Abstract
Prima facie, the pursuit of national interest stands in contradiction with the rules of global justice. Indeed, the former relies upon selfishness and the maximization of national utility, while the latter presupposes distributive measures at the global level that exercise some constrain on state behavior. However, these two notions are open to interpretation and, sometimes, even lack clarity. This paper will look for clarification and will ask whether it is possible to go beyond the radical difference between those two logics. I will start by underlining the reasons why the national interest and global justice are in contradiction with each other. Although they are not commensurable, the paper will then argue the two can be compatible in specific equilibriums of international politics, I will refer to as the “rationalist” and the “revolutionist” modes. Finally, the paper will discuss whether, in the best of all possible worlds, we should strive for this compatibility.
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Notes
As I will show in the paper, although we can trace the roots of the Realism/Idealism dispute back in Europe and notably in Germany, both frameworks, the National interest and Global justice, as well as their dyadic relation, originate, essentially, in the US (and to a much lesser extent in the UK). They are constitutive parts of the IR academic debate and mirror the history of US foreign policy.
Whether they can be of any use at all in a non-western context is also a legitimate question.
On moralism and the political, see also Williams (2005).
According to Bismarck, states are able to understand the nature of their interests and “no leader will risk the survival of his country to obey international law”.
According to Thucydides, Athens’s policy of building alliances and developing its armament was the “cause” that led to Sparta’s attack.
With the exception of Mearsheimer, most signatories of this declaration were “defensive” realists.
Collective bodies are different from individuals. On reputation in the field of international politics, see Mercer (2010).
This is consistent with Waltz’s neo-realist explanatory framework. See Sagan and Waltz (1995).
I define here as “goods” the ideas and values, as well as the different sets of practices that the National interest and Global justice inspire or are the reflection of.
Some states might benefit from resources distributed according to global justice principles. However, even for poor countries, their policies could be affected in other areas such as security or environmental policy.
According to James Rosenau the national interest relies on elusive criteria and is “plagued by the absence of criteria for cumulating the interests once they have been identified” (Rosenau 1971, 243).
To these criteria “better than,” “worse than” and “equally good”, Chang adds another criteria: It is neither true or false that they stand in a positive value relation (indeterminacy).
Grotius, himself, grants special rights to powerful states that have the responsibility to save populations that are unjustly attacked, i.e., the former could lead preventive wars if they are threatened (Grotius 1925, 167).
There is a large literature in IR on transnational actors, norms entrepreneurs and states. Some focus on the question of economic justice (O’Brien et al. 2000). In normative theory, some philosophers have tried to reconcile states’ interests and goals with global justice concerns, for example, in the area of migration studies (Miller 2007).
In the case of chemical weapons, see Price (1997).
This would be an explanation of state behavior. Eventually, liberal internationalists and constructivists would make a similar normative argument there: States should include global justice in their soft power policy.
The equilibrium between hard power and soft power is contextual. As opposed to Clinton’s presidency, the Bush administration focused more on hard power. President Obama tried to restore soft power (and who knows what the actual president’s views are concerning soft power). Whether this equilibrium between hard power and soft power and between the national interest and global justice makes sense in a non-Western environment such as China is a question we may ask at this conference.
When trying to explain what the Bush doctrine was, Condoleeza Rice wrote that “the old dichotomy between realism and idealism has never applied to the United States” (Rice 2008, 25). In the Obama administration, John Kerry stated that US foreign policy achieves greatness “only when it has combined realism and idealism”. See Snyder (2009). The combination of realism and idealism is, for the US, a true “alignment of planets”.
Indeed, the notion of interest gave rise to international society of states (Kratochwil 1982, 25).
My argument relies here upon the compatibility of the explanation of national interest policies from a rationalist perspective and consequentialism as a normative model.
This shift could happen if we expose the invalidity of the utilitarian based non-compromising model.
See above.
See the previous section.
Moral and normative revolutions happen. See Appiah (2010).
These two concepts come from IR constructivist theory.
Those negative consequences such as identity crises and populism mentioned above are also to be considered as costs.
We may think about one may seem a simple example, the nuclear regime. A priori, the logic of state interest (“the logic of consequences”) prevails over global justice claims (“the logic of appropriateness”). However, individuals may agree with the balance of nuclear power. Nuclear weapons should be an impediment to war.
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Colonomos, A. The National Interest and Global Justice: Contradictory Terms, Incomparable and Non-commensurable Goods, Yet Compatible?. Fudan J. Hum. Soc. Sci. 12, 233–253 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-018-0247-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-018-0247-6