POLITICAL CULTURE AND POLITICAL POWER IN THE EPOCH OF GLOBALIZATION:
SOME
GENERAL REMARKS
Vladimir A. Gutorov
Political
Theory, Saint-Petersburg State
University, Russia
The
aim of this paper seems to me as quite modest. It is evident the topic to be
discussed can be exhausted only by purposeful activity of many scholars adhering
to different trends in modern social science. There is no deficiency of
prognoses concerning the perspectives of evolution of political systems at both
regional and world levels. Such prognoses are founded, as rule, on analysis of
the deep-rooted conflicts which are characteristic for well-developed countries
(USA, EU, Japan) as well as the countries representing either postcommunist
region or another type of civilization, for instance, the Islamic world. The
works of S. Huntington and I. Wallerstein as like as the discussion arisen
around them testify, to a definite degree, how far social sciences have advanced
in this direction. There is no reason, of course, to go into details of these
disputes in so far as many details, by all their variety, can hardly be regarded
as definitively clear and comprehensive. Therefore I would restrict myself to
the following questions which are very important by themselves: a) in what
measure the global tendencies of transformation of political power can influence
on their theoretical reflection in political theory? b) do we need to include
now in this reflection any ethical component?
It
may look strange, but the last question can sometimes acquire the most evident
actuality. We live in the epoch when pessimism often seems to be a best medicine
against self-deception and a sound judgement is important as never before. No
prophecies about the coming of new era of globalization bringing the radical
revision of traditional notions of state, power, culture, human rights can be
taken into consideration without preliminary scientific investigation. “The
most fundamental element of pessimism, - as
George Sorel wrote in his letter to Daniel Halevy, - is its method of
conceiving the paths toward deliverance”
1. Observing the wonderful
indifference with which majority of the Europeans as well as the Russians
watched the dramatic events in
the Near East, one attempts against his own will
to console himself with the argument that such a state is quite ordinary
for the human race and it was reproduced many times in history. Here is, for
example, a description by Titus Livius of negotiations between Perseus, the king
of Macedonia and Quintus Marcius,
the Roman consul in 171 B.C.: “A
few days later they met at the spot agreed upon. The royal retinue was large, a
crowd both of friends and attendants, thronging about him. With no less a train
came the envoys, for many escorted them from Larisa, besides the embassies of
certain cities which had assembled at Larisa and wanted to report home facts
which they had heard. There was a desire, natural to mankind, to see the meeting
of a famous king and the envoys of the people for most in the whole world” (XLII
39, 1-3) 2.
In
my student years, when I read these lines of the famous Roman historian, I was
often seized by sarcastic feeling which sprung from the idea that I knew
beforehand – in three years not only the cruel tyrant will perish but also the
curious philistines will become for many centuries miserable vassals of “the
people for most in the whole world”. Today these lines are perceived
differently and one can easily come to following conclusion: this time the tale
is narrated about you, de te fabula narratur.
It
is pleasant, of course, to calm himself by melancholic passages borrowed from O.
Spengler – “in few centuries there will be no European culture, no Germans,
Englishmen, Frenchmen as like as in times of Justinian there were no Romans” 3.
It is possible that Spengler is right. But one can be quite sure that peoples
which are content with a mere curiosity have a real chance to disappear far
earlier by comparison with peoples pretending to play the role of leaders in the
modern world.
Nevertheless
one must admit also that such «coup
de théatre»
was foreseen long ago in social theory. For instance, I. Wallerstein in one of
his essays of the second half of 90s «Peace,
stability and legitimacy. 1990 – 2025/2050», characterizing
a perspective of possible wars and conflicts between United States, Japan and
the Western Europe has tried even to formulate a following specific law by using
an analogy with the war between Iraq and Iran, the conflicts in the former
Jugoslavia, in Caucasus etc.: the indifference of public opinion in the
developed industrial countries will grow in direct proportion to intensification
of conflicts in the southern regions 4.
