Imperial democratization: Rhetoric and reality.

• Author: Perry, Glenn E.

UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, the United States proclaimed its commitment to making the world "democratic" and "free." Robert Jervis sees this emphasis on the domestic structures of states, along with a willingness to use such means as preventive war, an absence of inhibitions about unilateral action, and the necessity "of American primacy, hegemony, or empire" for the sake of peace and stability--with the hegemonic power not even bound by rules that apply to others--as the "four elements" of the Bush doctrine. This portrays a vision of a democratic, peaceful world and the warlike ways through which a hegemonic power would impose it through its own diktat--what I sum up here as imperial democratization. Just as war would make for peace, the authoritarian world order would impose "democracy" within each country. The Bush Doctrine is focused on the Middle East. The centerpiece of this policy was the invasion and occupation of Iraq in a military campaign officially dubbed "Operation Iraqi Freedom." The proclaimed goal of this campaign was to turn Iraq into a "democracy" as a step toward the democratization of the Arab world and Iran. Ironically, this is the region in which the United States has long depended more than anywhere else (particularly since it began supporting at least superficial democratization in other less-developed countries during recent decades) on a network of client authoritarian regimes. This is part of an imperial structure that Johan Galtung (2) characterizes as being based on alliances between the center of the Center (that is, the ruling class of a developed country) and the center of the Periphery (the ruling class in underdeveloped countries) to suppress popular opposition (again in Galtung's words, from the periphery of the Periphery) to American (or other Center countries') policies. And indeed amid repeated pious proclamations of repentance for its past sins, Washington now relies more than ever on local autocratic allies as the foundation of the Middle Eastern part of its empire. Is the Bush administration merely lying when it talks about the necessity of democratization when such would undermine the empire?

EXPLAINING THE CONTRADICTION: IDEOLOGY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER AND EMPIRE

In his classic treatise, Politics Among Nations, Hans J. Morgenthau provides important insight for understanding the role of idealist rhetoric about such matters as spreading democracy. Like other proponents of the "realist" school, Morgenthau emphasizes that all politics is a struggle for power. As he goes on to tell us, power is the "immediate aim" in international politics--the means to whatever aim motivates a state, whether it be power for its own sake or some other value. (3) While not denying the possibility that the "ultimate goals" are sometimes of an idealistic nature ("legal and ethical principles and biological necessities"), he emphasizes the "ideological element in international politics" from a "realist" perspective. Drawing on insight from Shakespeare and Tolstoy, he shows that this involves hiding a struggle for domination--even "deceiving oneself"--"behind the mask of a political ideology" (i.e., "pretexts and false fronts") that make one's goals "psychologically and morally acceptable" and thus provide "weapons in the struggle for power," for not only would frankness about one's lust for power evoke opposition abroad, but it would create a "bad conscience" at home, thus making it difficult to rally support for foreign policies. (4)

Since we cannot get inside policy makers' minds, the possibility that sometimes they are simply lying about their intentions cannot be dismissed. But I believe that the Bush administration's proclaimed commitment to democratizing the Middle East provides a prime example of such rationalizing and that American leaders and their spokespeople often actually believe what they say, even though the dynamics of the situation dictate that their actions will belie their rhetoric. This may in part represent the well-known phenomenon of "groupthink," in which those engaged in policymaking reinforce one another's opinions and, more to the point here, their "unquestioned belief in [their] inherent morality," which has been identified as one of the main symptoms of the "groupthink" malady. (5) But Jervis (6) suggests that what originally just provided a rationalization may sometimes affect policy makers' actual behavior and--while citing "mid-level officials" who dismiss such as "window dressing"--describes the Bush administration as having "a faith-based foreign policy" that leaves beyond question the necessity and efficaciousness of democratizing Iraq and the Middle East generally even though it might in fact "not act on it" at the price of "sacrific[ing] stability."

