Democracy, Teleology, and Regime Pluralism: In Defense of
an Institutional Pluralist World Order
Hsuan-Hsiang Lin Department of Political Science
Fo Guang University
sunyata_sean@yahoo.com.tw
Paper to be presented at the conference of “Democratizing International Relations: New Thinking, Doing and Being,”at The Institute of Political Science at National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan, March 11th- March 12th, 2009.
Introduction
FrancisFukuyama’s“end ofhistory” thesis(Fukuyama,1991)hasbeen mercilessly besieged by theorists of various persuasions ever since its very genesis. And since his triumphalism of liberalism has been widely discredited, it is now “politically incorrect”to regard liberalism asthe telos that all human societies should embrace. Peculiarly, such teleological thinking remains quite resilient in various sub-fields of
political science. For example, in the literature of democratization, democracy is more
often than not taken to be an ideal that cannot be surpassed; as a political institution
democracy may still exhibit weaknesses, it nevertheless remains the least flawed
among the institutions that the human race has ever invented. Hence, democracy is
often implicitly assumed to be a goal to be attained by all human societies. In the
literature of international ethics, similarly, democracy is often regarded as the norm,1
and thus how democracies should handle their relations with non-democratic states
becomes an important issue. It is thus not a coincidence that both John Rawls (1999, §5) and Jürgen Habermas (1998: 171-178) , when thinking about this issue, appeals to
1Forexample,Mervyn Frosttakesdemocracy asoneofwhathecalls“settled norms”in international
the democratic peace thesis, according to which democracies never fight each other.2
This approach to the issue suggests that democracy is the best guarantee for the peace,
whereas undemocratic regimes are a potential threat to the peace; if the peace is
threatened, undemocratic states are certainly more responsible for the situation than
democracies. As such, in terms of international ethics, the thesis of democratic peace
allows democracies to occupy the moral high ground from the very beginning.
Scholars who believe in this thesis may not subscribe to the idea that democracy
should be exported by force, they nevertheless find undemocratic states short of legitimacy and arethussubjectto intervention,orqualified for“toleration”atbest. Even Rawls’s position, which requires that liberal peoples tolerate “decent hierarchicalpeoples” (Rawls,1999a:§7), would appear politically incorrect and is thus criticized by many political theorists.3 This shows how trenchant is the idea that
democracy should be the norm or telos of human societies.
Arguably, the belief in democracy and democratization has its root in the
so-called “modernity’sproject”founded on liberalism, which in turn is characterized by individualism, egalitarianism, universalism, and meliorism.4 Underlying the
liberal assumptions is the idea of the person conceived as an autonomous, free and
equal being. But as Fiona Robertson-Snape points out, this conception of the person
has been questioned by liberals with a communitarian bent (e.g. Sandel, 1982; Taylor,
1985), and thus its modernity project is not as universalisable as it appears to be. She
quotes John Gray’s statement to endorse her observation: “The conception of ourselves as autonomous rational agents and authors of our own values bare patently
upon it the marks of modernity and European individuality and has not universality as
2 For a survey of the literature on this thesis, see Steve Chan (1997).
3 For example, Pogge (1994), Tesón (1995), Beitz (2000), Buchanan (2000), Kuper (2000), Caney
(2002), Nussbaum (2002).
4
These four features of liberalism are derived from John Gray’saccount(Gray,1995:xii),cited in Robertson-Snape (2000: 509).
an imageofmorallife.”(Gray, 1995: 50, quoted in Robertson-Snape, 2000: 512) In addition, other theorists, some of them informed by postmodernism, are concerned
with the totalizing effect of universalism that tends to silence differences (e.g.
Connolly, 1991); for these theorists, value pluralism presents itself as a more
attractive alternative.5 And yet, this alternative is often accused of being tarnished by
moral relativism. Then, how can we get out of this impasse?
On the face of it, this impasse is very reminiscent of the old-aged
cosmopolitan-communitarian debate, and to this date many theorists have advanced
different approaches to overcome this dichotomy (e.g. Cochran, 1999; Hutchings,
1999; Shopcott, 2001). It seems to me, however, that the tendency of these accounts is
to theorize from the abstract to the concrete. But politics is an enterprise that involves
not only theoretical but also practical reason, and so normative arguments must entail,
in addition to theoretical argument, praxeological argument. 6 Therefore
Robertson-Snape is right in pointing to an alternative way of theorizing by drawing on LuigiBonanate’saccount,which “proceedsto reconsidertheproblem ofethicsin international relations, not by continuing the search for universal and objective
foundation, but by examining the nature and reality of international politics.” (Robertson-Snape, 2000: 513). This approach is akin to Mervyn Frost’s account whosetheorizing beginswith “settled norms” (Frost,1996),and asIhaveargued elsewhereFrost’sapproach isvery much inspired by Rawls’smethod of“reflective equilibrium”(Lin,2008a;Rawls,1971:20).Hence,IshalltakeRawls’saccountto be a good starting point of this alternative approach.
In this paper, I will begin with an exposition of Rawls’stoleration thesis and
5
For a brief survey of liberal theorists who may endorse value pluralism, see Baumeister (2003: 750-4).
6 This position is informed by Aristotle’sideathatpoliticsisassociated with the use of the faculty
called phronesis (practicalwisdom orintelligence).ForAristotle,sincephronesisis“concerned with action, it must possess both [the universal and the particular knowledge] or the [particular] more [than theuniversal].”(Aristotle, 1985: 1141b8-1142a30, 1180b30-1181b12)
argue that Rawls’s position is more reasonable than its critics’ pro-cosmopolitan position. But the defense of Rawls’s thesis is only a springboard for a larger project,
which is to defend an institutional pluralist world order that does not take democracy
to be the ultimate end of human political associations. The institutional aspect is
emphasized because the idea of democracy is not only a value but also a form of
political institution.7 Hence what I am trying to defend in this paper is not value
pluralism per se but also institutional or regime pluralism. The two kinds of pluralism
are different in that different cultures may share the same political institution (e.g.
both the U.S. and Japan are democracies) while the same cultural value is compatible
with different political institutions (as exemplified by China and Taiwan). Thus,
though philosophical arguments for value pluralism can be mobilized to justify a
pluralist world order, they alone are not adequate. And as Andrew Linklater rightly
points out, a good account of international relations must include sociological,
normative, and praxeological analyses (Linklater, 1998: 8-10). Hence my defense for
a pluralist world order will be carried out on these three levels and not just
philosophical argument alone.