Such
an indifference of both Western and Russian political communities (the majority
of the European governments included) needs to be explained because the daily
spreading moods of resignation in Russia and the West (the reaction of the
governments of France and Germany to the antiterrorist operation of USA and
Great Britain against Iraq is a rare and transitory exception) are, as it seems
to me, too real a component of modern political culture because of its striking
contrast with numerous manifestations of the Islamic fanaticism in the epoch of
globalization.
There
is no need to fix special attention on definition of the notion itself of
globalization. One can willingly adopt any wide-spread definition like, for
instance, “the development of the world in the form of united or… single
space, the movement to such united world as a process which has began in the
early stages of history and now becomes almost inevitable one” 5.
At the same time, I would incline to suppose that the notion of modernity which
is broadly discussed now in scientific literature resists, to a definite degree,
to the notion of globalization (in conceptual sense, of course). Sometimes the
former looks like an antipodes to the latter.
In
contexts of relation of political culture and political power the notion of
modernity was certainly connected with deep cultural upheaval on the boundary of
XVIII – XIX cc. When under the influence of the French revolution the series
of “the definitely new institutional projects symbolizing the modern world as
such” had arisen 6. As opposition to the natural economy and
mercantilistic system the new market economy had developed. In political sphere
the constitutional ideal of «the
republic of citizens»
leaning upon
conception of the «State-Nation»
and the people's sovereignty was opposed to absolutist monarchy. What is in
question is therefore the democratic revolution developing already more than two
centuries. The democratic tradition itself underwent during this period
considerable modifications by overcoming in XIX c. resistance of the remnants of
feudalism and engaging in XX c. in mortal struggle with totalitarianism which
had been conquered to the end of the second world war. Thus the both liberal and
egalitarian foundations of modern democracy were strengthened. By the later I
imply the process of spreading of political and civil rights on majority of
population in the Western world, the recognition of rights of trade-unions and
socialist parties as the equal partners of traditional political parties, the
increase of role of state planning, development of social programs in frame of
conception of both welfare and social state etc.
Nevertheless, I join the position of those scholars who, demonstrating
their critical attitude to the formerly popular theory of convergence, one of
the main point of which was the acknowledgement of the model of western liberal
democracy as a standard of the universal historical process, suppose to be more
natural to speak about “plurality of modernities” 7 , taking into
consideration not only the increasing difference between the West and the
Islamic world but also the preservation of deep-rooted specific character in the
development of Japan and especially China.
It
seems that one could approach analogously to the political processes in
postcommunist societies, on the whole, and postcommunist Russia, in particular.
As S. N. Eisenstadt has justly outlined, in Russia (as well as in China), in
distinction from the Western Europe, where the succession of cultural
orientations promoted the origin of variety of new relatively autonomous
institutes and groups with corresponding models of comparatively easy control
over them, the destruction by revolutionary elites for the most part of symbols,
structures, social classes and organizations of traditional society did not
change the old authoritarian orientations which were characteristic of the
former empire order reducing to a minimum both the personal and internal group
identities 8.
However,
if the authoritarian tendencies manifested so distinctively in the demeanour of
political elites in Central and Eastern Europe during the «velvet
evolutions»
have gradually begun to relent, although they did not disappear definitively,
nobody can say now (as I shall try to show later on) the authoritarianism in
modern Russia to be decreased in some way and any real perspective of evolution
in the direction of liberal democratic regime is disclosed.
In
either case, the thesis of «plurality
of modernities»
corresponds more to special features of our epoch which S. Huntington prefers to
define as «clash of
civilizations».
It is interesting that Huntington sees the main characteristic of international
order, which was formed after the second world war,
in the new phenomenon of multipolarity: when for the modern epoch
beginning in XV c. multipolarity is exhausted completely by interrelation and
conflicts between the main actors inside the Western civilization, today the
global politics for the first time in history has begun simultaneously to take
into consideration the interrelation of many civilizations 9.
