BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

In the age of increased globalisation it is only to be expected that both on the left and right movements would emerge that resist this trend and argue for more localised or national politics. The fact that these movements exist doesn't make them logical. Let me give you some IR 101, or at least one of the myriad of angles through which you can look at this problem:

The power of centralised government is increasing because of a very simple concept, that sovereignty means not only the ability to determine one's own policies, but the ability to act on those policies as well. The legitimacy of a government hinges in no small part on its policy effectiveness. It is a fact that smaller nations especially have seen their individual sovereignty erode over time - in matters of national economics, in trade, in security, in social policy etc. Hence their often reluctant appeal to international organisations such as the EU. This is no longer the age of colonialism and governments need one another to enact policy, especially the smaller ones. Jay, the fact that most nations don't contribute as much to the NATO budget as you would like them to is unquestionably proof of these notions. For various reasons (depending on national context) they are unable. Even if they were willing and redirected vast sums to the military budget, the means their money could buy would not be able to satisfy their strategic goals without the larger NATO alliance's involvement. There's also the argument that dumping more money in the military won't do anything to further secure the north atlantic area, but I digress.

The EU has indeed careened from crisis to crisis, it's a core aspect of the EU's evolution. National governments want to safeguard their ability to decide their own policies rather than outsource decision making capacity to the EU. Yet time and again they're faced with challenges beyond their national control and find themselves unable to solve the international crises with which they are faced. Sovereignty of decisionmaking but no policy effectiveness - remember? And so the member states are resigned to seek out one another and fill emergent cracks once more, giving rise to new international constructs under the EU umbrella. In most respects crisis is the necessary vehicle for EU integration. Even if national governments were to decide to destroy that institution, they would only be forced to rebuild it once a new transnational challenge emerges.

I don't care to respond to the points of the soviet union and china because there's incredibly obvious differences between them and an institution like the EU. The EU does not mean the destruction of local and national culture or the removal of the voice of the people and all layers of government between Brussels and, say, Helsinki. It's a necessary top layer on modern life that will only continue to absorb responsibilities and authorities normally associated with nations. The problem is these responsibilities and authorities seem associated with our national identities as well. If we can't move beyond that into an organisation where we can acknowledge common purpose regardless of our national affiliations, Europe and its inhabitants are done. Not tomorrow, a slow decline, but decline nonetheless.

So what's the point of that centralised government? Well not to pave the road between Thessalonica and some unremarkable adjacent village. But there's a certain streamlining that is absolutely necessary to ensure smooth trade, economic growth, security, to counter tax evasion, but also rule of law - and from these core aspects other functions emerge as well. Foreign affairs, development aid, agricultural reform, educational standards, innovation investment etc. Here everyone has their own opinion on what the EU should or shouldn't do and I imagine many feel similar frustrations with state rights vs federal rights, but at the end of the day the complexity of the interlinked landscape we deal with today is much greater than most people assume on a surface level and the only logical way forward is to seek out other communities and compromise.

I can't help it that there's a resurgent far right and nationalist tendencies across the board. I see it as a symptom of the fact that our way of life is evolving faster than many individual's ability to cope. I sympathise, but refuse to appease that short-sighted, emotional reactionism.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-05-12 09:15:53)

And the left?

If we're referring to socioeconomic policy, the EU being what it is it cannot decide without qmv (qualified majority voting) or, in most cases that touch sovereignty, unanimity. The fact that most EU countries have neoliberal tendencies, especially those that do economically well, it means these will very likely be projected onto the rest of the union. Does it mean I agree with whatever direction is chosen? Not really. I'm definitely not a cheerleader for whatever happens in brussels. But if the international left is A. a minority in the european council and B. only in government in states that are failing and require EU aid - well, their ability to shape compromise to their wishes is very, very limited.

But let's not pretend that the EU is this monolithic entity in Brussels - it's 28 (soon to be 27..) communities forcing eachother into compromise.

As for another aspect of the left - the endless deconstruction of society into a million different identity groups all spurred to fight one another for their interest... I'm not a fan of the politics of division either. If it were up to them your parliament would bloat to thousands of MPs.