The structure of this paper is roughly like this: At the normative or philosophical
level, I will draw mainly on the work of John Rawls and Michael Walzer. But since
these two philosophical accounts hinge on certain empirical observations that need to
be borne out by sociological account. In this regard, I will mainly rely on the English
School’s discourse to do the job. By far, most theoretical accounts for pluralism focus
on these two levels. And since the theoretical resources are already in place, so what I
purport to do is to organize them in a more systematic way. But my mission does not
7 In terms of the institutional aspect of democracy, my usage of the term follows Robert Dahl’s lead.
Dahl defines democracy as a political system that meets at least five criteria: (1) effective participation; (2) voting equality; (3) enlightened understanding; (4) public control over the agenda; and (5) inclusion of adults (Dahl, 1998: ch. 4).
stop here. For politics is an enterprise that involves not only theoretical but also
practical reason, and thus a defense for pluralism must include praxeological
argument. Unfortunately, this is what is most wanting in the discourses of
international ethics. For this reason, I shall then turn to historical sociology to make
up for this deficiency. But because of the limits of space it is impossible to do a
complete historical sociological analysis in this paper, so I will offer only a sketch of
the direction this praxeological analysis will point to.
The practical reasoning runs roughly as follows: There is little doubt that most
people will prefer democracies to undemocratic regimes when choice is available.
Nevertheless, that which is desirable is not necessarily that which is actualizable. As
Larry Diamond famously remarks: “Democracy is the most widely admired type of
political systems, but also perhaps the most difficult to maintain.”(Diamond, 1990:
48) Students of democratization studies have also shown that democracy as a political
institution cannot be achieved and consolidated without sufficient conditions.8 This
suggests that it is especially difficult for a huge nation such as China to meet all such
requirements. If students of China studies and international relations cannot do away
with teleological mentality, they can hardly avoid being frustrated by the slow progress of China’s democratization. Such frustration may eventually become the source of “clash of civilizations.” To prevent the “clash of civilizations” from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, we must relinquish the teleological thinking. In
view of this, I will show that historical sociology is conducive to overcoming this
teleology because it takes whatJustin Rosenberg calls“uneven development”to be
8 Several prerequisites must be met for a democracy to survive: (1) absence of foreign control or
intervention; (2) civilian control of the means of violence or coercion; (3) absence of civil strifes or conflicts between subcultures; (3) an elite culture that favors consiliation, mutual accommodation and compromise; (4) a non-authoritarian and cooperative political culture; (5) decent level of economic development (Dahl, 1989: ch. 18) Howard Wiarda adds two more preconditions: (6) idependent legislative and judicial systems; (7) transparency in the management of public funds (Wiarda, ed., 2002: ch. 9)
the nature of international system, and thus it will regard institutional or regime
pluralism as an unavoidable fact. Once this fact is accepted, students of international
ethics will not see democracy as a norm, and thus whether non-democracies should be
tolerated or not will no longer be an issue. Rather, students of international ethics will
be devoted to the study of peaceful coexistence and just relations between different
kinds of regimes.
Before I proceed, one disclaimer is due: The way I appropriate the work of
Rawls and Walzer may be objected by Rawls and Walzer themselves; I alone am
responsible for any distortion of their arguments.
Rawls’sIdea ofToleration
Let me begin with Rawls’s treatise on international ethics. In The Law of Peoples,
Rawls maintains that liberal peoples must tolerate nonliberal peoples that meet certain
degree of decency. The criteria for decency he specifies do not include democracy,9
so he literally means that democracies must respect undemocratic states so long as the
latter meets those criteria. For Rawls, tolerating decent hierarchical peoples is not out
of pragmatic considerations but a requirement of justice. And this requirement is so
stringent that liberal peoples are not supposed to offer incentives for nonliberal
peoples to change in a liberal direction, for Rawls believe doing so might lead to
serious conflict between liberal and decent peoples (Rawls, 1999: 84-5). Rawls’s conception of toleration has drawn many kinds of criticism from cosmopolitan
liberals. How does he defend his position?
9 These criteria include: First, the society must not be aggressive towards other societies. Second, its
system of law must accord with a common good idea of justice, which secures basic human rights for all its members. Third, its system of law must impose moral duties and obligations on all its members, and its judges and officials must possess a sincere belief that the law is guided by a common good idea of justice (Rawls, 1999a: 64-6).
To begin with, as I have mentioned earlier, the philosophical method Rawls employsiscalled “reflectiveequilibrium.”Thebasicprincipleofthismethod isto “render coherent” and to justify our considered convictions of justice or moral judgments (1971: 19-21). SibylSchwarzenbach,oneofRawls’sstudents,likensthis method to Hegel’sideathatthe task of philosophy is to comprehend the rationality latentorembodied in whatHegelcalls“objectivespirit,”which refersto “theworld of concrete political institutions, customs, and social laws, as well as in the traditions
of their interpretation (Schwarzenbach, 1991: 544). This suggests that the normative
argument is not a one-way enterprise of theorizing from the abstract to the concrete;
rather, the concrete plays a crucial role from the very beginning of theorizing. For this
reason, Rawls stipulates that “the argument for the principles of justice should proceed from someconsensus,”and thisin turn requiresthatjustification mustbe
public in nature (Rawls, 1971: 581). In his later work, this principle evolves into a
famous statement, which merits quoting in length:
Justice as fairness aims at uncovering a public basis of justification on questions of political justice given the fact of reasonable pluralism. Since justification is addressed to others, it proceeds from what is, or can be, held in common; and so we begin from shared fundamental ideas implicit in the public political culture in the hope of developing from them a political conception that can gain free and reasoned agreement in judgment, this agreement being stable in virtue of its gaining the support of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. (1996: 100-1, my emphasis)
This statement is crucial because its emphasis on public political culture substantially
increases the relevance of historical and social conditions to normative theorizing.10
And since for Rawls the modern condition is characterized by the fact of reasonable
pluralism, this fact must be regarded as the very starting point of normative argument.
10 AsSchwarzenbach pointsout,publicpoliticalculturein Rawls’sphilosophy roughly plays the role
of“objectivespirit”in Hegel’sphilosophy,forRawlsassumesthatthecoreofourpoliticalinstitutions areatleastminimally “rational”(Schwarzenbach,1991:566,note18).
This emphasis on reasonable pluralism has far-reaching consequences for thinking
about international ethics. This requires further elaboration.
For Rawls, reasonableness entails the willingness to propose fair terms of cooperation and the willingness to recognize the burdens of judgment and to accept their consequences for the use of public reason when justifying our political conception of justice to others (1996: 54, 97; 2001: 27). At the core of the idea of public reason is the criterion of reciprocity,11 and the content of this criterion may vary from one context to another. But why is the content of the criterion contingency on itscontext? Rawlswrites:“itisthedistinctstructureofthesocialframework,and the purpose and role of its various parts and how they fit together, that explains why there are differentprinciplesfordifferentkindsofsubjects.”(1993:47)Thisideais furtherillustrated in Rawls’sdiscussion ofwhy theprinciplesofjusticedo notdirectly apply to (though do impose considerable constraints on) the internal life of associations such as family, church, university, and so on, which suggests that there need to be“division oflaborbetween differentkindsofprinciples.”(1999a: 158-9) This suggests that principles applicable to the domestic context cannot be extended readily to international context, so long as these two contexts have different structures.