Nevertheless, the main tendencies
of such interaction are regarded by Huntington mainly from the point of view of
increase of conflicts with all their
regressive consequences. These consequences are visible in evident contradiction
of traditional understanding of world politics as a sphere of struggle and
rivalry between coalitions of national states and those international groups the
rise of which is very typical for the epoch of impetuous development of mass
communications and new industrial and information technologies. The immediate
result of this process became the deepening of division between the West and “all
the others” 10.
After
the ruin of the communist system the crisis of universal liberal model of the
new world order has followed 11. In this connection S. Huntington has
justly noted that the attempts of the West to preserve its leading positions and
save its own interests by representing them in the form of interests of the «world
community» will make more evident the gap existing already between the declared
principles of the West and the real actions of the latter. The price of these
universal pretences are hypocrisy and double moral standards 12.
The
tendencies mentioned above can be considered without any doubts
as initial premises for investigation of political culture and political
power in frame of new turn of globalization. There is no need, of course, in
special analysis of various conceptions of political power in modern scientific
literature. Strictly speaking, only one question must be elucidated – whether
any modifications of what is usually defined as antinomy or rather dichotomy of
power arise under the influence of globalization? The examination of this
question gives the opportunity to analyse also the tendency connected with a
systematic using of quite traditional and very archaic methods in sphere of
international relations by modern states identifying themselves with liberal
democracies.
However,
even on the early stage of scientific investigation of the phenomenon of power
Ch. Merriam described very well the above mentioned dichotomy in the fifth
chapter of his famous book «Political
power»
entitled expressively «The
shame of power»:
side by side with those elements of power which deserve trust and admiration
(credenda and miranda), as he wrote, “we
may look now at power from beneath, at the incidence of power from the point of
view of those upon whom power is exercised. We may note:
1.
Violence, cruelty, terror, arrogance.
2.
Hypocrisy, deceit, intrigue.
3.
Corruption and priviledge.
4.
Inflexibility, stubborness.
5.
Backwardness, tardy adaptation to progress.
6.
Indecision, impotence” 13.
It
is important to stress that one of the main attributes of strictly scientific
definition consists in its universal character. When this attribute is applied
for making more precise the notion of political power, the following conclusion
becomes clear: today two different (and quite traditional) approaches acquire
unusual intensiveness and acuteness. In particular, many liberal conceptions
elaborated during the last 50-60 years can hardly sustain criticism just from
the point of their universal applicability. For example, the theory of H. Arendt
who identified power with «the
space of freedom»
has a deep-rooted connection with tradition of European liberal thought which
endures now the next very painful crisis. On the contrary, the military actions
of Unated States and their European allies against Serbia in the end of 90s and
the war against Iraq, by provoking the crisis of the international world order
which was formed in the second half of XX c., has attached again new importance
to the criticism of liberal political theory by H. Morgenthau. “Thucydides,
Machiavelli, Richelieu, Hamilton, or Disraeli, - he wrote in his brilliant
pamphlet «Scientific
man versus power politics»,
- would conceive the nature of international politics as an unending struggle
for survival and power. It is true that, even before modern international
thought entered the field, this conception of international affairs was under
constant attack. From the Church Fathers to the anti-Machiavellian writers of
the eighteenth century, international politics was made the object of moral
condemnation. But modern international thought goes further. It denies not only
the moral value of political power which proves nothing as over against the
rational values of truth and justice; it denies, if not the very existence of
power politics as a matter of fact, at least its organic and inevitable
connection with the life of man in society. Francis Bacon only prophesied that
the empire of man over nature would replace the empire of man over man. For the
leading international thought of the nineteenth century, this prophecy had come
true… There is no violence in a rational system of society. It is therefore a
vital – practical as well as intellectual – concern of the middle class to
avoid outside interference, especially violent interference, with the delicate
mechanics of the social and economic system, which stands for the rationality of
the world at large. By elevating this concern to a philosiphical and political
postulate of absolute validity, liberalism overlooked the singularity as well as
the exceptional character of the
experience in which it originated. For the absence of organized violence during
long periods of history is, in domestic no less than in international relations,
the exception rather than the rule” 14.