Larssen wrote:

In the age of increased globalisation it is only to be expected that both on the left and right movements would emerge that resist this trend and argue for more localised or national politics. The fact that these movements exist doesn't make them logical. Let me give you some IR 101, or at least one of the myriad of angles through which you can look at this problem:

The power of centralised government is increasing because of a very simple concept, that sovereignty means not only the ability to determine one's own policies, but the ability to act on those policies as well. The legitimacy of a government hinges in no small part on its policy effectiveness. It is a fact that smaller nations especially have seen their individual sovereignty erode over time - in matters of national economics, in trade, in security, in social policy etc. Hence their often reluctant appeal to international organisations such as the EU. This is no longer the age of colonialism and governments need one another to enact policy, especially the smaller ones. Jay, the fact that most nations don't contribute as much to the NATO budget as you would like them to is unquestionably proof of these notions. For various reasons (depending on national context) they are unable. Even if they were willing and redirected vast sums to the military budget, the means their money could buy would not be able to satisfy their strategic goals without the larger NATO alliance's involvement. There's also the argument that dumping more money in the military won't do anything to further secure the north atlantic area, but I digress.

The EU has indeed careened from crisis to crisis, it's a core aspect of the EU's evolution. National governments want to safeguard their ability to decide their own policies rather than outsource decision making capacity to the EU. Yet time and again they're faced with challenges beyond their national control and find themselves unable to solve the international crises with which they are faced. Sovereignty of decisionmaking but no policy effectiveness - remember? And so the member states are resigned to seek out one another and fill emergent cracks once more, giving rise to new international constructs under the EU umbrella. In most respects crisis is the necessary vehicle for EU integration. Even if national governments were to decide to destroy that institution, they would only be forced to rebuild it once a new transnational challenge emerges.

I don't care to respond to the points of the soviet union and china because there's incredibly obvious differences between them and an institution like the EU. The EU does not mean the destruction of local and national culture or the removal of the voice of the people and all layers of government between Brussels and, say, Helsinki. It's a necessary top layer on modern life that will only continue to absorb responsibilities and authorities normally associated with nations. The problem is these responsibilities and authorities seem associated with our national identities as well. If we can't move beyond that into an organisation where we can acknowledge common purpose regardless of our national affiliations, Europe and its inhabitants are done. Not tomorrow, a slow decline, but decline nonetheless.

So what's the point of that centralised government? Well not to pave the road between Thessalonica and some unremarkable adjacent village. But there's a certain streamlining that is absolutely necessary to ensure smooth trade, economic growth, security, to counter tax evasion, but also rule of law - and from these core aspects other functions emerge as well. Foreign affairs, development aid, agricultural reform, educational standards, innovation investment etc. Here everyone has their own opinion on what the EU should or shouldn't do and I imagine many feel similar frustrations with state rights vs federal rights, but at the end of the day the complexity of the interlinked landscape we deal with today is much greater than most people assume on a surface level and the only logical way forward is to seek out other communities and compromise.

I can't help it that there's a resurgent far right and nationalist tendencies across the board. I see it as a symptom of the fact that our way of life is evolving faster than many individual's ability to cope. I sympathise, but refuse to appease that short-sighted, emotional reactionism.

Larssen, I think your failure here is your very short-sighted view of the world, and a very myopic view of the goal of international relations in particular. There have been multinational agreements, leagues, NGOs, across the span of history. Regional societies and governments have always sought to form alliances that in theory mutually benefit all parties. The Roman Empire, the Hanseatic League, the League Of Nations, the USSR, the OAS, the United Nations, etc etc. This is not an inevitability borne out of modern politics or the globally connected world - these are agreements between those entities to embark in mutually beneficial activities or as a way to exert singular control of a central power. Obviously, most of those examples cease to exist in modernity. Why? Because those mutually beneficial arrangements only last as long as those charters act in the benefit of the whole only. We could look at any example and suss out specific reasons for their demise, but the commonality is that those multi-party entities failed to follow their charter - either because they were not empowered enough to do so, or because they started acting for the benefit of a few instead of the syndicate, or because a stronger entity dissolved them.

This may not be the age of colonialism as we know it, but there are activities taken by the global north that still seek to exert control over weaker areas - except the new currency of warfare is money, not bombs. The end goal is the same - to extract wealth and resources, to open up new markets, to ensure consumption. Whether it's old-fashioned imperialism, colonialism, or modern neoliberal policy, the goal is the same.