Now, this idea begs the question: To what extent does the international context differ from the domestic context? Rawls has little to say on this, and so this is where Rawls is vulnerable to his critics. But this weakness is not detrimental, for it can be madeup by appealing to theEnglish School’sdiscourse.Whatconcernsushereisthe implication of Rawls’s argument: it implies that the unit of moral concern in international ethics is people (or the state) and not the individual. This is so because: In the domestic context, the reason we can appeal to the political ideal of free and
11 Rawls’sfullexposition oftheideaofpublicreason can be found in his“The IdeaofPublicReason
Revisited,”which now becomestheaddendum toThe Law of Peoples.Rawlssaysthat“Theideaof public reason is also integral to The Law of Peoples, which extends the idea of a social contract to the Society of Peoples.”(Rawls, 1999a: vi) This underscores the crucial role that thisideaplaysin Rawls’s theory of international ethics.
equal citizens for public justification is because that ideal is part of the public political culture in those societies. Yet in the global setting, as Leif Wenar aptly puts it,
There simply is no robust global public political culture which emphasizes that the citizens of different countries ought to relate fairly to one another as free and equal….Itispeoples,notcitizens,thatinternationalpoliticalinstitutionsregard as free and equal, and so it is these ideas of peoples that Rawls thinks he must use to develop his global political principles. (Wenar, 2001: 87)
In other words, since respect for individual autonomy is not part of the global public
political culture, it is unreasonable, from a Rawlsian point of view, to appeal to such
conception at the global level. Or put it in a slightly different way: In so far as liberal
democracies value individual autonomy and treat each citizen as free and equal, so the
criterion of reciprocity applies, in the domestic context, among individuals. In the
global context, however, there is no such consensus in the public political culture. The
only widely acknowledged principle or idea is the equality of states (or peoples), and
so in the global context the criterion of reciprocity only applies among peoples or
states.
It should be noted that the foregoing methodological argument alone does not
justify Rawls’s claim for toleration; it must be supplemented by another argument that grantcertain moralstatusto peoplesorstates.In thisregard,Rawls’sargument goes as follows:
Leaving aside the deep question of whether some forms of culture and ways of life are good in themselves (as I believe they are), it is surely, ceteris paribus, a good for individuals and associations to be attached to their particular culture and to takepartin itscommon publicand civiclife…
This is no small thing. It argues for preserving significant room for the idea of a people’sself-determination and for some kind of loose or confederative form of a Society of Peoples. (1999a: 61)
Admittedly,thisargumentisakin to WillKymlicka’sideathatcultureneed to be respected because it provides the individuals with a context for making meaningful
choices (Kymlicka, 2002: 340), and thus enthusiasts of liberal culturalism may not find Rawls’sargumentobjectionable.Itshould be noted,however,Rawls’scriticsmay still object by arguing that respect for culture cannot be transferred readily into
respect for political community, for culture and political community are not the same
thing. How can Rawls respond to this objection? Unfortunately, Rawls does not
address this problem fully in his treatise. But on closer reading one can still find
useful resources in his work to formulate a rejoinder to that objection.
To begin with, in A Theory of Justice Rawls argues that moral persons are
characterized by two moral powers, i.e. they are capable of having a conception of
their good and capable of having a sense of justice (1971: 505). Later Rawls says that the term “person” may also be extended to refer to corporate entities including “nations, corporations, churches, teams, and so on.”(1999b: 75) These two ideas taken together will endow people or society with moral standing. Hence Rawls
explains in The Law of Peoples why liberalpeopleshave amoralcharacter:“Like citizens in domestic society, liberal peoples are both reasonable andrational.”Their rationality is“organized and expressed in theirelectionsand votes,and thelawsand policiesoftheirgovernment,”whiletheirreasonablenessisexpressed in theirbeing able to offer and honor fair terms of cooperation provided other peoples do so as well
(1999a: 25).
Now, the question is whether this moral standing can also be granted to
nonliberal peoples or societies? Judging by the logic of his domestic theory, the
answer should be yes. This is so because in A Theory of Justice Rawls states that “equaljusticeisowed to thosewho havethecapacity to takepartin and to actin
accordancewith thepublicunderstanding oftheinitialsituation,”and “thecapacity
for moral personality is a sufficient condition for being entitled to equal justice.” (1971: 505, emphasis mine) Moreover, Rawls says:
I assume that the capacity for a sense of justice is possessed by the overwhelming majority ofmankind….Thatmoralpersonality sufficesto make one a subject of claims is the essential thing. We cannot go far wrong in
supposing that the sufficient condition is always satisfied. Even if the capacity
were necessary, it would be unwise to withhold justice on this ground. (1971: 506, emphasis mine)
Thecrucialpointofthisstatementisthat“theminimal requirements defining moral personality referto acapacity and notto therealization ofit.”(1971: 509) And this emphasis on potentiality isespecially pertinentto ourdiscussion in that“regarding the potentiality as sufficient accords with the hypothetical natureoftheoriginalposition.” (1971: 509, emphasis mine) Now, if that is the right approach to the original position at the domestic level, why should it be any different at the international level? In his objection to the cosmopolitan view, Rawls says:
The intuitive force of equality holds, it might be said, only between individuals, and treating societies equally depends on their treating their members equally. I don’tagree.Instead,equality holdsbetween reasonable,ordecent,and rational, individuals or collectives of various kinds when the relation of equality between them is appropriate for the case at hand. (1999a: 69)
Ifthisargumentissound,shouldn’tRawlsregard all peoples as equally autonomous?
In other words, to be self-consistent Rawls should not distinguish different kinds of peoples in ideal theory; rather, he must assume that all peoples are moral persons in so far they are capable of being rational and reasonable. This appropriation, or perhaps revision, would require that the representatives of all peoples or states be included in the international original position; in other words, no states should be excluded on the ground that they are incapable of being rational and reasonable. Rawls may well object to this revision of his theory, but I believe this revision accords betterwith Rawls’sdiscussion concerning thebasisofequality in A Theory of Justice.
Admittedly, my revision does not deny that in reality some regimes may be morally superior to other, but this only begs the question as to who is entitled to judge thelegitimacy ofaregime.Rawls’streatmentofthisquestion isto lay down a priori
the criteria for a regime to be qualified as legitimate. But on what basis is Rawls entitled to do so? At this point Rawls seems to be assuming the role of God, and this makes his theory vulnerable to the charge of being paternalistic.12 To avoid this charge,Iwillturn to MichaelWalzer’swork foraremedy.
Walzer’sArgumentfortheMoralStanding oftheState
Walzer is probably the staunchest defender of the pluralist or communitarian
approach to international ethics. This fact may raise the question as to whether Walzer’s argument can sit well with Rawls’s theory. Here I invite the reader to suspend this doubt; as my exposition unfolds, I will points out the parallels between
the two theorists.
