each other and non-governmental organizations, states engage in a process of global governance. As the European Union and the UN are the two main transnational institutions of governance, it is important to identify the possibility of the extent to which democratization of the governance of global order and the process of transnational institutionalization in democratizing the governance of global order.



Specifically, Global governance is associated with the world order. The historical world order represent the Westphalian order. It codified a new set of normative principles upon which the international states system has been constructed. These principles are fourfold, including territoriality, sovereignty, autonomy and legality. Anthony McGrew (1997) claimed that states have fixed territorial boundaries to define the limits to legal jurisdiction and the scope of political authority.

Within the territory, the state or government can claim the undisputed and exclusive right to rule. According to Osiander (1994), states are also entitled to conduct their own internal and external affairs in a manner which only they are competent to decide and free from external intervention and control.

In addition, there is no legal authority beyond to state which can impose legal duties upon it or its citizens. Connolly (1991) argued that territorialization of democratic politics is predicated upon a world order based upon Westphalian norms and principles. The concept of world order embraced not only how the inter-state system is governed but also how human civilization is organized politically and economically.

For McGrew (1997), there are four traditional thoughts about democracy and world order such as realism, liberal-internationalism, radicalism and cosmopolitanism. Realism showed a sceptical attitude towards the idea that world order can be made subject to the rule of law and democratic decision making. It is based on the understanding of the law of international politics which means no powerful state has relinquished its hegemonic status without some compulsion. It claimed the ethic of global governance as power politics.

From liberal-internationalism point of view, world order is conceived as a decentralized and pluralist system (polyarchy) and geo-governance is much less a product of the exercise of hegemonic power than a product of necessity. It claimed the ethic of global governance as consensus politics. However, radicalism reviewed that the deep structure of world order is global capitalism and it is characterized by the growing globalization of production, finance and consumption, and the growing polarization between rich and poor in world society and within domestic societies. It also claimed that it requires democratization of local and global life. Its vision of world order is the rule of capital and the ethic of global governance is based on humane governance.

For cosmopolitans, world order is an order of both states and people. Brown (1995) mentioned that humanity is viewed both as a universal community and as organized political communities. Cosmopolitanism claimed that it requires transnational democracy and the ethic of global governance is based on cosmopolitan democracy.

Nevertheless, democratization of the governance of the world order has been an important debate at present with different kinds of thoughts and issues. One of the issue when thinking about the democratization of world order is the human rights. As international law governs relationships between states, a government needs to do to claim international legitimacy to keep to the norms expressed in international law while accepting the legitimacy, it is required the external recognition by other members of international society.

Hoffman (1988) pointed out that internal and external recognition offer a concept of legitimacy which relates the individual to the state in some sort of morally cogent fashion, and which related to the state to other states in the international community. He also suggested that liberal democracy and a good human rights record are necessary if a state is to achieve global legitimacy. However, the current governance of global order is based upon the principle of sovereignty that leads to the idea that all states reserve the right to decide their future without outside interference. Thus the new global order is required for governance.

Accordingly, European Union is one of the main transnational institution of governance. EU institutions undermine state-central liberal democracy. The vehicles for democratizing the EU can be differentiated into four key potential vehicles such as pan-EU institutions, national assemblies, sub-state authorities and transnational social movements.

Linklater (1996) argued that in the 'Post- Westphalian' scenario, there is no fixed quantity of democratic involvement and accountability to be shared between states, EU institutions and sub-state regions. Within a transnational context, non-state democratic institutions complement state democracy rather than undermine it, and have a positive sum rather than zero-sum effect. Thus pan-EU democracy could complement and strengthen national democracy which permits the construction of new political forms that can meet the needs in the context of advancing globalization and regionalization, as Held argues.

Another vehicle for democratizing EU is the national assemblies. As nationalisms are more Europeanized, likewise, the national assemblies. Westlake (1995) argued that across all EU national parliaments, involvement in EU policy-making has increased, mainly in two intergovernmental pillars of Foreign and Security Policy and Justice and Home Affairs. More involvement has been institutionalized in policy committees and reporting procedures. James Goodman (1997) claimed that this combination of national democracy and EU integration could be as a democratization and deepening of the EU integration process.

During the 1970s and 1980s, regional devolution was introduced in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece and sub-state authorities had become a permanent feature of democratic life in EU by the mid 1980s. Then it became a central role in the implementation of EU policies. For instance, these sub-national vehicles have developed direct foreign relations with EU institutions and have emerged as a political force at the transnational level.

These sub-state authorities have worked with the Commission to establish new cross-regional associations and cross-border association agreements gained legal recognition in 1989. This could help nationalists to become Euro-regionalists. For instance, Basque and Catalan nationalists become enthusiastic Euro-regionalists when Spain joined the EU in 1986. Lindsay (1991) claimed that sub-state regionalists and nationalists have used integration to imbue their message with an internationalist vision.

Furthermore, these sub-state pressures are complemented by increased involvement in transnational social movements. These are capable of posing a democratic alternative to increased transnational economic integration. Sakamaoto (1996) argued that many social movements offer a means of linking with democratizing pressures beyond the immediate EU region which embodied in a range of proactive global movements then challenge the social and developmental costs of economic globalization. These social movements include environmental groups (European Environmental Protection Agency), labour and trade union groups (European Trade Union Confederation), women groups (European Network of Women), lesbian and gay movement, anti-racist movements and pan-European security organizations.

Most these movements challenge national divisions both in the EU and beyond it. Generally these represent both participatory and democratic and forced to the margins of EU decision-making. Accordingly, all social movements are orientated to transnational ideals that have an inherent mobilizing potential at the EU level. Tarrow (1994) concluded that a dialectical relationship has emerged between bureaucratic and business elites and social movement challengers and these challengers are powerful vehicles for democracy in an increasingly transnationalized EU.

Moreover, Goodman (1997) argued that re-democratization beyond the nation- state, to a new Cosmopolitan democracy emerged out of transnational mobilization and the working of pan-EU institutions, national assemblies, sub-state authorities and social movements point the way to a reconstituted democracy that flows through and beyond the state to match the transnational constituencies emerged from increased globalization. So it could be claimed that although there has been some means of democratizing the governance of global order for EU as transnational institutions, these are in the way to be effective and adequate means, not merely at present and mostly it seeks to strengthen regional economies only.

Another dimension to tale an example as one of the transnational institutions is the United Nations (UN). The growth of the UN system since 1945 has a gradual extension of international co-operation and a degree of international authority over a wide range of social, scientific and economic activities. The UN was created before the end of the Second World War and it was prior to the first use of nuclear arms and the Cold War. It was not a supra-national authority or world government and it was inhibited in the filed of international peace and security by Cold War tensions and the paralysis of the infamous veto arrangements in the Security Council.

The veto represent the collision between democratic politics (the will of the majority of members) and power politics (the will of the five permanent members). Despite the doctrine of state sovereignty encourage the one-member-one-vote principle, the UN and the World Bank both depart from this principle in practice.

According to Archer, inter-governmental organizations may operate as actors, in their own right or as an arena or forum in which members negotiated and/ or as instruments of the member-state policies. The status of international organizations as actors is deceptive. Although some other agencies, IGOs, etc. play the primary actors in international relations, the UN and its related agencies (UNICEF and UNHCR) is funded by the membership subscriptions and voluntary donations of the member states and its policies and decisions are created by the votes of its members. Moreover, there was no standing force under the command of the Secretary General and all UN Peacekeeping forces are created ad hoc.

Besides, the UN General Assembly was a key forum for legitimizing the principles of self-determination. Vogler (1995) claimed that the recognition and protection of the global commons such as Antarctica, Outer Space, the Oceans and the Ocean floors beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, has been promoted through a series of multi-lateral treaties which uphold the concept of the common heritage of mankind. Mark Imber (1997) added that campaigns against nuclear weapons proliferation and against apartheid and the promotion of environmental protection and sustainable development have been increased through the UN General Assembly and its special conferences.

However, in the politics of global governance, NGOs are more familiar to the public. For instance, NGOs such as Green Peace International, WWF and Amnesty International are more aware to public rather the UN and its agencies such as UN Disaster Relief organization, the Convention on Trade in endangered species or the UN Human Rights Committees. NGOs recreate the associations of Civil Society on a global or transnational basis. However, governments that oppress, torture and conduct genocide against their own people within the protection of their sovereign boundaries are not to embrace NGO participation in the organs of international government. Even within the UN, member states defend and advance their bargaining positions within international organizations by the conventional standard of national interests, executive privileges and confidentiality.

Accordingly, all traditions are not satisfied with the current state of UN system for global governance and called to reform. Obviously, the democratic reform of the UN is generally promoted by the middle- ranking members with a long tradition of commitment, service and sacrifice to Charter Principles and these include Canada, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.