In
general, the main reason for revival of such a criticism is not the
globalization as such, but rather the concomitant tendency of transformation of
the international world order from the former bipolar to the unipolar one. In
the beginning of 60s H. Marcuse, the outstanding left-radical thinker, by
appraising special features of bipolar world, wrote in the introduction
to his famous book «One-dimensional man»: “Does
not the threat of an atomic catastrophe which could wipe out the human race also
serve to protect the very forces which perpetuate this danger? The efforts to
prevent such a catastrophe overshadow the search for its potential causes in
contemporary industrial society. These causes remain unidentified, unexposed,
unattacked by the public because they recede before the all too obvious threat
from the without – to the West from the East, to the East from the West.
Equally obvious is the need for being prepared, for living on the brink, for
facing the challenge. We submit to the peaceful production of the means of
destruction, to the perfection of waste, to being educated for a defense which
deforms the defenders and that which they defend. If we attempt to relate the
causes of the danger to the way in which society is organized and organizes its
members, we are immediately confronted with the fact that advanced industrial
society becomes richer, bigger, and better as it perpetuates the danger” 15.
Today
after the collapse of the former Soviet Union we can definitely suppose that the
danger outlined by Marcuse is not diminished. It is not by chance A. Giddens
compared the modern global system with a rag blanket, distinguishing the absence
of balance between poverty and wealth as like as the lack of both political
integration and consensus among nations and regions as main sources of increase
of international tension 16.
At
all events, the specific character of new world order influences on
transformation of both political power and culture in the direction of their
uniformity in different regions, primarily in the West and postcommunist
countries.
It
is a well-known fact that the state planning was one of the most important
special feature of historical development after the second world war. The
formation of state was inseparable from the growth of bureaucratic structures as
well as new manipulative technologies. The latter were, in their turn, closely
connected with swift development of mass-media and the other instruments of
political communication. All these tendencies had been analyzed already in the
60s by the scholars representing sometimes the extreme points of ideological
spectrum of the West. In particular, J. Ellul, who represented exactly the
conservative trend, defended the ideas which seem now as a full contrast to
conceptions of neo-conservative thinkers of 80s and 90s. “The modern state, -
he wrote, - could no more be a state without techniques than a businessman could
be a businessman without the telephone or the automobile. The businessman does
not employ these objects because he is particularly enamored of progress. The
state does not employ propaganda or planning because it is socialist. The
circumstances are such that the state can not be other than it is. Not only does
it need techniques, but techniques need it. It is not a matter of chance, nor a
matter of conscious will; rather, it is an urgency which expresses itself in the
growth of the technical apparatus around a rather slight and feeble «brain».
The motive force behind the state does not develop in proportion to the state
apparatus. The motive force (theological interpretation aside) is man. And man
has no more capacity to function when he is at the center of technical
organization than when he is a simple citizen lost in the machinery. In other
words, the politician is demoted to minority status by the enormity of the
techniques the state has at its disposal. The state is no longer the President
of the Republic plus one or more Chambers of Deputies. Nor it is a dictator with
certain all-powerful ministers. It is an organization of increasing complexity
which puts to work the sum of the techniques of the modern world”
17.
H.
Marcuse, in his turn, insisted on the thesis
the western socio-political system is moving from traditional pluralism
to formation of the «one-dimensional
society»
because of combination of manageable character of modern economics and the
growth of bureaucracy at all levels. The leading tendency of the western
political culture consists in its «depolitization»,
i.e. eradication both of political and moral questions from social life as a
result of possession by technique, productivity and effectiveness. The «instrumental
reason»,
arisen as by-product of depolitization, is secured by influence of mass-media on
cultural traditions of the lowest social classes, regional and national
minorities which are driven in Procrustean couch of the «packed
culture»
by informative cajoling. It is implied that mass-media become also the
instrument of advertising industry which is aimed at unrestrained increase of
consumption. The final result of these processes is the rise of «false
consciousness»,
i.e. a definite psychological state when man ceases to understand his own
interests because the world of bureaucracy corrupts and perverts human life.