The EU was a natural progression to create a regional powerhouse to combat the strength of the American and Chinese economy (and to some extent, combat Soviet influence, although that's more or less a non-issue now). It's very much in line with historical precedent, and definitely should not be seen as a novel idea within international relations, or even an end-all solution. What the EU is going through is not unique in the development of syndicates. It is more of the same, another experiment in the consolidation of power and decision-making, and the fact that you see centralization of power as an inevitability for the future governance of the world speaks only to your specific interpretation and goal of what international relations should be. That's cool, but let's not confuse your position with what the "goal" of international relations is or should be - there are many ways to achieve global unity, and in my personal opinion, further centralized power structures are not the way to accomplish this.

i was thinking of yanks varoufakis in my first post. that went well, didn't it?

'the left' is commonly accepted to be communism-socialism, if you want to talk about identity politics then talk about the liberal politicians and ideologues who have pursued such politics in the west. if you think any sort of social democrat or liberal is 'left' then, yeah, sure. but 'The Left' as a political-philosophical system? as an organised movement? not really. i realise it probably sounds like a ridiculous splitting of hairs but i cannot see how anyone can conceive of liberal centrists fussing over identity as 'leftist' politics.

i'm not sure why you reference deconstruction, as if derrida dovetails into identity politics. yes it was closely associated with post-marxism; but identity politics? i guess again here you're going to lump all sorts of subaltern studies, feminism, post-colonialism, etc. as 'identity politics'. otherwise what you're saying makes little sense to me. deconstruction actually 'traces its roots' to semiotics and de saussure: it is primarily linguistics-based. i'm confused why you'd look at its progenitors' political backgrounds and conclude it was about 'identity politics'. deconstruction is about the disjunction between the sign/signifier/signified, not about oppressed and oppressors (you could just as easily trace that interest in post-marxism to hegel and master/slave, or foucault's discourse on power).

what you're reaching at is intersectionality, another topic again.

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-12 12:44:29)

uziq wrote:

i was thinking of yanks varoufakis in my first post. that went well, didn't it?

'the left' is commonly accepted to be communism-socialism, if you want to talk about identity politics then talk about the liberal politicians and ideologues who have pursued such politics in the west. if you think any sort of social democrat or liberal is 'left' then, yeah, sure. but 'The Left' as a political-philosophical system? as an organised movement? not really. i realise it probably sounds like a ridiculous splitting of hairs but i cannot see how anyone can conceive of liberal centrists fussing over identity as 'leftist' politics.

i'm not sure why you reference deconstruction, as if derrida dovetails into identity politics. yes it was closely associated with post-marxism; but identity politics? i guess again here you're going to lump all sorts of subaltern studies, feminism, post-colonialism, etc. as 'identity politics'. otherwise what you're saying makes little sense to me.

what you're reaching at is intersectionality, another topic again.

I'll leave the precise designations to you but yes these were essentially my points. There's a lot of movement within social liberalism and I've noticed those who fuss about identity the most are also almost unanimously more associated with 'traditional left' thinking, green movements etc. The dividing lines are a little blurry at this point.

As for yanis and his economic policy: no, it didn't. We've been over this.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-05-12 12:45:34)

Looks like Jay uses twitter under the name R. R. Reno
https://twitter.com/DanKaszeta/status/1 … 8712114176

Two men who allegedly refused to wear masks inside a Target store in California are facing felony battery charges after a fight that left an employee security guard with a broken arm, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
...
The suspects were not wearing face coverings when they entered the store's Van Nuys location on May 1, and were confronted by store employees, police said in a statement released on Monday. They were being escorted out of the store when the fight broke out, police said in a statement released on Monday.
...
The two suspects, identified by police as 31-year-old Phillip Hamilton and 29-year-old Paul Hamilton, were arrested later that day. CNN has not been able to determine whether the men have attorneys.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/us/coron … index.html
Good stuff. Felonies will follow these guys throughout the rest of their lives. Can you imagine getting a felony over wearing a face mask?

faucis testimony before the senate was very sobering.

and sounds like one of the scientists formerly associated with the administration is about to blow his top at all this evasive and contrarian messaging from the white house

funny that the republicans magically drop some 'scandal' about obama's routine intelligence work whilst all this is going on. i wonder why?

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-13 14:17:01)

be that as it may, a virus is a biological fact, on the order of nature, mortality, life and death. the most basic and fundamental questions.

if it comes down to brute calculations of life-years lost, cyclical ravishing by a plague has to be way up there with an economic depression.

it isn't going anywhere, and isn't going to abate or relent because the economy is suffering. it could even mutate and get worse.