With the creation of the commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), the UN has improved funding for the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). It was co-operated by the World Bank, UNDP and charged with the task of resourcing sustainable development projects. These are different visions of reform for UN but all sit uneasily with the veto and financial powers of the hegemonic states.

In conclusion, means of democratizing the governance of global order do not only rely on the formal transnational institutions such as the EU and the UN because they cannot create effective and adequate means.

Khin Ma Ma Myo (2004)



References

Brown, C. (1995) 'International Political Theory and the idea of world community', in Booth, K. and Smith, S. (eds) International Relations Theory Today, Cambridge, Polity Press

Connolly, W.E. (1991) 'Democracy and territoriality', Millennium, vol. 20, no.3, pp. 463- 84

Goodman, J. (1997) 'The European Union: reconstituting democracy beyond the nation-state', in McGrew, A. (ed.) The Transformation of Democracy, Cambridge, Polity Press

Held, F. (1995) Democracy and Global Order, Cambridge, Polity Press

Hoffmann, J. (1995) Beyond the State, Cambridge, Polity Press

Imber, M. (1989) USA, ILO, UNESCO and IAEA, London, Macmillan

Linklater, A. (1996) 'Citizenship and sovereignty in the post-Westphalian state', European Journal of International Relations, vol.2, no.1, pp. 77-103

Lindsay, I. (1991) 'The SNP and the lure of Europe', in Gallagher, T. (ed.) Nationalism in the Nineties, Edinburgh, Polygon, pp. 84-102

McGrew, A. (1997) 'Democracy beyond borders? Globalization and the reconstruction of democratic theory and practice', in McGrew, A. (ed.) The Transformation of Democracy, Cambridge, Polity Press

Sakamoto, Y. (1996) 'Democratization, social movements and world order', in R. Cox et. al. (eds.) International Political Economy: Understanding Global Disorder, London, Zed, pp. 129-44

Tarrow, S. (1994) Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Westlake, M. (1995) 'The European Parliament, the national parliaments and the 1996 intergovernmental conference', Political Quarterly, vol.3, pp. 59-73

Vogler, J. (1995) The global Commons: A Regime Analysis, London, Wiley

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Unity and Diversity: How the EU has responded to social transformations in Europe since 1950s (Essay)

After the two World Wars, a coherently defined idea of Europe was emerged. The political, economic and social systems of Western Europe were devastated. The social composition of European societies has transformed since 1950s. The structures of gender and family life has changed. The process towards unity and efforts at governing the European policy have taken place with a high-degree of self-consciousness despite of its diversity. This essay will analyse the major social transformations that have affected and how the EU has responded to these social transformations.




There has been a heated discussion about 'unity and diversity' in most large parts of the world including Europe, Asia, Latin America. However, in other areas except Europe, has arisen after the advent of modernity. The issues about EU were forged in antiquity are revived in modernity. To analyse the major social transformations, the history of Europe should be considered first. Actually, the history of Europe was clearly dominated by the confrontation, war and the efforts to establish clear differences between peoples. Although many scholars argued that the unity of Europe is based on culture and values, there is a strong connection between history and culture. Regarding the European identity, there are two major implications such as a common culture and a common historical past.

Guibernau (2001) points out that a common culture favours the creation of solidarity bonds among the members of a given community and allows them to imagine the community they belong to as separate and distinct from others. Also, a common historical past, including memories of war, deprivation, victory, repression and success, and a common project for the future have reinforced the sense of a shared identity among members of a given community. According to Thompson (1990), culture is the pattern of meanings embodied in symbolic forms, including actions, utterances and meaningful objects of various kinds, by virtue of which individuals communicate with one another and share their experiences, conceptions and beliefs. So it could not differentiate between the culture and the history because the key elements in the culture such as symbols, languages, heroes, legends and traditions, are bound up with the history.

Moreover, the Enlightenment humanism which was emerged in France and the Industrial Revolution which was originated in England and Scotland out a consciously European identity to the fore. In fact, Enlightenment ideas prompted the adoption of rationality as a method and progress. As rationality involved the end of alchemy and magical arguments and fostered a scientific revolution, which culminated in the Industrial Revolution, the social and economic development prompted by the Industrial Revolution, transformed the West and established a radical division between industrializing countries and those primarily based around rural economies such as the most of Central and Eastern Europe. Thus, it is obvious that the process of incipient European Convergence initiated by the Enlightenment was enhanced by the emergence of Industrial Revolution.

After the Second World War, the political systems of Western Europe were devastated while the USA became the strongest military and economic powers. Thus the involvement of USA in Western Europe became crucial in the political, economic and military recovery. In April 1949, the Atlantic Pact was enhanced with the USA, Canada and Western Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was emerged during the early 1950s. This relationship had a large impact upon the Western Europe restructuring aspects on political, economic, military, social and government systems.

During the Cold War, the Europe was divided into two halves and contributed to some sense of unity among the peoples of Western Europe. In 1991, the Cold war was ended and the fall of the Berlin Wall triggered a process of EU enlargement to include countries in Eastern and Central Europe. As a result, the unity of EU was resulted by the shared history with full of the memories of war. The other point to be considered in the shared history was the European Empire. The expansion of the colonies from the fifteenth century onwards was ended after the Second World War and the colonial countries had turned into independent nation-states by the 1960s so that European politics and economics had changed with the signal of the end of 'European Empire'. Most European countries had more emphasized on some institutional agreements.

Another issue that has transformed social compositions of European societies was international migration, that also affects European integration process. As Jenkins argues, integration is not a flattening process of assimilation, but an equal opportunity accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance and was cumulatively effected by the decisions made by employers, teachers, doctors and journalists. Also, it is influenced by the decisions of individual immigrants and their associations. The extent of integration depends on the social environment as well as on legislation and public policy.

With the impact of globalisation, the sovereign nation-states are subjected to global markets and international agreements such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). As a result, International travel support the large amount of demand from global business, tourism, politics and education. International treaties such as the Schengen Agreement, UN Convention on Asylum and Refugees have a major impact on European integration. Within itself in EU, the approaches to immigration policies are different in practice. Zig Layton- Henry (2001) identified that the British approach has been pragmatic and reactive and has moved from imperial expansiveness and openness to greater restrictiveness and tighten immigration controls. The French approach has been more liberal and Germany has been a reluctant country of immigration. However, all countries have accepted the reality of permanent settlement and all are pursuing polices of integration. Moreover, due to the enlargement of EU in 2004, it could greatly encourage intra-European migration but immigrants increase cultural diversity within the EU and have been subject to social exclusion. The nation state's cultural diversity is grounded on the co-existence of various national and ethnic minorities.

The other ways which divide Europeans include social class, gender and family life. Since 1950s, the structures of gender and family life has changed and these changes include political and social emancipation of women, enfranchisement, access to labor market and the possibility of separating sexual activity from reproduction through birth control techniques. The other major diversity include religion and social-economy diversity. The separation between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Western variations of Christianity has been crucial in establishing a division between Western and Eastern Europe. Similarly, varying degrees of industrialization and wealth have resulted in the adoption of strong welfare systems in Northern European countries in contrast with the weak and paternalistic welfare models in the South. As Salvador Giner (2001) argues, the great diversity which lies at the heart of the EU leads to the questions about the plausibility of turning on economic and political space generated by a political institution, the EU, into a coherent and governable society.

During the 1970s and 1980s, regional devolution was introduced in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece and sub-state authorities had become a permanent feature of democratic life in EU by the mid 1980s. Then it became a central role in the implementation of EU policies. For instance, these sub-national vehicles have developed direct foreign relations with EU institutions and have emerged as a political force at the transnational level. These sub-state authorities have worked with the commission to establish new cross-regional associations and cross-border association agreements gained legal recognition in 1989. This could help nationalists to become Euro-regionalists. When Spain joined the EU in 1986, Basque and Catalan nationalists became enthusiastic Euro- regionalists. Lindsay (1991) claimed that sub-state regionalists and nationalists have used integration to imbue their message with an 'internationalist vision'.

Furthermore, these sub-state pressures are complemented by increased involvement in transnational social movements. They are capable of posing a democratic alternative to increased transnational economic integration. Sakamoto (1996) argued that many social movements offer a means of linking with democratizing pressures beyond the immediate EU region which embodied in a range of proactive global movements that challenge the social and development costs of economic globalisation. These social movements include environmental groups (European Environmental Protection Agency), labour and trade union groups (European Trade Union Confederation), Women groups (European Network of Women), lesbian and gay movements, anti-racist movements and Pan-European security organizations.

