Two Kinds of Internationalism

Two Kinds of Internationalism

Mini Teaser: What Europeans condemn as unilateralism is in fact traditional postwar internationalism. As Lockeans, Americans prefer it to transnationalism because it's democratic.

by Author(s): Marc F. Plattner

The contrast between the universalist and particularistic aspects of the Declaration was dramatically underlined in 1859 by Abraham Lincoln in paying tribute to its principal author, Thomas Jefferson: "All honor to Jefferson", Lincoln wrote,

"to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression."

Yet the "abstract" or "self-evident" truths cited in the Declaration were an essential part of the justification for the revolution: The proper goal of government is to secure the rights of individuals; government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed; and the people have the right to alter or abolish their government when it no longer secures their rights or retains their consent. The rights of man are the same everywhere, but each people may decide for itself how best to secure them, when to bestow its consent upon government, and when to withdraw that consent and seek a new government.

Lockean Principles

As has often been observed, the doctrine behind the Declaration of Independence is largely derived from John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, and an analysis of that work can help us understand the peculiar combination of universalism and particularism that characterizes liberal democracy. It also may illuminate the way Americans still tend to think about foreign policy. At the very outset of his now famous article, "Power and Weakness", Robert Kagan describes contemporary transatlantic divergences in terms of Europeans entering a Kantian "paradise of peace and prosperity", while the United States remains mired in an "anarchic Hobbesian world." It would have been more accurate for Kagan to characterize the United States as Lockean rather than Hobbesian, for the American understanding of the principles of both domestic governance and foreign relations is much closer to that of the former.

Like the Declaration of Independence, Locke's Second Treatise begins with the universal, examining the natural condition of mankind prior to or apart from any political community. By considering what he calls (following Hobbes) the "state of nature", Locke deduces the "equal right that every man has to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man." Since there is no natural basis for the rule of some men over others, Locke plausibly concludes that such rule can be legitimate only if it derives from the consent of the individuals who live under it. Although he does not deny that some human beings may excel in virtue or merit, Locke insists that such superiority does not give them any just title to rule others. Men are naturally equal in the decisive respect--they all have the right to do what they think is needed for their own self-preservation without having to seek the permission of anyone else.

The state of nature, Locke asserts, "has a law of nature to govern it." That law of nature, whose metaphysical and moral status is the subject of great controversy among students of Locke, instructs everyone that, "when [one's] own preservation comes not in competition", he ought to do "as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind." Under the law of nature, human beings all share in "one community of nature", a community coextensive with the species as a whole. In the state of nature, the community of men is no less universal than are their rights.

Why, then, should anyone ever choose to leave the universal freedom and community found in the state of nature? Locke's answer is,

"though in the state of nature he has such a right [to be absolute lord of his own person and possessions], yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain and constantly exposed to the invasion of others; for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure."

Because of the uncertainties involved in establishing the precise commands of the law of nature and the difficulties in achieving its impartial and effective enforcement, mankind in the state of nature is in an "ill condition", one characterized by many "defects" and "inconveniences" and "full of fears and continual dangers." So for the sake of their safety and security, people are willing to give up their absolute freedom and a portion of their natural rights by agreeing with others to join what Locke calls political society. Such a society must supply three key elements that are "wanting" in the state of nature: "an established, settled, known law" that is accepted by everyone; impartial judges with authority to make decisions on the basis of that law; and a power that can give these decisions "due execution."

In contrast with the state of nature, the political communities that men form are not universal but partial societies, even though their goal is protecting the universal rights of their members. Locke draws this distinction between the universal and the particular quite explicitly. In the state of nature, he says, all mankind "are one community, make up one society, distinct from all other creatures." It is only the fact that men cannot be relied upon to obey the law of nature that creates the "necessity that men should separate from this great and natural community and by positive agreements combine into smaller and divided associations." A man must give up certain of his natural rights or "powers" when "he joins in a private, if I may so call it, or particular politic society and incorporates into any commonwealth separate from the rest of mankind."

The power "of doing whatsoever he thought fit for the preservation of himself and the rest of mankind, he gives up to be regulated by laws made by the society, so far forth as the preservation of himself and the rest of that society shall require." By joining a commonwealth, men exchange their natural but unreliably enforced obligation to preserve all their fellow human beings for a specific and strictly enforced obligation to preserve the other members of their own particular society. To fulfill the latter obligation, they may even be required to sacrifice their own preservation, as in the case of martial discipline, which "requires an absolute obedience to the command of every superior officer, and it is justly death to disobey or dispute the most dangerous or unreasonable of them."

The command of natural law to preserve all of mankind thus comes to be outweighed by the command of positive law to defend the community to which one belongs. More generally, a universal law whose provisions are unclear and whose enforcement is uncertain gives way before a set of particular or positive laws that are clearly promulgated and reliably enforced. The source of those positive laws is the legislature, "the supreme power of the commonwealth", which should be "chosen and appointed" by the people and thus is backed by the people's consent and authority. "And therefore", Locke concludes, "all the obedience, which by the most solemn ties anyone can be obliged to pay, ultimately terminates in this supreme power and is directed by those laws which it enacts." Correspondingly, the obligation of the people's rulers or representatives is not to benefit mankind at large but to serve the public good of the particular society that they govern. And it is to the members of that society that they are accountable.

Relations Among States

What, then, is the relationship among the various particular societies that men voluntarily agree to create? Locke (again following Hobbes) asserts that they are in the state of nature vis-Ã -vis one another. In fact, it is their condition that Locke adduces as the clearest answer to those who question whether the state of nature really exists: "since all princes and rulers of independent governments all through the world are in a state of nature, it is plain the world never was, nor ever will be, without numbers of men in that state." Locke acknowledges that states often form alliances and recognize one another's territorial claims, yet he insists that they nonetheless remain in the state of nature with respect to one another. "For it is not every compact that puts an end to the state of nature between men, but only this one of agreeing together mutually to enter into one community and make one body politic."

Locke never seems to entertain the possibility that these separate communities will ever take the further step of voluntarily agreeing to become part of a single body politic. Much less does he consider the possibility of restoring through a world government the global human community that prevails in the state of nature. While the inconveniences of the state of nature drive individual human beings into society, they do not drive separate commonwealths into uniting to form a common body politic. As Hobbes had put it, though rulers of particular commonwealths are in a state of nature vis-Ã -vis one another, "because they uphold thereby the industry of their subjects, there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty of particular men."

Essay Types: Essay