Asiswellknown,Walzer’sdefense forthemoralstanding ofthestatehingeson the ideas of self-determination and non-intervention. The prototype justification of
this approach is obviously J. S. Mill’s classic argument that “the question of governmentoughtto be decided by thegoverned.”13 Mill’sideaislaterelaborated
and defended by Walzer,whoseargumentgoeslikethis:“politicalfreedom depends on the existence of individualvirtue,”and “justastheindividualmustcultivatehis own virtue,” so “the members of a political community must seek their own freedom.”“Self-determination is the school in which virtue is learned (or not) and liberty iswon (ornot);”itis“therightofapeople‘to becomefreeby theirown
12 Foracritiqueofthepaternalism in Rawls’sideaoftoleration,seemy earlierwork (Lin,2008b:ch.
5).
13 John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government [1861]. In Collected Works of
John Stuart Mill, ed. J. M. Robson, Vol. 19 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1977), p. 547. Quoted
efforts’.” (Walzer, 1977: 87-8) On this view, a people may fail to establish free institutions for themselves, but this does not provides an excuse for foreigners to
intervene on their behalf.
Walzer’sargument has provoked strong objections; the main charge is leveled at his thesis of “presumptive legitimacy.” According to this thesis, “the state is constituted by theunion ofpeopleand government,”and itispresumed that“there existsacertain ‘fit’between the community and its government and that the state is ‘legitimate’.”In Walzer’sown word,“Thispresumption issimply therespectthat foreignersoweto ahistoriccommunity and to itsinternallife.”(1980:212)And foreigners are in no position to judgewhetherthe“fit”ispresentornotbecause
They don’tknow enough aboutitshistory,and they haveno directexperience, and can form no concrete judgments, of the conflicts and harmonies, the historical choices and cultural affinities, the loyalties and resentments, that underlie it. (1980: 212)
This“lack ofknowledge”thesisisprobably theweakestlink in Walzer’sarguments. AsDavid Luban hasalready pointed out,“Thereare,afterall,experts,experienced travelers, expatriates, scholars, and spies; libraries have been written about the most remotecultures.”(Luban,1980:395)Henceitisimplausibleto argueforno-judgment on the ground that we do not know enough about the state at issue. But it must be noted thattherealstrength ofWalzer’saccount derives from another argument that is often ignored by Walzer’scritics.Thatargumentdrawsadistinction between two kinds of legitimacy that are addressed to different audiences. The first kind of
legitimacy is addressed to the people within the state: It is the people who are entitled to judge whether the “fit” between government and community exits. When they judge the fit absent, they are free to rebel. The second kind is addressed to foreigners. In thiscase“foreignersmustdecidewhetherto interveneornot,”butthey arenot
supposed to intervene unlesstheabsenceof“fit” isradically apparent.ForWalzer,the first kind of legitimacy is likely to be singular in character, for the judgments we
make reflect our democratic values. In contrast,“thesecond kind oflegitimacy is pluralistin character,”for“the judgmentwe makereflectourrecognition ofdiversity and our respect for communal integrity and for different patterns of cultural and politicaldevelopment.”(Walzer,1980:215-6)
In the foregoing argument, Walzer appeals to the idea of pluralism as the ground
for distinguishing the two kinds of legitimacy. But this appeal is again vulnerable to
cosmopolitan criticism. For example, Luban argues:
If human rights exist at all, they set a moral limit to pluralism. For this reason Walzer’s appeal to pluralism begs the question, for making pluralism the overriding value is incompatible from the outset with a theory that grants universal human rights. (Luban, 1980: 396)
In similar vein, Doppelt also suggests that a state with collective right as Walzer
conceives it may violate the individual rights of its citizens; in that case, the use of
force against that government may be justified (Doppelt, 1978: 5).
Indeed, Walzer does concede that “there are cases when sovereignty can be disregarded.”(Walzer,1980:216-8) However, this does not mean that only liberal or democraticstatesarelegitimate.From Walzer’spointofview,peopleliving underan illegitimate regime have the right of revolution, but that right does not transfer readily to foreigners,forforeigners“have no rightto maketheirown principlesortheirown beliefsdefinitiveforotherpeople.” (1980: 221)ThisshowsthatWalzer’sdistinction between two kinds of legitimacy is not based solely on the argument from pluralism;
rather, it draws on an additional anti-paternalism argument. But once again this
argument is vulnerable to cosmopolitan criticism. For example, according to S. Z.
explain why “the claimsofastate’smemberswillgenerally be betterserved ifthey are left to work out their own salvation.”14
And Beitz further suggests that this
explanation involves an empirical assumption that requires substantiation (Beitz, 1999:
86). He suggests that in reality the newly independent indigenous governments are
often just as brutal as their former colonial rulers to their people. Hence the caricature: “Millpictured self-determination from repressiveforeign ‘yokes’imposed on peoples without their consent. But if successor governments are similarly nonconsensual, one mightwonderwhatmakesadomestic yokemoreacceptablethan a foreign one.” (Beitz, 1979: 96)
To counterBeitz’sobjection,Ithink wecan appealto Isaiah Berlin’sinsightthat national self-determination is by nature not a struggle for equal liberty, but a struggle forrecognition (Tamir,1993:71).Berlin’swordsdeservequoting in length:
I wish for the emancipation of my entire class, or community, or nation, or race, or profession. So much can I desire this, that I may, in my bitter longing for status, prefer to be bullied and misgoverned by some member of my own race or social class, by whom I am nevertheless, recognized as a man and a rival—that is as an equal—to being well and tolerantly treated by someone from some higher and remoter group, who does not recognize me for what I wish myself to be. This is the heart of the great cry for recognition on the part of both individuals and groups, and in our own days, of professions and classes, nations and races.15
This suggests that the force of the antipaternalist argument derives not from the
empirical assumption that the well-beings of the people are better served by their own
government; rather, it is the psychological desire to be treated as an equal that makes paternalism a moralwrong.Arguably,thisisalso why Rawlsmaintainsthatapeople’s
14 S. I. Benn and R. S. Peters, The Principles of Political Thought: Social Principles and the
Democratic State [1959] (New York: Free Press, 1965). Quoted in Beitz (1999: 85).