Most of these movements challenge national divisions both in the EU and beyond it. Generally, these represent both participatory and democratic and forced to the margins of EU decision-making. Accordingly, all social movements are orientated to transnational ideals that have an inherent mobilizing potential at the EU level. Tarrow (1994) argues that a dialectical relationship has emerged between bureaucratic and business elites and social movement 'challengers'. These challengers are powerful vehicles for democracy in an increasingly transnationalized EU. Furthermore, Goodman (1997) argued that re-democratization beyond the nation-state, to a new 'cosmopolitan democracy' emerged out of transnational mobilization and the workings of Pan-EU institutions, national assemblies, sub-state authorities and social movements point the way to a reconstituted democracy that flows through and beyond the state to match the transnational constituencies emerged from increased globalisation.

In fact, the EU has become a new ground of struggles as communities, collectivities and organizations seek to construct or pursue their own identities, lifestyles and values, while national governments, the EU and other public agencies seek to exert varying degrees of social control. The two dimensions of governance, self-organizing governance from below (bottom-up governance) and regulations from above (top-down governance) interact and combine in distinctive ways in different situations within the EU. In the late twentieth century, there were such changes in the social structure that opened up opportunities for other kinds of cultural identification with different political values. The shift toward less organized forms of production, more mobile workforces and flexible working practices had an impact on the fragmentation of class identity and the dispersion of the members of such working communities upon which collective action was based. Thus social movements represent as the products of changes in the social and economic structure of European societies.

Moreover, the growing affluence, improvement in education and growth of equal opportunities also shifted attention away from economic objectives and the quantitative measurement of human welfare toward new post-materialist goals or values, as argued by J. Smith (2001). In post-war European societies, a progress towards a less impersonal and more humanitarian social order has emerged and a society where ideas are more important than money has developed. People mobilize resources in support of their goals. As soon as they recognize the injustice involved in the issue with which they are concerned, people organize themselves, raise funds and mobilize people for direct action. In terms of public policies, as Baker comments, people tend to have a desire for greater accountability, transparency and participation in decision-making institutions as opposed to the bureaucratic formal top-down political institutions. As a result, social movements and actions such as European Social Forum (ESF), Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment and Development (ASEED) and environmentalist initiatives were emerged.

J. Smith (2001) points out the shifting patterns of governance at national and European levels regarding the decline of unions and the rise of environmental movements within European societies since 1950s. Due to its involvement in top-down governance carried the price of becoming more formal and less accountable to union members, unions became increasingly divided between officials and rank-and-file members, leading to the decline of influence in political institutions and parties. In contrast, the new environmental movements emerged after 1950s, sought to change public opinion and transform relationships in civil society rather than being integrated into public-policy making bodies. At the same time, the EU and national governments seek to exert greater control to realize objectives agreed upon by political representatives and civil servants across Europe. Nevertheless, attempts to develop environmental policies in a cohesive way have arisen along with the emergences of environmental policy making and environmental social movements.

Throughout the history, wars, religious and ideological conflicts, massive economic imbalances and a network of sovereign states thriving on mutual hostility have divided Europeans for a very long times and the essence of the grave. However, there has an effective effort being made by contemporary Europeans toward the establishment of a society with worth of the civilization and the best traditions of the history since 1950s under a coherently defined idea of Europe and the EU has responded to the transformations of the social composition of European societies in the process towards unity despite of its diversity.

Khin Ma Ma Myo (2004)

References

Baker, S. (2001) 'Environmental governance in the EU', in Thompson, G. (ed.) Governing the European Economy, Sage, London

Guibernau, M. (2001) 'Unity and Diversity in Europe' in Guiberbau, M. (ed.) Governing European Diversity, Sage, London

Giner, S. (2001) 'One Europe? The democratic governance of a continent', in Guiberbau, M. (ed.) Governing European Diversity, Sage, London

Jenkins, R. (1967) Essays and Speeches, London, Collins

Layton-Henry, Z. (2001) 'Migrants, Refugees and Citizenship', in Guiberbau, M. (ed.) Governing European Diversity, Sage, London

Smith, J. (2001) 'Social Movements in Europe: The rise of environmental governance', in Guiberbau, M. (ed.) Governing European Diversity, Sage, London

Thompson, J. (1990) Ideology and Modern Culture, Cambridge, Polity Press

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Essay: Representation as a living political idea

“In the grand discovery of modern times, the system of representation, the solution of all the difficulties, both speculative and practical, will perhaps be found. If it cannot, we seem to be forced upon the extraordinary conclusion, that good Government is impossible.” (1)
(Utilitarian Philosopher James Mill)

In his 'Essay On Government', the Utilitarian philosopher James Mill, salutes representation as 'the grand discovery of modern times'. Andrew Heywood (2) states that representative democracy is a ‘limited and indirect form of democracy that is based on the selection of those who will rule on behalf of the people’. The defining characteristics of limited and indirect clearly shows the nature of representative democracy that recognizes the impossibility of all citizens being involved in every decision making process, and the necessity of the election of representatives of the people to government. Thus, representation can be seen as a necessity of modern politics.

If so, how is it possible to prevent the representatives from themselves following their interest at the expense of the interests of the community? Do considerations of scale, expertise and knowledge of political matters make representation inevitable in any large-scale political community and does this then open up the danger of a gap between representatives and represented? Would representative democracy give way to oligarchy and elitism? Can a representative system realize freedom as it promises? In fact, representation is one of the most problematic concepts in the interpretations of democratic theory. This raises the question of whether the concept of representation is a living political idea.




On Representation

In his book of 'The Prince', the Italian political philosopher, Machiavelli argues in favour of a strong leader to govern a nation according to his own decisions and observations by using the example of a disease in society stating as
"(…) by recognising from afar the diseases that are spreading in the state (which is a gift given only to a prudent ruler), they can be cured quickly; but when they are not recognized and are left to grow to the extent that everyone recognizes them, there is no longer any cure." (3)

For Machiavelli, 'necessity' is the most concept for him and he uses it to determine military might in foreign policy as well as strong leaders in governments. In his book of the Discourses, Machiavelli states the twofold role virtuous individuals play in political culture. The first function of virtuous men is to inspire and beget virtue in others, and citizen virtue as well as military virtue is vital in protecting the republic from internal as well as external dangers, thus individual leadership is necessary in some particular affairs. The second function of virtuous men is to prevent corruption. All peoples tend to become corrupt in time due to the gradual loss of fear and respect for the law, thus a founding father figure is needed to perform “excessive and notable” executions to refresh people’s memories. (4)

Similarly, in his writings of The Utility of the union as a safeguard against domestic faction and insurrection, American Philosopher, James Madison argues in favour of the role of leaders. He states that public views could be refined and enlarged through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. (5) He also believes that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves. For Madison, the representative government could overcome the excesses of pure democracy because elected few are likely to be competent and have a capability for the interests of the people and the government ought to be led by the best men.

To the contrary, in his book of 'The Social Contract and Discourses', Jean-Jacques Rousseau argues that representation and sovereignty are mutually incompatible because sovereignty cannot be delegated and represented. In his view, sovereignty lies essentially in the general will, and will does not admit of representation, then the deputies of the people are not and cannot be its representatives (6). On his line of thought, the election of representatives puts an end to the liberty of the people.

Alternatively, the eighteenth-century philosopher and politician Edmund Burke rejects the idea of representative as a delegate, that constrained to keep strictly to the views of those whom they represent and advocates the opposite idea of the role of the parliamentary representative. In his classical speech to the electors of Bristol, Burke strongly opposed the idea that representatives are bound by instructions or a mandate from their constituents. In his view, authoritative instructions, which the Member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though the contrary to to the clearest conviction of his judgement and conscience; are things unknown to the laws of the land and which arise from a fundamental Mistake of the whole order and tenour of the Constitution.(7) Therefore, he advocates that parliamentary representatives must decide on issues in accordance with their own judgements, after hearing the debates in the representative arena.

For James Mill, representation was the grand discovery of modern times and a necessity of modern politics. However, he observes the problems that could give rise from the idea of representation and the possible conflicts of interests if representatives themselves follow their private interests at the expense of community interests. Mill, thus, highlight the solution that lay in the institution of checks and controls over the representatives that allow them to hold office only for limited periods. In his 'Essay on Government ' (8), he clearly stakes out the principles of accountability of representatives to be represented and the need for institutions to put this principles into practice.

In Considerations on Representative Government (9) , John Stuart Mill also argues in favour of the concept of 'representation' by highlighting the weaknesses of the ancient Greek idea of the polis. According to Mill, there are obvious geographical and physical limits to the place and time of open meeting as well as the problems posed by coordination and regulation in a densely populated country. Therefore, the notion of self-government of government by open meeting and any form of classical or direct democracy could not be sustained in modern society. He then recommends a representative democratic system along with freedom of speech, the press and assembly, that has distinct advantages of providing the mechanism whereby central powers can be watched and controlled as well as establishing a forum (parliament) to act as a watchdog of liberty and centre of reason and debate through electoral competition, leadership qualities with intellect for the maximum benefit at all.

