At This Point, I Should Just Admit...

...I'm a fan of Francis Fukuyama. He defends himself against association with Bush administration neoconservatism in this Guardian column. I think his comments are right on the money. To wit:

The End of History was never linked to a specifically American model of social or political organisation. Following Alexandre Kojève, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EU's attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a "post-historical" world than the Americans' continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military.

Finally, I never linked the global emergence of democracy to American agency, and particularly not to the exercise of American military power. Democratic transitions need to be driven by societies that want democracy, and since the latter requires institutions, it is usually a fairly long and drawn out process.

Outside powers like the US can often help in this process by the example they set as politically and economically successful societies. They can also provide funding, advice, technical assistance, and yes, occasionally military force to help the process along. But coercive regime change was never the key to democratic transition.

Seeking a Foreign Policy Strategy

Here's another fine Post column by another Tufts University academic. Daniel Drezner (who, by the way, has a fine blog) discusses various proposals for an overarching organizing principle for US foreign policy. I have to note once again that his summary of the Fukuyama position looks strikingly like my own position. Have I become a neoconservative? Help!? Damn you for your sensibleness, Fukuyama!

More Fukuyama and Neocon Theory

Back in June I posted on a Francis Fukuyama appearance at the Miller Center. Greg Djerejian has a post on a London Review of Books review by Stephen Holmes of Fukuyama's After the Neocons (and he includes a fairly lengthy excerpt of the review). As I noted in my previous post, I find Fukuyama's account of what he views to the be the real neocon thesis to be fairly compelling. Quoting from Holmes:

The thesis is that democracy is the most effective antidote to the kind of Islamic radicalism that hit the US on 9/11. Its exponents begin with the premise that tyranny cannot tolerate the public expression of social resentment that its abuses naturally produce. To preserve its grip, tyranny must therefore crush even modest stirrings of opposition, repressing dissidents and critics, with unstinting ferocity if need be. In the age of globalisation, however, repressed rebellions do not simply die out. They splash uncontrollably across international borders and have violent repercussions abroad. Middle Eastern rebellions have been so savagely and effectively repressed that rebels have been driven to experiment with an indirect strategy to overthrow local tyrannies and seize power. They have travelled abroad and targeted those they see as the global sponsors of their local autocrats.

Fukuyama goes on to describe how the Bush administration's policy in Iraq and the in the Middle East generally has strayed from the neocon theory in critical ways (for example that their actual approach to promoting democracy in the Middle East was foolish and ineffective).

There is some merit to the theory as Fukuyama presents it. I think it stops at least one step too soon, however. There are geopolitical (and probably socioeconomic) considerations driving anti-Americanism that pass beyond redirected frustration with local tyrants. Palestine is an obvious example, but there are others. These issues need to be dealt with as well, and part of the value of democratization is to bring those issues to the forefront and provide a venue for them to be addressed. The Fukuyama's theory is laudable in that it perceives that the focus of this conflict should be on people, rather than states, and that non-democratic states can serve as roadblocks to us reaching the people. But I think his analysis of what is driving those people falls short. Democracy is a step in the process, not the endgame.

The conflict this summer in Lebanon provides a good example of this. When Israel mounted its offensive on Lebanon, this was an issue the US needed to address if we were serious about dealing with terrorism's root causes. But because we were insulated from popular opinion by the tyrannical governments of our Middle Eastern "allies", and because the administration does not see addressing popular political concerns as part of the neocon mission statement, we completely failed to confront the issue.

It is not good enough to push for democracy, then simply abandon the governments that result from that democratic process as we've done in Palestine and Lebanon. Grievances that arise from a legitimate democratic process should be taken seriously. And to the extent that there is actual merit behind those grievances we need to take steps to address them in order to buy the political capital we need to credibly dismiss those grievances that don't have merit. I'm not sure Fukuyama's neocon theory is any better than the Bush administration's theory on that point.

Fukuyama on Neoconservatism

I watched a video tonight of Francis Fukuyama giving a talk at the Miller Center a couple weeks ago. Fukuyama, a very prominent neocon, released a book not that long ago critical of the neocons, and the first part of his talk was a critique on what the neocons got wrong on Iraq. Attacking the neocons on Iraq is, at this point, a shooting fish in a barrel type exercise. But it's interesting to hear the views of someone sympathetic to that philosophy. The second part of Fukuyama's presentation was a critique of the immense focus that the Bush administration has put on democratization, making it the centerpiece of their war on terror. Not that Fukuyama is critical of democratization as a long term objective, but that lack of democracy is not a core cause of terrorism. Then he took a half hour of questions (it's a one hour video), and they were mostly excellent questions. As one questioner notes, Fukuyama covers an immense amount of ground over the course of the hour, but, I think, covers every topic thoroughly.

I have never read any of Fukuyama's books, although I've seen them mentioned often. I have read some of his op-ed's and have generally not been a fan of them. I was, however, pretty much blown away by his performance at the Miller Center. There were only a few minor points where I disagreed with him (primarily his brief comments on domestic policy), and I found him to be very insightful and persuasive, particularly on the second part of his speech (the sources of terrorism) and his discussion of the application of American power in the post-Cold War environment. His presentation of the neocon philosophy as a counter to Kissengerian realism was also quite interesting and has some real merits. His criticism of Kissenger is, in fact, little different from my own. I highly recommend taking the time to sit down and watch this video.

Update: I just wanted to add a link to a great Slate article from last month discussing the Broken Windows theory that Fukuyama mentions. This is not a reference to the broken window fallacy, which is a perfectly good theory, but rather a cockamamie scheme by which major crimes can be reduced by harsh enforcement of minor infractions. The Metcalf article debunks the idea that Broken Windows was a key to crime reduction in New York, and argues that it is merely a nicely dressed up rejection of causal explanations for social phenomena that conveniently allowed Giuliani to bring the full force of the state to bear on socially undesired persons. I found it to be an interesting and persuasive argument and so was disappointed when Fukuyama appeared to give Broken Windows a ringing endorsement in his speech. That was really my only major quibble with what he had to say...