But, inspite of the fact that social order becomes repressive and unworthy in
frame of close interaction between state and industry, the majority of people
prefers to reconcile itself to such a condition. The people's conduct becomes
passive being pierced by conformism. The men are deprived of choice – what
kind of production if more preferable or what form of democracy they want to
participate in. If they aspire security and comfort, they must accomodate
themselves to the standards of existing economic and political systems under
fear of not to be marginalized. Therefore, the idea of the power of people is
found to be a myth 18. “Political
freedom, - he concluded, - would mean liberation of the individuals from
politics over which they have no effective control. Similarly, intellectual
freedom would mean the restoration of individual thought now absorbed by mass
communication and indoctrination, abolition of “public opinion” together
with its makers. The unrealistic sound of these propositions is indicative, not
of their utopian character, but of the strength of the forces which prevent
their realization” 19.
It
seems not so strange now why such critical passages created more than fifty
years ago have become quite in harmony with political processes which developed
both in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the beginning of 90s and
in modern Russia. By not going into details of questions connected with
methodological approach as well as the choice of critical theories which are
suitable for analysis of complicated reality of postcommunist world, one can
only distinguish in conclusion the main line leading to a possibility itself of
drawing parallels between the postcommunist countries and the United States
which H. Lasswell named already in the 50s as “highly manipulated society”.
It is overideologization of both political process and discours
expressing the basic orientations
of new political elites. For example, the strategy of confirming the new
political discourse by new elites in Central and Estern Europe was well analyzed
by Hungarian scholars G. Konrad and I. Szelényi
in the book «Intellectuals
and Domination in Post-Communist Societies».
In particular, by answering the question -
what positional force hid behind the victory won in the sphere of freedom of
speech, they had formulated the following thesis: the intellectuals of the first
wave of the «velvet
revolutions»
did not primarily aspire to occupy the places of new bureaucracy or new
bourgeoisie, pretending on the role of «ideological
project-makers».
The image of this exstraordinary role was founded on the illusion that
postcommunist power was «bistructural»
and both bureaucracy and new
bourgeoisie will carry on a play with each other, while the intellectuals
could occupy the place of «supreme arbiters» like in sportive
competitions. The main instrument of attaining this role is the monopolizing of
social discourse, first of all, the structure of political language which would
permit to define political agenda in future. Meanwhile, the intellectuals become
«mediocrats»,
by aquiring the corresponding political influence and preparing the position of
«politocrats» for themselves. Of course, such an orientation could be but
authoritarian one, hidden behind democratic rhetoric 20.
The
main aspect of various interpretations of the modern Russian political culture
proposed by both domestic and foreign specialists is defined, as rule, by
character of the Rusian new corporative politics. For example, R. Sakwa in his
description of the Russian political landscape prefers the notion «regime
democracy».
He puts forward an idea that “Russia
has undergone an incomplete revolution: the structure of power has changed its
forms but the traditional subordination of the political process to ruling
elites has taken on new forms; property relations are being transformed but
polity and economy remain undifferentiated; and the ruling class by and large
remain in place deprived only of the top echelon of the of political system.
Incomplete democratization gave rise to a hybrid system combining both democracy
and authoritarianism” 21.
The Russian regime is based on a
distinctive and unstable alliance: dominated by a section of bureaucracy that
had matured for reform, its ideological program came from liberal-westernizers,
while fragmented democratic movements acted largely as auxiliaries. The regime
fail to institutionalize either the political influence of social movements
through party forms of representative government, nor its own responsibility to
society through a legislature or the whole network of communicative agencies
like the media and the other elements of a pluralistic civil society 22.
When
avoiding extreme appraisements which often accompany analysis of political
process in modern Russia (as well as in all postcommunist region, in general),
one could define the common trends in evolution of political culture which
reflect in some way the influence of idea of globalization on domestic elites.