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-13 14:35:54)

exactly. this is the situation we are in. some realism is called for. it's no good protesting that your favourite shop or restaurant is closing. electronic stores and exotic restaurants are not high on the list of civilisation's required things.

it's not the middle ages. a plague isn't a part of 'facticity' in the sense heidegger meant it, something as grim and inevitable as death. we have vast medical resources. we are the richest we have ever been, materially, in human history. if the economy needs to majorly pivot to another footing, we have the means. what we lack is political will. america can afford to support its restaurant and hospitality staff. it's not like the okies migrating into california away from the dust bowl, starving and in their only pair of shoes.

you're going to have to seriously look into your national soul and think about what is desired as the individual and collective good.

or you can keep ignoring the science and putting political precept before brute reality. maybe one day it'll magically go away, or a freak mutation will happen and it'll blow away like a passing cloud. probably not.

all it takes is for public opinion to turn against it, or to be funnelled in the direction of change. america isn't there yet. but this is a once-in-a-century event. they can elect politicians on a platform of universal healthcare. i don't necessarily think it's going to happen, but not because of the overweening control of lobbyists. too many people are on the 'self-reliance' choo-choo train. until a pandemic, of course, when it turns out they're not very self-reliant at all.

Larssen wrote:

My post was not meant to sound the end-all verdict on why states do what they do in the 21st century. There's layers to this and I did write that it's 'one of myriad of angles' to analyse what's happening. Nor is my goal to posit that we're all moving towards a 'one world government', I don't see that as possible at all - a multipolar world, yes, but not beyond that. What I do explain is what motivates cooperation within the EU first and foremost, to which you can still add ideological underpinnings, constructivist or institutionalist perspectives - one could even posit the notion of shared historical experience and cultural roots. Ultimately a narrative only speaking in terms of rational states is bound to fall short in explaining the how, what and why of the existence of an entity like the EU. But I'm also alluding to what makes it different from other organisations, as its foundation is much more expansive than a simple agreement based on mutual need, or only to counteract anarchy or safeguard new moral principles.

Historical comparisons are very hard to apply here. Other reasons apart from the above being the fact that we've now established a state system fundamentally resting on the treaty of westphalia instead of vague hierarchical divisions within societies and that the norms and rules of the international order have completely changed as well - look only to the changing morality on conquest and empire which were perfectly valid reasons in times past to construct centralised government. The closest you may get is to draw some parallels with the holy roman empire, though its dynamics and context were still wildly different. I've made the argument elsewhere that another possibility for the EU's future is to fare much like the HRE did, with the different national centres tugging at and slowly weakening centralised government for the next X hundreds of years. But I'm sure you can predict what my personal stance is on that matter as to the continued prosperity & safety of the people who live here (very much undesirable). Nonetheless, the supremacy of the 28 members being entrenched everywhere in the EU's "constitutional documents", the treaty on the functioning of the EU, the treaty on the EU, the treaty of lisbon, this is more than a guess - it's possible and likely.

As a sidenote I hope the above explains that the EU as it was formed was as much a product of internal EU politics as it was influenced by the existence of the soviet union on its borders and the united states across the atlantic. China did not factor in the equation. Only in the late cold war and again in the late 90s, after a massive effort to involve eastern Europe in the union and rebuild it did the member states really look beyond and see a greater international role for the organisation.

I also do think the changing technology landscape should be mentioned here, as it's been a gamechanger beyond any other development. The fact that you can get in an airplane and literally be at the other end of the world within 24 hours, that you can speak to anyone on the globe instantly, that information flows freely and also currency and business - the interconnection of our world is a direct assault on our traditional westphalian state system. The international arena needs to change to accomodate this. The other end of the spectrum are those who do still see the world in terms of little turfs and who want to deploy technology to entrench these imaginary divisions and make them lived reality, i.e. through the super-surveillance state and the elimination of privacy. Ironically, that too requires the construction of a superstate.

The formation of the EU was largely an institutionalist approach. I understand you want to add in that you can still apply constructivist ideology to any current relations, but let's stop pretending that this particular application of international relations theory followed anything that could be construed as as constructivist ideology. It's accelerated realism where practical goals are championed over any ideological goals - and that is my biggest issue with IR theory in general.

I know your pet is the EU, but I feel like your closeness to it, from your studies through your work experience has clouded your ability to objectively look at other applications of IR theory. It's evident in your post - i point out historical examples of real international cooperation, and you immediately dismiss it because "the EU wasn't like that".


I had a much longer post queued up before the forums borked, but I don't have the time to respond.