Gloablization - some theoretical projections..
In International Relations as in most social sciences, pressing real world problems and
confusion as to how best to solve them usually further the prominence of theories that do not
merely mirror reality in the “neutral signs of scientific language”1, but adopt a critical
perspective on the processes at hand. At the beginning of the 21st century, the phenomenon
arguably most in need of such a critical theoretical treatment is the process of “globalization“.
What is surprising, however, is that one of the first attempts to develop a critical perspective
of the world order and globalization in international relations theory – Neogramscianism – has
been widely neglected by mainstream IR theorists. The present paper argues that the dismissal
of Neogramscianism by most IR scholars can be explained by three characteristics of the
approach: its inconvenience, its incommensurability and its insufficiency. Its inconvenience to
mainstream scholars lies in its critical engagement with some of the blind spots and biases of
mainstream IR theory. On the other hand, the Neogramscians’ unconventional terminology
and the historical rather than theoretical formulation of their concepts has contributed to a
perceived incommensurability with other IR theories – a perception that seems quite
unfounded, especially in relation to social constructivism. Finally, the theory’s appreciation
has certainly been diminished owing to its significant theoretical insufficiencies: The
reluctance to systematically develop a normative framework as a basis for its critique makes
the Neogramscians’ rejection of the “prevailing order” seem an expression of political
preference rather than of principled judgement, and so the theory is easily dismissed by its
opponents; but, what is most important, the failure to make explicit its normative foundations
precludes the formulation of a consistent and theoretically satisfying critical theory of
globalization.
In the second part of the paper, I will therefore attempt a new beginning in critical theorizing
about globalization. I will strive to avoid the pitfalls of Neogramscianism by developing the
architecture of my theory with utmost transparency and consistency. As I argue, a normative
theory that wants to be more than a statement of political preference has to limit its
normativity to those principles which can be derived from the fact that only the subjects of the
international community themselves can legitimately decide how they want to organize
themselves internally and in their relation to others. The critical theory I present starts from
this premise.
1 To paraphrase Horkheimer and Adorno who in their “Dialectics of Enlightenment” complain: “In the
impartiality of scientific language, that which is powerless has wholly lost its force of expression, and only the
given finds its neutral sign. This neutrality is more metaphysic than metaphysics.” Horkheimer/Adorno 1969, 29
(my translation).
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I will develop my argument in the following steps. Firstly, I will justify the normative premise
of the theory, namely that the collective autonomy of the subjects of the international
community is the only source of legitimacy in the international system. Secondly, I will
discuss who the “subjects” of the international community are and how their “autonomy” can
be conceptualized. I will then go on to outline the principles which can be derived from the
normative premises and which serve as the normative standard of the theory. Finally, I will
apply the normative framework to actual norms, institutions and processes. This critique,
however, can be no more than a sketch at this point. In the conclusion, I will point to the
major tasks ahead.
2. Neogramscianism: Merits and Pitfalls
The publication in 1981 of Robert Cox’s article “Social Forces, States and World Orders:
Beyond International Relations Theory” is generally seen as the founding event of critical
theorizing in IR. Similarly, but without reference to Horkheimer’s famous juxtaposition of
“traditional” and “critical” theory2, Cox distinguishes between “problem-solving theory” and
“critical theory”3: Under problem-solving theory, he subsumes the then (and arguably still)
dominant positivist approaches in the study of IR, which strive to explain the workings of the
international system under the premises of the “prevailing order”. In Cox’s portrayal, these
approaches, ahistoric as they are, reify their object of study and thereby obscure whatever
prospects for fundamental change might exist. Critical theory, in contrast, challenges the
“assumption of fixity”4 by highlighting the historicity of the existing order as well as of
theorizing itself. From the perspective of critical theory, the problem-solving theory’s implicit
denial of the potential for fundamental change gives it a latent normative quality.
The insistence that the social world, even in its fundamental structures, is a “world of our
making”5, is not unique to Neogramscianism. However, there has been remarkably little
dialogue between Neogramscianism and other post-positivist approaches, in particular social
constructivism. This may be due to the Neogramscians’ unconventional terminology: the
meaning of concepts like “modern prince”, “historic bloc”, “war of position” vs. “war of
movement” etc. does not reveal itself intuitively to those who are not familiar with the
writings of Antonio Gramsci. Overall, due to their historical rather than philosophical
formulation, the Neogramscian concepts are often much less abstract than their Social
2 Horkheimer 1937.
3 For the following, see Cox 1981, especially 87-91; cf. the postscript Cox 1985.
4 Ibid. 89.
5 Onuf 1989; cf. Wendt 1992.
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Constructivist counterparts. This may have led to the perception that the two approaches are
incommensurable. Apart from these differences in form, however, there are more fundamental
objections against the compatibility of Neogramscianism and Social Constructivism.