15
Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 157-8. Quoted in Tamir (1993: 72).
interest in amour-propre “showsitselfin apeople’sinsisting on receiving from other peoplesaproperrespectand recognition oftheirequality.”(Rawls,1999a:34-5)
Now, we can come back to the question as to who is entitled to judge the legitimacy ofaregime.MichaelWalzer’saccountwould suggestthatthemembersof a political community are entitled to judge, and they are free to rebel if they deem the regime illegitimate. But the crucial point is that their right to revolution does not transfer readily to foreigners. This does not suggest, however, that outsiders can never intervene on theinsiders’behalf.Butabsentaneutralreferee,intervention isoften tarnished by parochial self-interests, self-righteous arrogance and paternalism. Hence Rawls is right to argue:
In political liberalism we must distinguish between, first, the political case for intervention based on the public reason of the Law of Peoples and, second, the moral and religious case based on citizen’s comprehensive doctrines. In my estimation, the former must prevail if a stable peace is to be maintained among pluralistic societies. (Rawls, 1999a: 84, emphasis mine)
HereweseeRawlsechoing Walzer’sdistinction oftwo kindsoflegitimacy,and thisis whatImentioned earliertheparallelbetween Walzer’sargumentand Rawls’stheory. But my defense for regime (or institutional) pluralism does not end here, for the force ofRawls’sstatementquoted abovecannotbefully appreciated unlesswesharethe same view of international society as a pluralist society, 16 and for this reason we must turn to the issue of the nature of international society.
For a Pluralist Conception of International Society
Wehaveseen earlierthatRawls’sargumentfortoleration hingeson theclaims that the domestic and the international contexts are structurally different and that the
international society is pluralist in nature. How can we substantiate these two claims?
16 Walzer also share the view that international society is a pluralist society: “the only global
community is pluralist in character, a community of nations, not of humanity, and the rights recognized within it have been minimal and largely negative, designed to protect the integrity of nations and to regulatetheircommercialand military transaction.” (Walzer,1980:226-7)
In this section I will draw on theoretical resources mainly from the English School in
IR to do the job. Let me begin with the first claim. To what extent can we say that the
domestic and the international contexts are two different domains? Here the secret lies
in the fact that the primary agents in world affairs are states and states are different
from persons in three ways, which is discussed in details as follows.
First of all,in theinternationalsystem states’fearof“violentdeath”isnotas strong as that of the individual persons in the imagined state of nature. This is so
because an individual human being can be killed by a single attack, but human beings
organized as states can provide themselves with the means of defense that protect
them from physical extinction (Bull, 1977: 49-51). Secondly, theoretically speaking
states are self-sufficient in a way that individual human beings cannot be. As Vattel
rightly argued,
It is clear that there is by no means the same necessity for a civil society among Nations as among individuals. It cannot be said, therefore, that nature recommends it to an equal degree, far less that it prescribes it. Individuals are so constituted that they could accomplish but little by themselves and could scarcely get on without the assistance of civil society and its law. But as soon as a sufficient number have united under a government, they are able to provide for most of their needs, and they find the help of other political societies not so necessary to them as the state itself is to individuals.17
Thirdly, states are different from persons in that the former have a constitution that the
latter lack. Kant, for example, has emphasized this point long ago when he argued
why an international Leviathan is theoretically unnecessary or even undesirable:
Yet while natural right allows us to say of men living in a lawless condition that they ought to abandon it, the right of nations does not allow us to say the same of states. For as states, they already have a lawful internal constitution, and have thus outgrown the coercive right of others to subject them to a wider constitution in accordance with their conception of right. (Kant, 1970: 104)
It is these three differences joined together that serve to constitute the international
society as a distinctive domain that cannot be seen as the domestic society writ large.
The theoretical implications of these structural differences between the two
contexts are further elaborated by Hedley Bull (1966; 1979). For Bull, the foregoing
structural differences are crucial in that the very existence of government allows the individualstateto actasthe“custodian” ofthe“common good”ofacertain segment of human kind, whereas the absence of government in the international context
forbids the idea of the common good at the global level. Instead, the society of states ismerely a“compactofcoexistence,”which isbased on athinnersetofcommon values and institutions that give primacy to the individual state. And since the purpose
of international society is to maintain order and coexistence, it is considered a “category mistake”to appealto moredemanding conception ofthecommon good or idea of cosmopolitan justice in the international context (Blaney and Inayatullah, 2000:
46-7). This characterization of the international society is markedly pluralist, and its
implications for thinking about international ethics can be shown by a contrast with
the solidarist vision of the international society. The contrast between the plural and solidaristconceptionsofinternationalsociety can betraced to Hedley Bull’sseminal discussion in “TheGrotian Conception ofInternationalSociety” (Bull,1966). For Bull, solidarism means that the solidarity in international society is strong enough to
enable enforcement of international norms, in particular waging war against the
law-breakers;by contrast,pluralism meansthat“statesdo notexhibitsolidarity ofthis kind, but are capable of agreeing only for certain minimum purposes which fall short ofthatoftheenforcementofthelaw.”(1966:52).Morespecifically,pluralistshold that states can only agree on a minimum of things including reciprocal recognition of
sovereignty and the rule of non-intervention, and that the rules to which states
By contrast, solidarists emphasize that states do have substantive purposes in common,
such as ensuring that states do not mistreat their citizens (Rengger, 2006: 42).
It should be noted that Bull was initially in favor of the pluralist conception on the ground that solidarism was “set[ting] up the law over and against facts” and “imposing upon internationalsociety astrain which itcannotbear” (1966:73, 70). But the later Bull is found to be more receptive to the solidarist conception (Linklater
and Suganami, 2006: 66-7；Rengger, 2006: 42-3), a move which literally triggers the
pluralism-solidarism debate. The positions of the two camps are nicely summarized
by Barry Buzan as follows: Pluralists are strongly state-centric, presupposing that the statesarethedominantunitofhuman society.They hold thatstatesare“culturally and ideologically unlike,”and thuspluralism isabout“thepreservation orcultivation of the political and cultural difference and distinctiveness that are the legacy of human history”.By contrast,solidaristslean towardKantianism and cosmopolitanism; they regard humanity as one and hold that the rights of individuals must have a place in the
international society (Buzan, 2004: 46-7).