By adopting the conception of the rapid liberalization of economy and political
system in frame of new version of «pursuing
modernization»,
the postcommunist political leaders (especially
in Russia) have lost the advantages of support of the strong state for the
overcoming various difficulties of transitional period. “Democracy is never
without its coercive features: the necessary condition for the functionality of
a democratic state is a strong and authoritative government, able not only to
act as the umpire between various interests but also with the authority to
impose its policies on social groups and economic interests” 23.
But, while the postcommunist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe could
ultimately compensate the lack of
democratic traditions by integrating into structures of the European Union,
Russia, on the contrary, was found to be doomed to a mere imitation of
corresponding western liberal specimens just because of destruction of its own
natural conservative base – the traditions of centralized system of
government. The only form of compensation has become the utmost politicizing of
social life reduced to endless flows of TV propaganda which the politicians of
the «new
wave»
pour down periodically on the population steeped in the deep of sharpest
economic crisis.
Globalization,
undoubtedly, strains the old
traditional dilemmas of unity and diversity, universality and particularization,
world and nation, cosmopolitism and citizenship. All these antinomies have both
political and cultural dimensions. Discussing them means often making the moral
choice. The difficulties of transition to democracy in modern Russia
demonstrate quite visibly that globalization can not always be equal to
westernization by stimulating simultaneously the necessity of quest
of national identity. It is just by this way globalization as value can
be organically united with the value of diversity creating strong obstacles to
transformation of the latter to sterile nationalism and xenophobic policy.
NOTES:
1.
Sorel, G. Reflections on Violence. Transl. by T. E. Hulme and J. Roth
with an introduction by Edward A. Shils. New York, 1967, P. 34.
2.
Livy. With an English translation by Evan T. Sage and Alfred C.
Schlesinger. T. 12, 1938, P. 407 (Loeb Classical Library).
3.
Spengler, O. Der Untergang des Abendlandes. (The Russian ed.) T. I.
Moscow, 1993, P. 329.
4.
Wallerstein, I. The Analysis of the World Systems and the Situation in
the Modern World. (Russian ed.). Saint-Petersburg, 2001, P. 367.
5.
Cheshkov, M.A. Globalny kontekst postsovetskoi Rossii. Ocherk teorii i
metodologii mirotselostnosti. (The Global Context of Post-Soviet Russia. An
Essay on Theory and Methodology of the World Unity). Moscow, 1999, P. 21.
6.
Wittrock, B. Modernity: One, None ore Many? European Origins and
Modernity as a Global Condition //
Daedalus,
2000, Vol. 129, No. 1, P. 151.
7.
Ibid. P. 156.
8.
Eisenstadt, S.N. Revolution and the Transformation of Societies. A
Comparative Study of Civilizations (The Russian ed.). Moscow, 1999, P. 290 –
291.
9.
See: Huntington, S. P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the
World Order. New York, 1996, P. 21, 28-29, 183-186.
10.
Ibid.
11.
Wallerstein, I. Op. cit., P.
313.
12.
Huntington, S. P. Op. cit.,
P. 207-218 and passim.
13.
Merriam Ch. E. Political
Power. New York, 1964, P. 136.
14.
Morgenthau H.J. Scientific
Man versus Power Politics. Chicago & London, 1967, p. 42-43, 49.
15.
Marcuse H. One-Dimensional
Man. Boston, 1964, P. IX.
16.
Giddens A. Sociology.(The
Russian ed.) Moscow, 1999, P. 513.
17.
Ellul J. The Technological
Society. With an Introduction by Robert K. Merton. New York, 1964, P. 253-254.
18.
Marcuse H. Op. cit. Ch. 1.
19.
Ibid. P. 4.
20.
Konrad, Gy. and Szelényi,
I. Intellectuals and Domination in Post-Communist Societies // Social Theory for
Changing Society. Ed. by P.Bourdien & J.S.Coleman. Boulder.1991, P. 337-361.
21.
Sakwa, R. 1997: The Regime System im Russia // Contemporary Politics. 1997, Vol.
3, No 1, P. 7
22.
Ibid. P. 8-9.
23.
Ibid. P. 16.