For John Mill, the 'ideally best polity' in modern conditions comprises a representative democratic system in which 'people exercise through deputies periodically elected by themselves the ultimate controlling power (10). He believes that representative democracy could combine accountability with professionalism and expertise and both democracy and skilled governments are the conditions that complement each other. He argues in favour of skilled governments and political leadership. However, in his book of Liberty, he also argues in favour of the use of a utilitarianist doctrine in a democracy in which a political leader’s action is right only insofar as it is useful or directly benefits the majority. (11)

The debates on representation involves not only the above antithesis between direct democracy and indirect democracy, the gaps between representatives and represented, the roles of representatives and the principles of accountability of representatives to be represented; but also the problems of what is to represent and the problems of inclusion and exclusion. In her book of 'The Concept of Representation', the American Philosopher Hannah Pitkin argues that a representative government must not merely be in control, not merely promote public interest, but must also be responsive to the people. (12) On her lines of thought, the people must not be passive objects of manipulation, nor would it be enough for a government to be responsive to public opinion only on occasions when it is possible. Instead, there must be a constant condition of responsiveness, of potential readiness to respond and some forms of institutional arrangements for government responsiveness. She also argues that the notion of representative government seems to incorporate both a very general, abstract, metaphorical idea (13) -that the people of a nation are present in the action of its government in complex ways- and some fairly concrete, practical, and historically traditional institutions intended to secure such an outcome.

However, Pitkin also asserts that there could be some tensions between the practice of representation and the democratic principles of accountability and control that were similarly highlighted by elite theorists like Robert Michels. In his 'iron law of oligarchy', Michels points out that popular sovereignty could never be achieved, and the masses, elevated by democratic theory to the highest role, in reality could only give way to oligarchy. On his lines of thought, social revolution would not affect any real modification of the internal structure of the mass, as the majority of human beings, in a condition of eternal tutelage, are predestined by tragic necessity to submit to the dominion of a small minority, and must be content to constitute the pedestal of an oligarchy (14). These views raise the debates about what it is to represent in terms of the democratic theory.

The contemporary debates on representation also involves the problem of inclusion and exclusion. In his book of In Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, Robert Dahl distinguished political regimes by two axes - the degree of political competition and the degree of political participation. For Dahl, the axis of political competition was rooted from monopolistic regimes in which power is concentrated in the hands of a narrow elite to pluralist regimes in which power is dispersed among groups and institutions while the axis of political participation was referred by the proportion of the population that is entitled to participate in a more or less equal plane (15). The higher the proportion of the population that plays a part in decision making the more inclusion of the regime type and the lower that proportion, the more exclusionary the regime type.

In contrast, Anne Phillips argues that the defining characteristics of representative democracy, as Robert Dahl has clarified, are grounded in the heterogeneity of the societies that gave it birth and it was the diversity of citizenry that made the earlier practices of Athenian democracy so inappropriate to the modern world (16). She, then, suggests the need for a 'politics of presence' which could give voice to a number of groups excluded or oppressed or marginalized by the individualist representation of liberal democracy. In her views, demands for political presence have often arisen out of the politics of social movements, which reflect differences in social class such as the 'representation of labour' and inequalities such as the civil rights movement, women's movements and autonomous organizations that speak for oppressed or disadvantaged groups. By putting the role of social movements on the agenda, she challenged the traditional modes and ideas of representation in liberal democracy that might not be adequate to ensure reflections of different groups, identities and minorities. By drawing on the historical accounts of how the conceptions of 'representation' has developed over time, the idea of 'representation' could be said to be a living political idea. It, then, raised the question of the livingness of 'representation' in politics.

Interpretations of living political ideas on the development of representation

Kenneth Shepsle regards ideas as purely interest-oriented vehicles or instruments used by politicians to further their own ideas . In his view, political actors only recur to ideas to justify things which have been decided on interest grounds long before Institutions and incentives are the really decisive explanatory variables . He makes clear in summarizing his position: “My own view on the force of ideas is to see them as one of the hooks on which politicians hang their objectives and by which they further their interests.” (17) Similarly, Stephen Krasner put forwards ideas as the servants of the interests that play a purely subordinate and instrumental role. In his views, ideas have not made possible alternatives that did not previously exist (18) and they have been one among several instruments that actors have invoked to promote their own, usually mundane, interests.

Alternatively, Tompson, Huysmans and Reokhovnik does not view ideas as purely interest-oriented instruments used by politicians. In their views, ideas are political when they are used to mobilize people behind some sort of political action; when used in political debates, when they have consequences for a wider society; when they are about the nature and limits of politics as well as part of a general vision of how the world should be organized. (19) However, not all ideas are politically alive.

Ideas live in politics only when they inspired and informed different world views that could mobilize people politically. Moreover, they must keep being drawn on, i.e., recycled in political arguments over time, whether being changed, adapted or re-appropriated in Politics. Furthermore, ideas could rarely be dead once institutionalized in political institutions like parliaments and less obvious political institutions like the family, the Church, the law, the prisons and even in medicine and public health matters. However, living political ideas could have significant political implications and possible socio-economic consequences as sometimes people live ideas to their perils or to their limits. Nevertheless, as Raia Proljovnik (20) states, ideas circulate in both political theory and in practice. These different interpretations of the livingness of political ideas might be applied to the development of representation.

Machiavelli's ideas on representation in favour of strong leaders in governments are kept alive because they have been used to justify power politics with a focus on pragmatic evaluation of what will keep politicians in power. Machiavelli has become famous as a sinister and ruthless politician because of the philosophy he expressed in The Prince since then. On the other hand, Machiavelli’s concepts formed the basis of nineteenth-century liberalism, a political philosophy that advocates change for the good of the state and its citizens. His ideas on representation regarding the preference for republican than monarchical governments have a profound influence on the political developments in Europe during the 19th century. His ideas not only circulate in political theory, but also in practice.

Similarly, Madison's ideas on representation are recycled in political debates on representative governments, principles of popular sovereignty, common goods, constitutional matters and so on. His ideas are always implicitly or explicitly played out in political debates and institutional practices. He is taken to stand for the ideas of separations of power and controlling majority's faction effects and the controversies they generate. His ideas were also criticized by anti-federalists and modern philosophers. In his book of 'Explaining America', Garry Wills asserts the role of minorities by criticizing Madison: "Minorities can make use of dispersed and staggered governmental machinery to clog, delay, slow down, hamper, and obstruct the majority. But these weapons for delay are given to the minority irrespective of its factious or non-factious character; and they can be used against the majority irrespective of its factious or non-factious character. What Madison prevents is not faction, but action. What he protects is not the common good but delay as such." (21) Thus, it is obvious that Madison's political ideas are alive as inspirations and have consequences for the society as a whole.

On the other hand, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's remarks on the frictions between the government and the people still represents as living political ideas. The demand that all citizens should participate in popular assemblies is unique to Rousseau in the modern world. His critics on representation are still alive in both political theory and political practice and his alternative concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity have inspired different views that mobilized people politically. In fact, "Liberty, equality, fraternity" was to be the motto of the 'French Revolution', which drew a great deal of inspiration from his ideas. Likewise, James Mill's ideas on representation regarding the principles of accountability and institutional requirements were taken seriously in debates in good governance and being institutionalized in political institutions and international organizations.

In a modern era, John Stuart Mill's ideas on proportional representation, in which “the champions of unpopular doctrines would not put forth their arguments merely in books and periodicals, read only by their own side; instead the opposing ranks would meet face to face to hand with proportional representation, and there would be a fair comparison of their intellectual strength, in the presence of the country” (22) , are still alive and being interpreted, adapted, and re-appropriated in politics. They have been firmly institutionalized into constitutions and governance structures in modern politics as well as being alive in political debates. Some scholars like Burns and Ryan (23) argue that Mill's consistent viewpoints throughout his political writings were not strictly democratic. Others like Robson and Bobbio (24) believe that he was. On their lines of arguments, it is clear that Mill's ideas have been adapted in current debates on electoral reforms, democratic forms of governance as well as contemporary social and political thoughts.

The ideas on representation inspired by Hanna Pitkin have also helped shaping the next generations of empirical research into the practice of American Democracy. Hanna Pitkin made the radical move of de-centering political representation from the intentions and acts of individual subjects and, so, breaking with the assumption that a political representative, like a lawyer, delegate or trustee, stands in a “one-to-one, person-to-person relationship” to a principal. As Lisa Disch points out, her argument have had the paradoxical effect of encouraging empirical and normative researchers to persist in thinking about political representation in the very terms that Pitkin set out to revise: as a one-on-one relationship between a representative and a constituency (25) . Obviously, her ideas live in politics as people rework them to revise the concept of 'political representation' and have consequences that go well beyond the defined responsibilities of the governments.