What is the relevance of this debate to the main theme of our discussion? In the
foregoing discussion, we have seen that the pluralist conception of international
society is more concerned with preserving the political differences among states. If
the pluralist conception can be proved to be superior to the solidarist conception, then
it will lend significant support to my case for institutional pluralism. How can this be
done? Let us begin with Bull’s own argument. Bull justifies his preference for the pluralist conception by noting that the Gotian solidarism is associated with the natural law tradition,and unfortunately,“naturallaw cannotaccommodatethefactofmoral disagreement, so prominent in the domain of internationalrelations”(Buzan,2004:54;
Bull, 1979: 181).18 This argument is akin to Rawls’s idea that the international society is characterized by an even greater diversity of comprehensive doctrines and
thus liberal ideas or principles can not be extended readily to the international context (Rawls,1999a:40).Ifthatisthecase,Bull’sargumentaddslittleto thecasefor institutional pluralism. For this reason, we must look to other resources to make the
case. In this regard, Robert Jackson’saccountisprobably themostprominent one. Jackson builds his account of pluralism by drawing on a variety of theoretical
resources from Isaiah Berlin, Michael Oakeshott, Michael Walzer, Terry Nardin, etc., among which Oakeshott’sdistinction between societas and universitas is of particular importance. According to Jackson’s appropriation of Oakeshott, societas refers to “human relationscharacterized by coexistenceofindependentselveswho conduct themselves by freely observing common standards of conduct” while universitas refers to “human relationscharacterized by collectiveenterprise between mutually dependentpartners,orcollaborators,in thepursuitajointpurpose”(Jackson, 2000: 61) For Jackson, Europe before 1648 comes close to the idea of universitas in that it is
based on the solidarist norms of Christendom. After the Peace of Westphalia, however,
the system has undergone a transformation from universitas to societas, which is now
based on the pluralist norms of sovereign equality and political independence (2000:
156-67).This“pluralistarchitecture”isheld togethernotby particularsubstantive values or purposes but by common institutions that permit cooperation irrespective of
shared or divergent values. Or to borrow Terry Nardin’sterms,asJacksondoes at some point (2000: 121-3), contemporary international society is a “practical association”ratherthan a“purposiveassociation”.And sincethereisno common purpose except coexistence between states, the idea and institutions of societas
18 In anotherplace,Bullstatesasimilarreason: “there is no consensus in the world behind the
program of Western solidarists or global centralists for‘transcending thestates-system’.” (Bull,1979: 120)
expresses not the “morality of the common good” but the “morality of mutual accommodation”,thelatterofwhich isa“morality ofdifference,recognition,respect, regard, dialogue, interaction, exchange, and similar norms that postulate coexistence and reciprocity between independentpoliticalcommunities.”(2000:168)
Now, what concerns us most is the implications of Jackson’s account for international ethics, the most important of which is his emphasis on normative
pluralism and political anti-paternalism (2000: 406-19). Jackson argues that pluralism
provides an alternative to both universalism (perhaps, for Jackson, a synonym of
cultural imperialism) and relativism (2000: 395). Pluralism avoids relativism via
affirming the possibility of mutual intelligibility and communication between
different civilizations; it also affirms common humanity, which for Jackson is
expressed in the universal principle of self-determination. On the other hand, owing to
the diversity of values and cultures, pluralism insiststhatinternationalnorms“must be divorced or at least distanced from the norms of any particular civilization. That must include those of Western civilization.” The ethos of pluralism is succinctly captured in two mottos: “live and let live” and “tending your own patch” (2000: 406-10) Moreover, the moral purpose of international society is to preserve freedom
for each political community, and freedom implies responsibility. The pluralist ethics
also holds that the citizens of a political community are the best judges of their own
circumstances, and thus they are the only ones who are responsible for their own affairs.“Thatmeansthatno onevaluecan justifiably beimposed on peoplewho may not hold that value.” This suggests that the pluralist ethics is also fundamentally against paternalism (2000: 411-415)
It not difficult to see what bearing of this ethics of anti-paternalism has on the
discourses of democratization. In fact, Jackson does devote one chapter of his book to
international affairs freedom and responsibility are better goods than democracy, for
pluralism provides the very condition in which democracy can flourish (2000: 366).
In other words, freedom and pluralism must take precedence over democracy, and
self-determination trumps democracy when they are in conflict with each other.
Moreover, pluralism is not just tolerant of difference; it is intolerant of imposition.
Thus, the pluralist ethics must leave open a space for peoples and governments to “pursuetheirown domesticenlightenmentorunenlightenment,asthe casemay be.” (2000: 361) If a people fail to institutionalize a democracy in their country, so be it.
As they are free to succeed, they are also free to fail. International community
provides no guarantee for success; to think otherwise is a category mistake (2000:
410-1). Furthermore, non-democratic states are not second-class citizens in the
international society; rather, once a country is admitted into the international society it
is deemed equal without discrimination (2000: 362-3). These arguments are supported by the Millian idea that “Outsiders cannot readily give people in other countries democracy: that usually is not in theirpower.”Hencetheprinciple:“letothernations alone”(2000:362-3).
In Jackson’s account of pluralism, we can hear loud and clear the echo of Walzer’sminimalistapproach to athin ethicsin theinternationalpolitics(Walzer, 1994: ch. 4).19 We can even say thatitisJackson’saccountthatdriveshomethe implication ofWalzer’s(and perhapsRawls’s)argumentfortheissue ofdemocracy in IR. However forceful Jackson’s accountis, there are nevertheless three lines of
19
At one point, Jackson (2000: 412) does invoke Walzer’s argument to endorse his defense for anti-paternalism:“Aswith individuals,so with sovereign states:therearethingswecannotdo to them, even for their own ostensible good.” (Walzer, 1979: 89) Also note that Jackson characterizes the politicalarrangementofinternationalsociety asa“thin community”(Jackson,2000:344).Jackson’s motto of“liveand letlive”also appearsin Walzer’swork:“Sovereignty guaranteesthatno oneon that
side of the border can interfere with what is done on this side. The people over there may be resigned, indifferent, stoical, curious, or enthusiastic with regard to practices over here, and so may be disinclined to interfere.Orperhaps,they acceptthereciprocallogicofsovereignty:wewon’tworry aboutyourpracticesifyou don’tworry aboutours.Live and let live is a relatively easy maxim when theliving isdoneon oppositesidesofaclearly marked line.”(Walzer,1997:19,underlineadded)
potential objections that need to be considered. I will discuss these objections in the
next section.
Objections Against and Rejoinders of Pluralism
The first objection I want to discuss is Robertson-Snape’scriticism thateven though the pluralist approach is sensitive to the otherness of states it nevertheless fails
to respect differences within states. Robertson-Snape argues that this approach assumesthat“thestateiscoterminouswith community”and yetmostmodern states are replete with cultural, ethnic, or even national diversities within, thus this approach
is not adequate in coping with this predicament of modern states (Robertson-Snape,
2000: 517; cf. Blaney and Inayatullah, 2000: 44-54). Moreover, she argues that the
states are often the worst abusers of human rights, and yet this approach grants
unconditional moral standing to the state; this makes the international society unable
to intervene on behalf of the oppressed in extreme cases (Robertson-Snape, 2000:
517).
To the first part of Robertson-Snape’scriticism,onecan respond by arguing that though the pluralist approach does emphasize the cultural differences between states,
this does not imply that this approach must assume the homogeneity within the state.
Indeed, this approach does subscribe to the idea that the domestic and the
international constitute structurally different domains. But the main reason for holding
this position is the absence of a central authority or government at the international
level; it is silent on or agnostic about the internal organization of the individual states.
Arguably, the fact that states are replete with diversity within does not render it
impossible to draw a distinction between the domestic and the international contexts.
For it is perfectly possible that despite the diversity within a state different cultural
this country different from other countries. In other words, one can acknowledge that
there are differences within states while insist on the other hand that there are even
greater differences between states; there is no contradiction in holding these two
views at the same time.