One of these objections is Alexander Wendt’s classification of Neogramscianism as
“materialism”, as opposed to Social Constructivism as “idealism”: Wendt admits that the
work of some Neogramscian authors could be seen as constructivist, but then cautions that
“this is complicated by their relationship to Marxism, a “materialist” social theory”6. As a
consequence, Neogramscianism finds itself on the materialist side of Wendt’s ‘map of
structural theorizing’7, in the good company of Neorealism and other “problem-solving”
theories. In the following I want to offer an explanation for this obviously misleading
outcome, and propose a different way of categorizing theories which highlights the, in my
view, more characteristic similarities between Neogramscianism and Social Constructivism.
I contend that it is misleading to classify Neogramscianism as “materialist” in the context of
the debate between “idealist” Social Constructivism and “materialist” Neorealism, because
the Marxist understanding of materialism was developed in opposition to Hegel’s idealism
which does not have very much in common with what Wendt subsumes under that heading8.
The fundamental difference between Wendt’s and Hegel’s “idealism” lays in the fact that
Wendt conceptualizes ideas as shared ideas which are socially constructed, and are thus the
result of the interaction of agents. In Wendt’s theory, ideas, as well as the agents and
structures which are constituted by these ideas, are immanent to the interaction of agents in
the sense that they do not exist independently of processes of interaction. In Wendt’s theory,
ideas are thus ontologically dependent on agents and their interaction. In Hegel’s philosophy,
it is exactly the other way round. For Hegel, the “idea” is a transcendental entity which makes
its appearance in reality by creating “that which is real”9. While Wendt sees the state as a
social structure constituted by shared ideas10, Hegel describes the state as “the embodiment of
the divine idea [Wirklichkeit der sittlichen Idee]”: “The state is the spirit, which stands in the
world and, within the same, realizes itself […] Man may know it or not, this being realizes
itself as an autonomous force, to which the single individual is but peripheral […]”11. But the
idea of the state does not only realize itself independently of individual human beings, it also
creates them. As Marx put it, in Hegel’s philosophy “the family and bourgeois society are
6 Wendt 1999, 3.
7 Ibid. 32.
8 Wendt himself is not entirely sure about the relationship between his theory and Hegel’s philosophy; see ibid.
33.
9 See Pleger 1996, 101.
10 Wendt 1999, 218.
11 Hegel 1970, §257 (my translation; original emphasis deleted); cf. ibid. §262.
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made by the actual idea, it is not their own course of life which unites them within the state;
but it is the course of life of the idea which has dissociated them from itself”12.
It is obvious that an “idealism” which portrays empirical reality as the embodiment of a
transcendental idea does not have much in common with an “idealism” which explains the
social world, its agents and structures, as a result of “practice”13. The similarities between
Wendt’s Social Constructivism and the Marxian materialism become obvious when we see
the latter, against the backdrop of Hegel’s idealism, as primarily an attempt to bring
“practice” to the fore. Marx’s emphasis is on explaining the social world with reference to
material, and that is first of all societal production, rather than as the embodiment of a
transcendental “idea”.
In sum, I suggest that the idealism/materialism dichotomy is not the best way to categorize
theories; it is particularly unhelpful when it comes to the question whether a theory can be a
critical theory, i.e. a theory which is critical not just of other theories (which every theory at
least implicitly is), but of the reality of international relations. The option to turn critically on
the reality of international relations exists only for those theories which explain the social
world immanently, i.e. without reference to anything “higher” or “deeper” than the interaction
of concrete individuals. Theories which portray the social world as subject to some kind of
transcendental influence, be it the course of life of an “idea” or “spirit”, or an immutable
“logic of anarchy”, can plausibly criticize the structures of the social world only to a limited
extent14, as the influence of human beings on these structures is, in their portrayal, very
limited at best. From this perspective, Social Constructivism and Neogramscianism have
much more in common than the former with Hegel’s idealism and the latter with Neorealism.
Both explain the social world with reference to processes immanent to the social world itself,
that is “practice”, or “conflict”, the Neogramscians’ preferred term. As both theories admit
that the social world is a “world of our making”, both have the theoretical option to take the
next step, i.e. to offer normative guidance as to how we should make the world. While
Neogramscianism takes this step, Social Constructivism, at least in Wendt’s formulation, does
not. This seems to be the main reason why Neogramscians have rejected Social
Constructivism, when they have dealt with it at all: Bieler and Morton, for example, lament
Social Constructivism’s lack of a “critical dimension”, accuse it of being “enamoured with
12 Marx 1986, 37 (emphasis in original).
13 Wendt 1999, 313: “Agents and structures are themselves processes, in other words, ongoing accomplishments
if practice“.