On the other hand, the ideas examined by Anne Phillips on the problems of representation of the poor such as the integration of the issues of class into a presence of politics, have inspired politicians and political theorists to articulate how this integration of class and a politics of presence is to be done. Her ideas inspired some political theorists to argue for the necessity descriptive representatives to be selected based on their relationship to citizens who have been unjustly excluded and marginalized by democratic politics (26) , whereas, some to emphasize empirical research on the benefits of having descriptive representatives.

Conclusion

Due to the paradoxical nature of conceptions, political ideas contain different and conflicting views as well as multiple and competing dimensions. Not all political ideas are alive. Ideas live in politics only when they inspired and keep being recycled in political arguments over time, whether being changed, adapted or re-appropriated in Politics. Ideas could also rarely be dead once institutionalized in both political institutions and non-political institutions. Moreover, living political ideas could have significant political implications and possible socio-economic consequences as people sometimes live ideas to their perils or to their limits. Furthermore, ideas are alive when they circulate in both political theory and in practice. In terms of these interpretations of living political ideas to the development of the concept of 'representation', representation can be said to be a living political idea indeed.

Khin Ma Ma Myo (2010)


End Notes

(1) Mill, J. (2004) 'Essay on Government' in Blaug, R. & Schwarzmantel, J. (eds.) Democracy: A Reader, Edinburgh,Edinburgh University Press, p. 154, Originally written 1819-1823
(2) Heywood, A. (2002) Politics, 2nd edition, New York, Palgrave Macmillan
(3) Machiavelli, N. (1987[1532]) 'The Prince' in Bondanella, J. & Musa, M. (eds) The Italian Renaissance Reader, New York, Penguin Books
(4) Machiavelli, N.(1983) The Discourses, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books
(5) Madison, J. (1987[1788]) 'The utility of the union as a safeguard against domestic faction and insurrection', The Federalist Papers, No. 10, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, p. 126
(6) Rousseau, J. (1968) The Social Contract and Discourses, Everyman's Library, Dent, London, Book III, Chaoter XV, pp. 78, Originally written 1762
. (7) Burke, E. (1996) 'Speech at the Conclusion of the Poll, 3 November 1774', in Elofson, W. and Woods, J. (eds), The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, Vol. III: Party, Parliament and the American War (1774-80), Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 68-70
.(8) Mill, J. (1992) 'Essay on Government', in Ball, T. (ed.) Political Writings, sections VI-VII, pp. 21-24, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Originally written in 1819-1823
. (9) Mill, J.S. (1951) 'Considerations on Representative Government' in Acton, H. (ed.) Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government, Dent, London, p. 175- 195, Originally written in 1861
. (10) Mill (1951) p. 228
. (11) Mill, J.S. (1982) On Liberty, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books
. (12) Pitkin, H. (1967) 'The Concept of Representation', University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, pp. 232
. (13) Pitkin (1967) pp.236
. (14) Michels, R. (1962) 'Political Parties: A sociological study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul, Free Press, London, pp. 356
. (15) Dahl, R. (1971) Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
. (16) Phillips, A. (1995) The Politics of Presence, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 5
. (17) Shepsle, K. (1985) 'Comment on Derthick and Quirk', in Noll, R. (ed.) Regulatory Policy and the Social Science, Berkeley, University of California Press, pp. 235
. (18) Krasner, S. (1993) 'Westphalia and All That', in Goldstein, J. and Koehane, R. (eds.) Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change, Ithaca, Cornell University Press
. (19) Thompson, G.; Huysmans, J. & Rrokhovnik, R. (2008) 'What makes ideas political?', audio transcripts, courses on Living Political Ideas, Open University
. (20) Thompson, G.; Huysmans, J. & Rrokhovnik, R. (2008) 'How do political ideas live?', audio transcripts, courses on Living Political Ideas, Open University
. (21) Wills, G. (1982) Explaining America, New York, Penguin Books, pp. 195
. (22) Mill, J.S. (1951) "Of True and False Democracy; Representation of All, and Representation of the Majority Only." in Acton, H. (ed.) Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government, Dent, London, p. 175- 195, Originally written in 1861
. (23) Burns, J. (1968) “J.S. Mill and Democracy, 1829-61” in Schneewind (ed) Mill: A collection of Cirtical Essays, pp.328, Ryan (2007) 'Bureaucracy, Democracy, Liberty: Some Unanswered Questions in Mill's Politics', in Urbinati and Zakaris (eds.) J.S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp.158
.(24) Robson (1968) The Improvement of Mankind: The Social and Political Thought of John Stuart Mill, London, Routledge, pp. 224, Bobbio, N. (2005) Liberalism and Democracy, London, Verso, pp.57
. (25) Disch, L. (2007) 'Representation “Do’s and Don’ts”: Hanna Pitkin’s The Concept of Representation', Online, http://www.univ-paris8.fr/scpo/lisadisch.pdf (assessed on 8/6/2010)
. (26) Dovi, Suzanne. 2002. “Preferable Descriptive Representatives: Or Will Just Any Woman, Black, or Latino Do?” American Political Science Review 96: 745-754.

Bibliography

Burns, J. (1968) “J.S. Mill and Democracy, 1829-61” in Schneewind (ed) Mill: A collection of Cirtical Essays, pp.328

Burke, E. (1996) 'Speech at the Conclusion of the Poll, 3 November 1774', in Elofson, W. and Woods, J. (eds), The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, Vol. III: Party, Parliament and the American War (1774-80), Clarendon Press, Oxford

Dahl, R. (1971) Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press

Dovi, Suzanne( 2002) “Preferable Descriptive Representatives: Or Will Just Any Woman, Black, or Latino Do?” American Political Science Review 96: 745-754.

Disch, L. (2007) 'Representation “Do’s and Don’ts”: Hanna Pitkin’s The Concept of Representation', Online, http://www.univ-paris8.fr/scpo/lisadisch.pdf (assessed on 8/6/2010)

Heywood, A. (2002) Politics, 2nd edition, New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Krasner, S. (1993) 'Westphalia and All That', in Goldstein, J. and Koehane, R. (eds.) Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change, Ithaca, Cornell University Press

Machiavelli, N. (1987[1532]) 'The Prince' in Bondanella, J. & Musa, M. (eds) The Italian Renaissance Reader, New York, Penguin Books

Machiavelli, N.(1983) The Discourses, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books

Madison, J. (1987[1788]) 'The utility of the union as a safeguard against domestic faction and insurrection', The Federalist Papers, No. 10, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books

Michels, R. (1962) 'Political Parties: A sociological study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul, Free Press, London

Mill, J. (1992) 'Essay on Government', in Ball, T. (ed.) Political Writings, sections VI-VII, pp. 21-24, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Originally written in 1819-1823

Mill, J. (2004) 'Essay on Government' in Blaug, R. & Schwarzmantel, J. (eds.) Democracy: A Reader, Edinburgh,Edinburgh University Press, p. 154, Originally written 1819-1823

Mill, J.S. (1951) 'Considerations on Representative Government' in Acton, H. (ed.) Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government, Dent, London, p. 175- 195, Originally written in 1861

Mill, J.S. (1982) On Liberty, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books

Pitkin, H. (1967) 'The Concept of Representation', University of California Press, Berkeley, CA

Phillips, A. (1995) The Politics of Presence, Clarendon Press, Oxford

Rousseau, J. (1968) The Social Contract and Discourses, Everyman's Library, Dent, London, Book III, Chaoter XV, pp. 78, Originally written 1762

Ryan (2007) 'Bureaucracy, Democracy, Liberty: Some Unanswered Questions in Mill's Politics', in Urbinati and Zakaris (eds.) J.S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Shepsle, K. (1985) 'Comment on Derthick and Quirk', in Noll, R. (ed.) Regulatory Policy and the Social Science, Berkeley, University of California Press

Thompson, G.; Huysmans, J. & Rrokhovnik, R. (2008) 'What makes ideas political?', audio transcripts, courses on Living Political Ideas, Open University

Thompson, G.; Huysmans, J. & Rrokhovnik, R. (2008) 'How do political ideas live?', audio transcripts, courses on Living Political Ideas, Open University

Wills, G. (1982) Explaining America, New York, Penguin Books

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Essay: European Security Policy and EU Governance

European Security Policy by Khin Ma Ma Myo (Essay)

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On Politics and Violence: Is Violence an Important Instrument in Politics? (Essay)

Introduction

The persistent rise of political violence is a very disturbing trend against peace and prosperity in different parts of the world. For historians and anthropologists, political violence is seen as related to movements of social protests against established powers. For political scientists, political violence is seen as related to the often violent response of the state to challenges of social protests. For economists, political violence is seen as related to failures of the state to maintain the monopoly of coercion and force by the state Despite of their different views, there has been a long history of political violence in the world along with the increasing trend of the number of victims, the magnitude of devastation and the new technologies of destruction. With the proliferation of political violence, the problems of violence underpins modern understandings in politics. Violence has been seen as the essence of politics by some political scientists and philosophers. On the other hand, some scholars keep the two clearly apart and set politics up as antithetical to violence. In this essay, I would like to analyse whether violence is an important instrument in politics by exploring the works of political theorists and analysing case studies in a modern world.