To the second part of Robertson-Snape’scriticism,onecan respond by arguing that though the pluralist approach grants the state moral standing, it does not grant the
state absolute moral status. It is true that pluralism emphasizes sovereign equality, but
this emphasis does not entail the idea that sovereignty permits the state to do whatever itpleases.AsOnoraO’Neill argues convincingly,
States as they have really existed and exist never had and never have unlimited sovereignty,internalorexternal…Statesas they currently exist are committed by
numerous treaty of obligations to a limited conception of sovereignty and a degreeofrespectforhuman rights…(O’Neill, 2000: 51; ch. Buchanan, 2000: 699-700)
It should be noted that this observation constitutes no objection to the pluralist
position. For pluralists, the question is not whether there should be limits to
sovereignty, as indeed there are and there should; the real question is who is entitled
to set limits to sovereignty. To this question pluralists would say that it is the states,
acting collectively, who are entitled to set the limits. By emphasizing the
collectiveness of action, this approach rules out the alternative that some states can
legislate for others. In other word, the essence of the moral standing of the state is about sovereignty equality or, putting in Alan James’s term, “constitutional independence” (James, 1986). It does not preclude the possibility that states may surrender their freedom of action to their co-legislated law. But as with individuals, so
with sovereign states: autonomous agents do not lose their autonomy simply because
they agree on a social contract that set limits to their action. Hence when states chooseto abideby the“globalcovenant”,onecannotsay thatthey havelosttheir
moral status as an autonomous agent. Even if states choose to agree on more intrusive
norms of human rights,onecan stillargue along with Buzan that“doing so isan exerciseoftheirsovereignty,notaquestioning ofit.”(Buzan,2004:49)
At this point, it may be objected along with Stephen Krasner that states were
never and are not really equal and thus the idea (or ideal?) of sovereignty is nothing more than an “organized hypocrisy” (Krasner, 1999). On the face of it, this observation appears to discredit the pluralist assumptions that states are autonomous
and equal. But here we need to draw a distinction between empirical description and
normative ideal. It may be true that the pluralist account is not an undistorted
reflection of the reality of world politics, but this does not mean that pluralism as a
moral ideal is undesirable. In fact, one can argue along with Alexander Wendt that the principle of sovereignty provides the guarantee that states cannot be “killed” arbitrarily, and this helps to transform the international society from one of the
Hobbesian culture to one of Lockean culture.20 This is why the principle of
sovereignty equality should be respected. In other words, in the real world the states
are rarely equal in power, and it is for this very reason that states must be treated as
morally equal. One can even say that it is the very fact that states are never really
equal that paradoxically renders the ideal of sovereign equality so attractive.21
Let us turn to the second line of objection. Now it is commonplace to suggest
that the flourishing of global civil society (GCS) and the blurring of territorial boundariesunderthecurrentsepitomized by “globalization”haverendered obsolete the pluralist conception along with the Westphalian system (Hurrell, 2006) If that is
20 Wendt argues that the core of the Westphalian institutionofsovereignty is“the expectation that
states will nottry to takeaway each other's lifeand liberty.” And because thissovereign rightis recognized by international law, which is adhered to by most states, this institution helps to constrain inter-staterivalry in accordancewith thelogicof“liveand letlive”(Wendt,1999:280-1).
21 Hence Jackson is right to stress that an international society based on state sovereignty is an
enormous achievement, not only because it provides a framework for personal security and freedom but also because it provides for the accommodation of human diversity (Jackson, 2000: ch. 8, 178-82).
the case, appealing to the solidarist conception will become a more attractive
alternative. How can pluralism respond to this line of objection? There are two kinds of rejoinders: First, pluralists can reply, along with Jackson, that NGOs “operate under the political condition of international peace and order that the states system
alone creates and upholds. In the absence of that political condition they would face great operational difficulties.” (Jackson, 2000: 107) In other words, without the infrastructure laid down by the states, NGOs simply cannot operate; as such, in world
affairs the role transnational society plays is at best secondary or auxiliary. It should
be noted that this does not mean that NGOs and GCS have no place in world politics;
any serious theorist would not doubt that they are playing an ever more important role.
The argument only suggests that the growth of GCS itself does not render the role of
the state less significant.
The second rejoinder is to argue that those who emphasize the force of GCS or “transnationalsociety”“appearboth to underestimatethe importance of transnational relationsin thepastand to exaggeratetheirpresentsignificance.”(Nardin,1983: 47) Arguably, whether the Westphalian states system is on the verge of disappearing is an
empirical question that needs further investigation, and careful studies may suggest
that the role of states in world affairs is on the rise and not on the decline. As George
Lawson argues forcefully, until the post-Cold War era world politics is better
characterized as hegemonic hierarchy than by sovereign equality, with the former
largely subsuming the latter.
As such, if we are to speak of a Westphalian political imaginary, we should recognise that it has reached its zenith rather than its nadir in the post-Cold War world, a period in which state sovereignty - both as aspiration and practice - has become much more extensively available than in previous epochs. For those who fought so long for freedom, particular in the Third World, Westphalian state sovereignty is both a source of emancipation and the first line of defence against
fundamental sources of inequality, whether these are historical, economic or geographical in origin (Lawson, 2008: 890).22
Hence, if sovereignty provides the weak states with a “fire-wall’ or “protective umbrella”, and for the Third World nation-building is still largely an “unfinished project”, than the rhetoric of “wither Westphalia” appears rather Eurocentric (Dannreuther and Kennedy, 2007: 377). Even if the EU is becoming an ever more
solidarist community, one can still argue along with Jackson that in the rest of the
world “international society still seems to be not very ambiguously a societas of
sovereign states”(Jackson,2000:128).
Finally,Iwantto pointouttheinternaltension in Hurrell’sobjection.On theone hand, Hurrell argues that a retreat to pluralism is unattractive. On the other hand, however,hestressesthattheproblem of“premature globalsolidarism” cannotbe underestimated, for diversity is even more prominent at the global level than the
domestic level and “globalmoralvalues” tend to be“contaminated”by the“massive inequalitiesofpower,wealth and capacity.”To find an alternativeoutofthisimpasse, he appeals to Fred Dallmayr discussion of praxis, which reminds us of the danger of
universalist privileging of morality over politics (Dallmayr, 2003). Building on Dallmayr’sidea,Hurrellargues:
the fragile, precarious and limited society that exists in world politics should push us to think hard about the minimal preconditions for an acceptable international political process. At a minimum this might include some acceptance of equality of status, respect and consideration; some commitment to reciprocity and to the public justification of one’s action; some capacity for autonomous decision-making….Perhaps the hardest question for those who wish to take forward the normative legacy of The Anarchical Society is how far achieving even this minimum will require a redistribution of political power, a
22 Jean BethkeElshtain also makesaparallelobservation:“Aggrieved peopleswant,notan end to the
nation-state, or to sovereignty, or national autonomy, but an end to Western colonial or Soviet or other external dominance of their particular histories, languages, cultures and wounded sense of collective identity.”（Elshtain, 1995: 270; cf. Bull, 1979）These observations can be borne out by the fact that so many people in Taiwan and Tibet are still struggling tenaciously for independence from China.