The loud proclamations of support for democratization may also exemplify a tendency to engage in impression management (again, likely a matter of rationalization rather than simply lying) as a substitute for actions that seem too costly to carry out. Thus in reference to the Allied response to information revealing the extent of the ongoing Holocaust against the European Jews in 1943, a recent account spoke of "ways [Allied leaders used] to create the impression of concern but" without a real "intention of taking any meaningful action." (7)

In a seminal theoretical study, Dialogues in Arab Politics, Michael N. Barnett provides concepts of particular relevance here. In keeping with his "constructivist" approach to international politics, which purports to offer an alternative to realism by emphasizing the way state interests are shaped in a "normative context" but which he also calls "no less related to issues of power, domination, and social control than is military politics," Barnett (8) systematically analyzes the politics of pan-Arabism since 1920, with Arab leaders described as being engaged in "symbolic politics" or "presentational politics" (also: "framing events") to protect their image of commitment to pan-Arab causes, including unity and Palestine, so important to protect their regimes from the wrath of their own publics as well as in the broader inter-Arab arena, and to undermine their rivals' images, while actually giving priority to their own self-interest. Although the two situations may differ in many ways, the use of "democracy" or "freedom"--much like commitment to a pan-national identity--as a touchstone of virtue at home and abroad shows similarities to this, including, as I show below, the way it involves a danger of "symbolic entrapment," in which governments sometimes find themselves having no choice but to follow up rhetoric with action.

This may also exemplify what Harry Frankfurt, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Princeton University, recently has labeled "bullshit" (a more delicate alternate: simply "bull") which he believes to have become "One of the most salient features of our culture"--something that is "more insidious" than lying because, whereas the liar is consciously telling what he/she considers not to be the truth, in the latter case the person involved has lost the distinction between truth and falsehood and no longer cares. (9) He/she is concerned with "convey[ing] a certain impression of himself" rather than about what is the truth. Unlike both the truthful person and the liar, the "bullshitter," according to Frankfurt, "just picks them ["the things he says"] out, or makes them up, to suit his [her] purpose." (10)

Rulers enlisting the mass media in presenting such ideological rationalizations of imperial ventures is what Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky call "manufacturing consent." Information and analysis that undermine such attempts is available in the American press (and some of it is cited here). Although, in the words of Herman and Chomsky, (11) "usually on the back pages of the newspapers." The extent to which official policy and versions of the facts sometimes have been given undue credibility, with major parts of the mass media at worst acting as cheerleaders, is well known, particularly in relation to the invasion of Iraq and the hyping of the alleged commitment to democracy. Whether it involves self-deception, as I have suggested, or represents a purely conscious attempt to deceive others, it fits the old pattern of dressing up realpolitik in idealistic garb recognized and even advocated by classic political thinkers. Thus the fourth-century B.C., Chanakya Kautilya, counselor to King Chandragupta Maurya and one of the earliest writers elucidating "realism" in foreign policy, advised rulers "to wear a mask, say, of religious righteousness, or to create other traps, illusions, or appearances of things." (12)

American policy in the Middle East today provides a striking example of the "ideological" phenomenon Morgenthau points to. "Freedom" and "democracy" have taken a prominent place among Washington's announced goals as it behaves in an increasingly imperial manner with regard to Iraq and the Middle East generally. Many observers see this as rank hypocrisy (13) at a time when the ideological weapon is wielded so threateningly against some regimes and so gently against authoritarian clients and allies, when indeed the longtime reliance on autocratic clients--e.g., Egypt's Mubarak and all the Arab monarchies--seems to have been strengthened, not reversed. Even in the case of certain regimes that hardly deserve to be called United States clients, Washington has sometimes evinced increasing willingness to cooperate since 2001, the Sudan providing a case in point. (14) Bob Herbert has labeled as "dismaying" the way the Bush administration uses "the lofty language of freedom, democracy and the rule of law" at the same time it secretly pursues diametrically opposite policies. (15) But while such inconsistency between words and actions is clear, it is not necessarily true that policy makers are consciously lying about their motives. The kind of...