Traditional Thinking on Politics and Violence
In his writings of 'Leviathan', Thomas Hobbes depicted the pre-political 'state of nature' as a place of violence, where endeavours to destroy or subdue one another, making life solitary, short and nasty. He clearly demonstrates the relationship between violence and political power by arguing that the power of the artificial body that can satisfactorily achieve this domination must be centred on the power of the sword .

Max Weber also claimed a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence. According to his theory, political action is the domination of the territory by using violence as a legitimate means. He clearly states the relationship between violence and political organizations by arguing as “In addition to the fact that violence is (at least also) used to guarantee 'order', a distinguishing feature of the political group is that it claims power over its administrative staff and its rule in a particular area and guarantees it by force […] in this respect they must be regarded as political organizations .”

By taking the steps of Hobbes and Weber, numerous political theorists and thinkers look at politics from the view point of state organizations. On the other hand, some thinkers also focus on revolutionary violence by looking at politics from the view point of the oppressed people. In the doctrine of Marxism, the violence of the political economic domination and exploitation of the working class by the capitalist state must and will be resisted and eventually overthrown by concerted, and violent, action by the revolutionary working class.

Fanon's Theory
Fanon asserts a new liberationist form of politics that is free of violence by attacking the liberal parliamentary form of party politics that purports to eschew violence, but cannot. He also attacks the realist account, which associates politics with violent domination, and argues for the justification of violent resistance. Although his ideas were profoundly influenced by Karl Marx, Fanon departs most sharply from Marx in his understanding of the functions of violence in the revolutionary process.

For Marx, violence was not the key factor in his analysis of revolution. He expects violence to be a part of the revolutionary process, however, he doesn't consider it as historically necessary. Unlike Marx, Fanon argued that violence was indispensable in the decolonization process, a categorical imperative, without which one could not talk of revolution - or at least one could only talk of it.

In his essay titled “Toward the Liberation of Africa,” he states: “Violence alone, committed by the people, violence organized and educated by its leaders, makes it possible for the masses to understand social truths and gives the key to them. Without that struggle, without that knowledge of the practice of action, there is nothing save a minimum of re-adaptation, a few reforms, at the top, a flag waving: and down there at the bottom an undivided masses still living in the middle ages, endlessly marking time” . He clearly implies that violence is inevitable and suggests that violence is the only way 'the wretched of the earth '; political and economic structures of exploitation and oppression are embodied in rage and resentment, and finally in pathologies of body and mind; can be free. To the contrary, Arendt sees the fundamental assumptions of Fanon's theories of politics and revolutionary change as mistaken.

Arendt's Theory
Arendt looks the relationship between violence and politics by taking alternative views. She thinks the arguments of 'violence as the ultimate power' in Hobbes to Weber's accounts, 'war as politics continued by other means in Clausewitz's account and power as growing out of the barrel of a gun in Mao's account are based on a fundamental confusion between political action and fabrication.

For Arendt, unlike fabrication, action does not encompass bringing an envisaged product into being and violence is only ruled by means-end reasoning. She writes that “The end of human action, as distinct from the end products of fabrication, can never be reliably predicted. The means used to achieve political goals are more often than not of greater relevance to the future world than the intended goals”

Arendt also opposes the kind of straightforwardly instrumentalist reasoning about uses of violence associated with realist political thinkers. Moreover, she argues against the idea that violence is natural for human beings due to human biological nature. However, she also identifies the two contexts in which violence is presented as justifiable such that it may be justified as a response to extreme injustice ; and it may be justified insofar as it opens up the space for politics . For Arendt, the use of non-violence as a tactic requires, as its pre-requisite, that there already be some space of politics and therefore for power. Thus, violence would be necessary in order to make politics possible in the face of a pure anti-political regime. However, she also warns that with violence, there is a danger that the means will overwhelm the end.

Case Study: The break-up of Yugoslavia

In 1989, Yugoslavia indicated gestures to build formal links with the EC and the commission responded in 1990 with a package of arrangements, including PHARE eligibility. However, the progress was blocked by Belgrade's difficulties with the need for open, multi-party federal elections. By 1991, the prospect of federal election became impossible and in June, 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared themselves as independent states. In response to these declarations, Yugoslav Federal forces moved into Croatia and eventually into Bosnia-Herzegovina. Despite of mediation efforts by EC, heavy fighting broke out in Slovenia in the spring.

In January, 1992, Germany managed to persuade its EC colleagues to agree to the conditional recognition of the independence of Croatia and Slovenia. This recognition indirectly opened up the question of Bosnia's future. Unlike Croatia and Slovenia, any referendum on Bosnia's independence led to division along ethnic lines due to the highly complex ethnic structure of the republic. Later, in 1993, the UN Security Council had to adopt Resolution 816, which permitted the use of force in cases of violation of the airspace in the face of persistent violations of the military flight ban over Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In Yugoslavia, it was inherited traditions of ethnic nationalism which contributed to the collapse of the state. Ethnic nationalism rests on a conception of inherited characteristics that necessarily excludes some individuals and groups from any multi-ethnic community and offers no real prospect of effective democratization . In fact, the prevalence of ethnic nationalism in Yugoslavia prepared the way for the bloody breakup of the state and the restricted prospects for liberal democracy associated with it.

Due to the break-up of the state, more than two hundred thousands of civilians were killed in Bosnia and Croatia. Tens of thousands of women were raped, some of them more than a hundred times, while their sons and husbands were beaten and tortured in concentration camps like Omarska and Manjaca. Millions lost their homes due to a process called "ethnic cleansing." These examples show the relationship between politics and violence in terms of 'ethnic violence' , which centers on state breakdown, anarchy, and the security dilemma that such conditions pose to ethnic groups who engage in defensive arming to protect their lives and property against ethnic rivals, which then stimulates arming by other ethnic groups like an arms race between states.

Case Study: Algeria

The ruling Algerian regime opened up the political system in 1989 and during the process of democratization, the ascendancy of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) challenged the very nature of the Algerian state. Then the FIS emerged as the principal political movement in the country and was poised to take power after a landslide victory in the first round of the 1991 legislative elections. However, the Army intervened in the political process and the authoritarian rule was re-instated. FIS was banned and its members imprisoned. As a result, a significant number of Islamist militants took up arms against the regime and a civil conflict ensued.

The Algerian war caused more than 150,000 casualties and was characterized by unspeakable brutality. The military junta accused the insurgents of “terrorism”, while the Islamist groups accused the security forces and their political supporters of “state terrorism” against the free will of the Algerian people who had expressed their preference for Islamism at the polls . The civil violence affecting Algeria was largely interpreted as the inevitable outcome of the confrontation between the secular and liberal values of many within Algerian society and the inherent anti-democratic and violent nature of political Islam.

From the very beginning of the conflict, “the Algerian government invoked the legitimacy of the struggle against terrorism to erase all the political aspects on the crisis in Algeria” and fought the insurgents in the name of defending the values of democracy, secularism, and enlightenment. However, upon closer inspection, it became clear that the generals charged with derailing the democratic process and fighting the insurgents mostly acted to achieve personal political survival and material privileges. This does not mean that genuine concerns about the FIS were not widespread, particularly among the secular and liberal sectors of civil society. In fact, many of its most prominent representatives supported the Army's crackdown.

In fact, the political violence in Algeria had clear antecedents in the war of national liberation waged by the FLN against the French in the 1950s. The Algerian war for independence began in 1954 and ended in 1962 when French President Charles De Gaulle pronounced Algeria an independent country on July 3. During this War of Independence, the FLN (which later came to be seen as a secular, socialist-oriented party) used religion as a way to acquire political legitimacy and used violence to achieve its goals. The anti-colonial struggle was labelled a jihad, and the prerequisite for those who wanted to acquire positions of power after independence in 1962 was to have been a wartime mujahid. The use of violence to gain national independence in Algeria clearly shows the relationship between violence and politics.

