Liberal Internationalism and the Decline of the State

Liberal Internationalism and the Decline of the State

Liberal Internationalism and the Decline of the State The Thought of Richard Cobden, David Mitrany, and Kenichi Ohmae Per A. Hammarlund

LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM AND THE DECLINE OF THE STATE Per A. Hammarlund, 2005. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-6703-9 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-52988-9 ISBN 978-1-4039-8036-6 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781403980366 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hammarlund, Per A. Liberal internationalism and the decline of the state : the thought of Richard Cobden, David Mitrany, and Kenichi Ohmae. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. State, The. 2. Internationalism. 3. World politics. 4. Cobden, Richard, 1804 1865. 5. Mitrany, David, 1888 6. Ohmae, Kenichi, 1943 I. Title. JC336.H34 2004 320.1 dc22 2004049001 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: February 2005 10987654321

To my family

Contents Foreword Acknowledgments ix xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Brief Biographies 11 Chapter 2 The Decline of the State: The Empirical Claim 27 Chapter 3 The Obsolete International System 53 Chapter 4 Prescribing the Decline of the State 85 Chapter 5 The Case Against the Nation-State System 115 Chapter 6 The Predictive Element 141 Conclusion 171 Notes 181 Bibliography 211 Index 221

Foreword T he purpose of this book is to provide a critical analysis of the liberal idea of the decline of the state based on a historical comparison. It takes special note of the implications of state failure for international relations. The author identifies three acknowledged proponents of the theme. They are Richard Cobden (1804 65), David Mitrany (1888 1975), and Kenichi Ohmae (b. 1943). The analysis focuses on how Cobden, Mitrany, and Ohmae view the state and its role in their respective periods. It elucidates similarities and differences between their conceptions with the aim of shedding light on the status of the state in their systems of political and economic thought. It also puts the three thinkers into context by exposing the influence of their historical and social environments. A supplementary objective of the book is to infuse caution into future prophesies about the state s imminent decline. The text is divided into three sections. The first analyzes Cobden, Mitrany, and Ohmae s empirical descriptions of the state. The second focuses on their normative judgments. Finally, the third directs our attention to their predictions for the future. For reasons of clarity, the discussion is organized according to the distinction between the state as a country in its entirety and the state as an institution of government separate from the society that it rules. The central question of the analysis asks what we can learn from a study of the history of the liberal idea of the decline of the state. The main contention holds out that this idea as proposed by Cobden, Mitrany, and Ohmae is more of an ideological statement than an objective observation of an empirically verifiable fact. The concluding chapter highlights four additional lessons gleaned from the inquiry. First, the liberal hypothesis of the decline of the state is much more complex than it initially appears. Second, Cobden, Mitrany, and Ohmae contradict themselves on several key points.

x Foreword Third, our study reveals that each particular form of the idea is highly contingent on the historical, personal, social, and ideological context of the thinker. Fourth, the decline of the state is formulated in deliberately exaggerated and vague terms. While these conclusions may seem uncontroversial, they have gone largely unnoticed or disregarded by realist critics of the liberal notion of state decline.

Acknowledgments T his book could not have been completed without the helpful critique and insightful remarks of Peter Wilson, who supervised the Ph.D. dissertation on which the analysis at hand is based. I am very grateful for his encouragement and steadfast belief in the project. Several friends and colleagues have also made significant contributions. Sarah Owen-Vandersluis, Bob Vandersluis, Nick Bisley, Paris Yeros, Harry Gelber, and Anthony Howe have provided invaluable comments on earlier drafts of chapters and sections of the manuscript. In addition, I have benefited immensely from discussions with Sanja Carolina, Karen Smith, Razeen Sally, Andrew Walter, Michi Ebata, Maria Lensu, Stefan Fritz, Anne Hammerstad, Adam Roberts, Paul Taylor, Christopher Hill, David MacDonald, Julius Sen, and Lauren Snyder, as well as all the participants in the International Political Theory, International Institutions, Foreign Policy, and International Political Economy workshops at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). I would also like to thank Christer Jönsson and the Ph.D. candidates in the Department of Political Science for providing a forum for discussion of the subject at Lund University, Sweden. I owe a considerable debt of gratitude to the examiners of the thesis, Lucian M. Ashworth and Jan Aart Scholte, for their detailed and incisive comments on the entire text. Thanks are also due to Palgrave Macmillan and their two anonymous reviewers for offering very useful feedback, as well as to Newgen Imaging for correcting grammatical inconsistencies. All remaining mistakes are, of course, exclusively mine. Two thirds of chapter 3 have previously appeared as Liberal Cosmopolitan Thought and the Decline of the State: A Historical Exposition in Politologiske Studier (Vol. 4, No. 2, 2001), pp. 44 56. The article was substantially strengthened by the observations of one of the journal s anonymous reviewers, as well as the revisions suggested by its editor, Rasmus Schjødt Pedersen.

xii Acknowledgments The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Foundation in Memory of Lars Hierta, and the Carl Jönsson s Student Support Foundation have provided generous economic assistance. However, I owe my greatest debt of gratitude to my wife, Julie Imus, for her unwavering support, love, and patience throughout the process of writing and editing this volume.