scaling back of at least some of the normative ambitions of liberal solidarism…(Hurrell,2006:214,emphasismine)
Upon reading this passage, one cannot help but wonder how much substantive difference there is between Hurrell’s alternative and Jackson’s global covenant. Indeed,ifHurrell’ssolution isto createa global moral community that builds upon some “minimal notion of just process” that “prioritizes institutions that embed procedural fairness, and that cultivates the shared political culture and the habits of argumentation and deliberation”(Hurrell,2006: 212-3), then the difference between Hurrell and Jackson appears rather marginal, or nominal at best. More importantly, Hurrell’ssolution showsthatawarenessoftherelevanceofpraxiscould promptusto see things very differently. Therefore, I shall conclude my defense for institutional
pluralism by adumbrating on the implication of this turn to praxis for thinking about
international ethics in general and democracy in particular.
Concluding Remarks: Bringing Praxis and Historical Sociology Back In
By far my defense for a pluralist world order draws heavily on philosophical
reasoning from political theory and theoretical reasoning from IR, the persuasiveness
of which both hinges on the value of diversity and anti-paternalism. Such way of
defense is very akin to the universalist top-down theorizing, and thus exhibits the
same weakness pointed out by Dallmayr—the privileging of morality over politics. To
avoid this problem, we must bring praxis back to moral theorizing. But apart from
being more attentive to the diversity of moral values and respect for the otherness of
the other, does this turn to praxis has anything new to say about international ethics?
As I have indicated earlier, institutional pluralism is slightly different from value
pluralism. They are different not merely because the same culture value may develop
different political institutions. More importantly, institutions do not come from the
pluralism to make a case for a pluralist world order, a full account of a defense for
institutional pluralism has yet to consider the historical dimension of institutions. This
points to the necessity of bring historical sociology back in to the discipline as well as
exploring its implication for international ethics. This enormous undertaking is
certainly beyond the scope of this paper, so in the remainder of this paper I offer only
a sketch of where this new direction may take us.
In the previous section Jackson’s last remark draws our attention to another characteristic of world politics: uneven development. The idea of uneven
development is further elaborated by Justin Rosenberg (2006), who argues that Leonid Trotsky’s idea of “uneven and combined development” is intrinsic to the historical process itself. According to Rosenberg, the unevenness of the historical
process not only means that different civilizations or countries are at different “stages”ofdevelopment,italso suggeststhateven thedevelopmentwithin asociety is also uneven. Moreover, the unevenness includes not only a spatial but also a
temporal dimension, which implies that development is intrinsically multilinear along
multiple axes. But if unevenness is the nature of the historical process itself, this will problematizethevery ideaof“stagesofdevelopment,”forthisideapositsatelos of a
lineardevelopment.On theotherhand,the“development”ofhistoricalprocessis combined in the sense that any region, society or country in the world is never
isolated from the rest of the world; they are inevitably intertwined and interactive with
the outside world. And since inter-societal dimension is always present in the process
of the very constitution of any society, so the constitution of society cannot be
regarded as analytically prior to its interaction with other societies. Through the lens
of the Trotsky-Rosenberg idea of uneven and combined development the texture of world politics can be reconceptualized as a decentered, multipolarized “quilt” governedby “multi-perspetival”causality,which meansthat“itspattern cannotbe
imagined from asinglepointofview”(Rosenberg,2006:323).Needlessto say,this reconceptualization of world politics challenges the “teleological fallacy” and “ethnocentricprejudice”inherentin many accounts of development theory.
Now, if uneven development is the intrinsic nature of the historical process itself, whatisitsimplication forthinking aboutdemocracy in IR? Doesn’titmean thatwe should not naturalize democracy as the only, single destination of human political development? And ifdiversity istheexistentialcondition ofworld politics,wouldn’t it be more reasonable to let very society develop its own political institution? I am not
suggesting that non-democratic societies will be free from the influences of
democratic societies, as the idea of combined development already rules out that
possibility. But subjecting to external influence does not mean it will follow the dictateoftheothers’expectation,forevery society has its own internal dynamic that is beyond the control of the world outside. Take China as an example. The fact that
China has been subject to Western influence for more than a century and yet its “authoritarian”ruleisstillresilient(Nathan, 2003; Nathan, 2006) should make us pauseand rethink iftheWest’sexpectation ofChina’sdemocratization isreasonable in the first place. Perhaps it is wiser to let China develop its own political institution.
Here I cannot help but want to invoke the philosophy of Zhaung-zi (or
Chuang-Tzu), a great Daoist, to conclude my paper. Like Rosenberg, Zhuang-zi holds
that the unevenness among the myriad of things is the existential condition of the
universe, and it is thus futile (or perhaps against the Dao) to attempt to make things
even. For Zhuang-zi, that which suits one thing does not necessarily suit another, for
everything has its own distinct nature. Hence, if one tries to impose a universal
standard on everything, it amounts to seeing oneself as the measure of all things. The
consequence of such imposition is nicely portrayed in Zhuang-zi’smetaphor: “The duck's legs are short, but to stretch them out would worry him; the crane's legs are
long, but to cut them down would make him sad.”（鳧脛雖短，續之則憂；鶴脛雖
長，斷之則悲。）23
This metaphor suggests that the West may find “resilient
authoritarianism”inconvenient, but perhaps that is the regime that suits China here
and now. This certainly does not mean that China will never change; rather, the point
is that one should not decide on behalf of China the pace and direction of change.
Moreover, Zhuang-zi would even prompt us to query if democratization is in the best
interest of China. Let me quote his allegory to make this point:
The emperor of the South Sea was called Shu [儵 Brief], the emperor of the North Sea was called Hu [忽 Sudden], and the emperor of the central region was called Hun-tun [混沌 Chaos]. Shu and Hu from time to time came together for a meeting in the territory of Hun-tun, and Hun-tun treated them very generously. Shu and Hu discussed how they could repay his kindness. "All men," they said, "have seven openings so they can see, hear, eat, and breathe. But Hun-tun alone doesn't have any. Let's try boring him some!"
Every day they bored another hole, and on the seventh day Hun-tun died.24
This allegory suggests that we should think twice before we try to push China for
democratization, for we really don’t know whether the Chinese will be happier and
China will be a better place when China is democratized. And perhaps the lesson from
all this is that we need to refrain from being self-righteous and attempting to mold the
others’world according to our own image. In brief, we need a little dose of skepticism
about the whole project of democratizing the whole world.
23 The Book of Zhuang Zi, ch. 8, “Webbed Toes,”translated by Burton Watson,
http://www.terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html#7, last visit March 1, 2009.