Conclusion

The conceptions of the relationship between violence and politics usually fall at the two extremes of the claim that 'politics and violence are essentially the same' on one end of spectrum and the claim that 'politics does not involve violence at all' at the other spectrum. Traditional thinkers interpreted violence as an important instrument of political power. Alternatively, Fanon asserts violence as an essential instrument of national liberation struggles. In contrast, Arendt views violence as a danger that the means will overwhelm the end. According to the case studies, it is obvious that violence has been used by ethnic nationalists and revolutionaries as an important instrument in politics.

Khin Ma Ma Myo (2010)

End Notes

1. Solimano, A. (2004) 'Political Violence and economic development in Latin America: issues and evidence', Macroeconomic del desarrollo series, UN Publications, Santiago, pp. 4
Hobbes, T. (1996[1651]) Leviathan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 116-121
Weber, M. (1978[1921]) Economy and Society, Berkelye, C.A, University of California Press, pp. 55
Marx, K. (1978 [1875]) Critique of the Gotha Programme, London, Progress Publishers
Frazer, E. & Hutchings, K. (2008) 'On Politics and Violence: Arendt Contra Fanon', Contemporary Political Theory, No. 7, pp. 90–108
Fanon, F. (1967) Toward the Liberation of Africa, New York, Monthly Review Press, pp. 118
Fanon, F. (2001 [1961]) The Wretched of the Earth (Preface by J-P Sartre (trans.) Constance Farrington). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, pp. 200
Arendt, H. (1973) 'On Violence' in Crises of the Republic, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Arendt (1973) pp.64
Arendt (1973) pp. 79
Duke, S. (2000) The Elusive Quest for European Security: From EDC to CFSP, London, Macmillan Press
Ferdinand, P. (1997) 'Nationalism, community and democratic transition in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia” in Potter, D., Goldblatt, D. (eds.) Democratization, Milton Keynes, Polity Press
Oberschall, A. (2000) 'The manipulation of ethnicity: from ethnic cooperation to violence and war in Yugoslavia, Ethnic and Racial studies, 23 (6), November 2000, pp.982-1001
Hafez, M. (2003) Why Muslims Rebel; repression and resistance in the Islamic world, Boulder, Lynn Rienner
Benchikh, Algérie, M.( 2003) Un pouvoir politique militarisé, Paris, Ed. L’Harmattan
Bencherif, O.(1995), ‘Algeria Faces the Rough Beast’, Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1995. Available on-line at: http://www.meforum.org/meq/issues/199512 (accessed on 11/5/2010)

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Essay: European law and the nature of EU governance

The Article 7 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC) identified five main European institutions such as the European Council, the Council of Ministers, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice. The European Union, established by the Treaty, is based on three pillars. The first pillar is the European community, where community law applies and where the European court of Justice (ECJ) plays an important role. The second pillar is the common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The third pillar is the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA). Among them, European Court of Justice (ECJ) is the key institution that enforces EU legislation to make sure EU law is not interpreted and applied differently in each member state.



According to TEC Article 220, the court's principal purpose is ' to ensure that in the interpretation and application of the law is observed'. The member states are bound by the common law including primary and secondary legislation. The original treaties, the treaties of accession, and amendments constitute the 'primary legislation', whereas laws made in accordance with the treaties constitute the treaties constitute the 'secondary legislation'.

The court consists of 16 judges and nine advocates general, which sits in Luxembourg. They are appointed by the Common Accord of the governments of each member state for six years. The judges select one of them to be president for three years. The court is allowed to form chambers of three or five judges to hear individual cases. The court's rules of procedure determine where cases are heard and the court hears cases two days a week.

The court also developed two principal rules such as direct effect and supremacy. The provisions of community law are directly applicable, conferring enforceable rights on individuals and legal persons. National courts must protect these rights without any need for implementing legislation. The concept of direct effect of the provisions of the Treaty was developed by the ECJ in case 26/62, Van Gend en Loos V Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen (1963).

The court also stated the conditions for a Treaty article to be directly applicable that it must be unconditional and unqualified and sufficiently precise and clear. Moreover, EU's legislation affects the interpretation of national law. In the case of Costa V ENEL (1964), the court stated that member states had definitely transferred sovereign rights to the community and that community law could not be overridden by domestic legal provisions with the legal basis of the community itself being called into question. Later, the court expanded its power in the case of Simmenthal V Commission (1978) that 'every national court must apply community law in its entirety [---] and must accordingly set aside any provisions of national law which may conflict with it'. In these cases, the court established the twin principles of direct effect and supremacy of community law.

In the elaboration of direct effect and supremacy have proved decisive in helping to achieve the EU's economic and social goals, namely,
freedom of establishment- Reyners (1974) case
free movement of goods- Cassos de Dijon (1979) case
freedom to provide services- Vereniging Bond Van Adverteerders V. The Netherlands State (1988) case
competition policy
social policy- Defrenne (1971) case and
external economic relations- ERTA (1976) case

The success of community law depends to a great extent on the willingness of national courts to seek preliminary rulings and abide by them. Under Article 234 TEC, if an individual argues before a national court that a national law or policy conflicts with EC law, and if the court is unable or unwilling to resolve the dispute based on previous EC case law, the court may seek 'authoritative guidance' from the ECJ by making a preliminary ruling reference (request).

Within the European Union, the ECJ plays an important role that affect the nature of the European governance. Bromley (2001) categorised the European governance into two different models such as intergovernmentalism and supranationalism. Intergovernmentalism enables member states to pursue their own national interests and exercise a veto on developments they do not favor. Supranationalism limits their ability to exercise a national veto and obliges them to follow decisions supported by a majority or qualified majority of their fellow member states'. He mentioned that the formation of major legislation has been by intergovernmental means but the implementation and enforcement of treaties has been by supranational means. Marks (1996) also recognizes that 'Supranational institutions- European Commission, the European Court, and the European Parliament- have independent influence in policy making that cannot be derived from their role as agents of state executives”.

Furthermore, Bromley (2001) distinguished the key institutions of EU based on those two models, as like 'the main supranational institutions are the commission, the Parliament and the Court of Justice. The main intergovernmental institutions are the European Council and the Council of Ministers. So it is obvious that the ECJ has jurisdiction over supranational policies and not over the intergovernmental policies.

In practice, intergovernmentalism and supranationalism are not irreconcilable, they jointly characterize EU system. The commission has only a modicum of supranational authority. The ECJ has a unique relationship with the European commission. They work together to promote economic integration by using competitive policy instruments and infringement proceedings. The single European Act (SEA) of 1986 is a striking example of how member states reconcile intergovernmentalism and supranationalism in relation to the EU's functional scope and institutional structure.

Similarly, the court shared a common supranationalist outlook with the European Parliament (EP). In the case of Isoglucose case, the court has generally promoted the EP's institutional interests. In the case of Chernobyl (1990), the court ruled that the EP should have the right to take action against Council and Commission acts in cases including parliamentary prerogatives in order to ensure institutional equilibrium in the post- SEA (Single European Act) period.

Institutionally, the European Council upholds national interest in the EU system, whereas the court upholds supranationalism. Somethimmes the court's liberal interpretation of the treaties in order to deepen economic and political integration has angered the council as well as the member states. For example. The ECJ came under criticism from the German governmment for some preliminary rulings protecting the rights of Italian and non EU migrants in the early 1990s. The criticism emphasized on the right of lower national courts to ask the ECJ for preliminary rulings, the fundamental principal of EC law.

In his writings, Hix (1999) identified five types of policy output produced by the political system of the EU such as regulatory policies, redistributive polices, citizen polices, macroeconomic stabilization polices and global polices. The community legal order is the main resource for the regulatory polices of the EU. The ECJ plays the role as a hero by developing this community legal order, which emerged through treaties and directives.

In the eyes of both member states and societal actors, the character of legal order and its growing legitimacy can be seen as the constitutionalization. Bormley (2001) analyzed that a constitutionalized legal order was both a logical prerequisite for the emergence of a regulatory order in EU and a vital component of the political process. Wincott mentioned that the community legal order developed as the ECJ necame able to promulgate the doctrines of direct effect and the supremacy of European law in relation to the national laws of member states.

The ECJ also pointed out that Treaty provisions and directives are directly effective, as well as regulations and that in cases of conflict European law has supremacy over national law. These represent the underlying principles in federalism. At the 1996-1997 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), the Factirtame and other judgments led British government to propose some measures to curb the ECJ's effectiveness. If fueled speculation that ECJ's prerogatives seriously curtailed in the Amsterdam treaty. In this event, most member states wer too appreciative of ECJ's overall importance to reduce its rile in the EU system, and there were no fundamental challenges to the basic tenets of the EC law. This treaty brought mostly third pillar to first pillar and extended judicial review to what remains of the third pillar, not to the second pollar because of the nondiscrimination clause.

In conclusion, it could be asserted that the European law and the EU's legal structures are responsible for the EU's supranational legal system and have a major impact on the political spheres of the EU's governance.

Khin Ma Ma Myo (2006)

References

Bromley, S. (2001) 'Governing European Union', SAGE, London

Dinan, D. (1999) 'Ever Closer Union', Macmillan

Groves, P. (1995) 'European Community Law', Cavendish, London

Marks, G. (1996) 'Governance in the European Union', SAGE, New York
Wincott, D. (2000) 'A community of Law? 'European' law and judicial politics: the court of Justice and beyond', Government and Opposition, Vol. 35

Weiler (1981)' The community system:The Dual character of supranationalism'

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Essay: Common Agricultural Policy and its reforms

As food is essential to maintain national security, most governments intervene in agricultural markets to attain a degree of self-sufficiency in food production, assure consumers an adequate supply of food at reasonable prices or counter interventions by foreign governments in agricultural markets by using a variety of policy instruments. Among the policy instruments, the common direct intervention measures such as tariffs and other import taxes, quotas on imports or exports and export subsidies or taxes are mainly used by governments. Regarding the European Union, it relies mainly on ad valorem tariffs to restrict imports of agricultural products. The EU insulates its domestic markets from changes in world prices and protects domestic prices established under the farm programs of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).




Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

The Treaty of Rome in 1957 envisaged the creation of a "Common Market", including agriculture which was accorded 'special treatment'. The inclusion of agricultural products into a "common market" was considered to be a "sine qua non" condition for the success of the operation of the initial six Member States. Although the Treaty of Rome only deals with general aims and possible mechanisms to achieve those, the prominent role of agriculture being given in the Treaty underlines the importance of the sector to the member states (George, 1996).

The aims of the CAP, as laid down in the original Rome Treaty were to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress, ensuring the rational development of agricultural production and the optimum utilization the factors of production, in particular labor; ensure a fair standard of living for those engaged in agriculture, by increasing their individual earnings; stabilize the (agricultural) markets and assure the availability of supplies and ensure reasonable prices fort he consumers (Article 39 of the Treaty of Rome).

Later, the Single European Act in 1986 introduced an additional general objective under the title The Environment (Title XW) and the Treaty on European Union (1992) recognized (Article B) economic and social cohesion as a general priority objective by developing this new objective in Title XIV (originally introduced in the Single European Act), obliging all sectoral policies (including agriculture), to take cohesion objectives into account.

All the rules constituting CAP are mainly based on the three fundamental principles governing the creation of the European Common Market such as

Market unity: there would be a single market rather than several separate national ones
Community preference: preference would be given to EU agricultural producers over non-EU producers and
Financial solidarity: the CAP would be paid for by the EU as a whole, rather than by national government expenditure.

Brown (2005) further identified the fourth principle that came to be adopted in practice, I.e. farm income would not be allowed to decline relative to that of other sectors (Brown, 2005).

To attain the objectives of CAP based on the above principles, several areas have been developed in specific areas of actions which include certain policy instruments. The specific areas of policy include agricultural markets which cover 95% of community agricultural products; structures which cover the medium and long-term structural problems; external aspects which cover the conclusion of trade negotiations and preferential agreements; and financing to fulfill the policy goals.

In the context of policy mechanisms, it was decided that the objectives of Article 39 were to be achieved by a Common Organization of Markets (COMs) based on a market prices support system or target price instrument, in which each COM assures a minimum price (support or intervention price) to the Community producers, thus this price acts as a "guarantee" to the producers that the market price of their product will not fall below this fixed minimum level. Other instruments of the CAP include intervention price instrument, which defines the price at which intervention agencies in member states buy up surplus stocks; entry price instrument, which sets up the minimum price for produce to be imported into the EU; variable levy mechanism, where duties were imposed to raise imports up to EU price and refund instrument, which rebates to EU exporters to lower EU export prices to world market levels. (Dinan, 1999)
Major changes and reforms of CAP

Theo Hitiris (2002) assessed the trends in EU agriculture under the key objectives of CAP and mentioned the three major defects to the CAP policies such as

The CAP led to excess production
The CAP's variable import levies and export subsidies insulated the EU markets from external price fluctuations, thereby amplifying the variability of world commodity prices
Depressed prices and price instability

Some problems and defects have become apparent early in the CAP's existence. Since 1970s, the criticism was directly against the policies in some issues as keeping prices above world prices, causing significant financial expenditures, leading to income redistribution from consumers to produces within and between countries and raising to collective protection of EU agriculture to such high levels that large surpluses of some important commodities were generated.

Under these mounting external and internal pressures, some radical reforms are introduced in CAP policy. The first attempt at reform was the Mansholt plan in 1968 that the twin objectives of stabilizing production at the level of demand while ensuring farmes a fair income could not be met. However, political opposition to the plan leads to the proposed reforms unacceptable.

The second attempt at reform was 'Guidelines for European Agriculture” Plan in 1981. But the measures in this plan cannot solve the fundamental problem of 'how to reconcile the social objectives of CAP with real market conditions'. The CAP problems are more worsened after Greece, Portugal and Spain joined as the members of the community as it increased the CAP budgetary expenditures and worsened the balance between supply and demand of agricultural products.

By the mid-1990s, European agriculture was faced by some pressures focused on the question of food safety. The prominent issues were cattle brain disease BSE (Bovine spongiform Encephalopathy) crises and GMOs (Genetically modified organisms). In the BSE crises, it was British Government which decided that British Beef was unsafe, thus EU made its own ban. However, once the British Government decided beef was again safe, it leads to the problem of conflict between member states and the EU commission with France maintaining its own national ban in contrast with EU decision to allow beef export.( Brown, 2005)

It was more complex in GM foods. The key decisions over G crops are whether governments would allow them to be released into the environment for field tests, whether commercial growing would be permitted and whether new foods containing GM products would be allowed to be sold in EU. The release of a GMO into the environment was covered by the EU's Deliberate Release Directive 90/220, set up in May of 1990. (Brown. 2005)

By 1991, the external pressure and the internal budget problems lead to the reform of CAP with the Macsharry Proposals. Dinan (1999) mentioned that the proposals called for three key reforms: the biggest price cuts in CAP history, direct monetary compensation to farmers who lost income due to these cuts and increased use of set-aside scheme. In 1992, the restructuring policy was undertaken and approved in December 1993 with the pressures of EU decision to complete single Market by 1992 and the GATT Uruguay Round for trade liberalization. The reforms aimed to slash overproduction by reducing the guaranteed prices by up to 30% and switching the CAP policy from price support to compensatory payments in terms of direct income supplements linked to farm size and average yields. The community agreed to change protection from variable levies to fixed tariffs. By using these reforms, the EU governments took a great step towards market liberalization of the agricultural sector by separating the economic form of the social functions of the CAP.

In 1999, a new agreement to reform CAP was signed and it introduced further direct payments and cuts in support prices by reducing them more than 50%. The Agenda 2000 reforms were agreed in March 1999 with the first pillar of facilitating the EU's negotiations in the WTO, easing the integration of eastern European countries into the EU, maintaining farming incomes y further direct payments to farmers, reinforcing the shift from price support to direct aid and the second pillar that focused on rural development, training, investment, diversification, agri-environmental schemes, food quality and animal welfare improvements.

Furthermore, the new inform took place in 2003 by directing at the main external challenges the EU faces related to budgetary, expenditures and inflation, The major reform was the decoupling of farm support from production by allowing the EU to place this aspect of the CAP into the WTO's green box of non trade-distorting measures which consists of agricultural support measures.

Conclusion

For several years, agriculture has been a key issue in EU in terms of political, economic, social and strategic reasons. It is more complicated than other sectors of the short-term, long-term demand and supply in the markets of both agricultural commodities and factors of production. In terms of government intervention, governments ought to intervene attempting to modify its course and to regulate its production and trade. If the economy is operating efficiently and the government intervenes in the agricultural sector to improve, the outcome would be a distorting welfare. For EU governance, agriculture is the main key sector for European governance not to produce a distorting welfare, thus it needed some necessary reforms for CAP along with EU enlargement.

Khin Ma Ma Myo (2006)

References

Brown, W. (2005) Food Fights: Europe and Agriculture, Milton Keynes, OU Press

Dinan, D. (1999) Ever Closer Union: An Introduction to European Integration, London, Macmillan

Hill, Brain E. (1987) The Common Agricultural Policy: Past, Present and Furture, Ed. Mathuen

European Commission Agenda 2000- Communication For a stronger and Wider Union (Doc/ 97/6/ 15.7.1997)

George, S. (1996) Policy and Politics in the European Union, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Treaty of Rome

Treaty on European Union

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Essay: Strong Leaders & Representative Democracy

Strong Leaders and Representative Democracy

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Short Essay: The End of the Cold War: The End of History and The End of political ideas?

The End of the Cold War by Khin Ma Ma Myo

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