14 Neorealists, for example, may well criticise the failure of states to adequately respond to the structural
constraints of the international system. However, they cannot criticise the failure of states to changing the
structural constraints of the international system as these are “given by anarchic structures exogenously to
process” (Wendt 1992, 394).
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reorganizing mainstream IR theory”15 and portray Wendt’s contribution to IR as a “series of
in-house problem-solving developments”16. This criticism ignores that it is perfectly
legitimate for a theory to limit itself to explaining the social world and that Neogramscianism
could immensely profit from serious dialogue with other theories like Social Constructivism,
with which there is far-reaching ontological agreement, notwithstanding its distinct claim also
to criticise the reality of international relations. It is in this lack of preparedness to engage in
open dialogue with non-critical but ontologically similar approaches that we find the
Neogramscians’ share of the blame for the perceived incommensurability of their theory and
Social Constructivism. This lack of dialogue is all the more regrettable since the record of the
critical theoretical project, i.e. those theories which also aim at criticising the reality of
international relations, is, as I will argue in the following section, ambiguous at best.
Since Cox formulated the critical theoretical project as a very general perspective rather than
a neatly defined research agenda, it is not surprising that it has evolved into a “constellation of
rather distinctive approaches” revolving around the theme of “emancipation”17, rather than
into a coherent theory. Inspired alternatively by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci and by
thinkers of the Frankfurt School, which itself is anything but coherent, several strands of
critical theory have come to the fore, of which the arguably most influential ones are the
Neogramscian approach put forward by Cox, and Andrew Linklater’s formulation, which
owes much to Habermas18. It is in a discussion of the shortcomings of these approaches that I
will justify my attempt at a new start in critical theorizing about international relations.
Firstly, I will question the conduciveness of their notion of “critique” for the purpose of
critical theorizing (1.). Secondly, I will argue that the somewhat arbitrary treatment of
normativity in these approaches must ultimately undermine their “theoretical” character (2.).
(1.) As is already implied in the literal meaning of the word critique (from the greek krinein =
to distinguish), to criticise something is to contrast it with some sort of standard (= kriterion).
For a critique to qualify as scientific, this standard should be made transparent. Critical
theorists are, or so it seems, perfectly aware of the need for a standard in their critical
treatment of other theories. In their critique of neorealism, the obvious choice for a standard is
empirical reality, as is evident e.g. when critical theorists contrast the neorealist claim to be
observing an objective reality with evidence of the socially constructed nature of the
international system, or juxtapose the assertion of an immutable logic of anarchy with the
15 Bieler/Morton 2001, 11.
16 Ibid. 12.
17 Wyn Jones 2001, 4 (emphasis in original); for an assessment of the state of the art see Wyn Jones (ed.) 2001.
18 See Humrich 2003, 424.
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historical record. When it comes to the critique of the reality of international relations,
however, the choice of a point of reference is less clear: According to Cox, his theory
“is critical in the sense that it stands apart from the prevailing order of the world and asks how
that order came about. Critical theory […] does not take institutions and social power relations
for granted but calls them into question by concerning itself with their origins and whether
they might be in the process of changing”19.
The only standard of reference for evaluating the existing order which this statement alludes
to is the potential for change already inherent in the existing order. Cox further clarifies:
“Critical theory allows for a normative choice in favor of a social and political order different
from the prevailing order, but it limits the range of choice to alternative orders which are
feasible transformations of the existing order. A principle objective of critical theory,
therefore, is to clarify this range of possible alternatives”20.
By clarifying the “range of possible alternatives”, critical theory escapes the latent
normativism of positivist theories which accept the existing order as their framework; but it
only becomes critical in the sense outlined above the moment it actually makes a normative
choice in favour of one of these “possible alternatives” and goes on to criticise the existing
order according to this standard. Critical theory makes that choice – according to Cox, critical
theory “rejects the permanency of the existing order”21; interestingly, however, it does not
devote much effort to justifying it. Before I analyse the problematic consequences of this lack
of effort at justification, I will briefly elaborate on what might explain it.
The most plausible explanation of why the justification of the normative standard of
judgement has hardly got any attention by critical theorists22, is that their extremely broad
understanding of “critique” obscures the central importance of the justification of normativity
for the persuasiveness of their argument. Although critical theorists are anything but united on
what actually is critical about their theories23, Beate Jahn has identified three elements all
theories claim to share: reflexivity, historicity, and totality24. While it shall not be doubted
here that these epistemological and methodological commitments allow for a more profound
understanding of world politics than positivist approaches can offer, the fact that these
commitments are shared by other constructivist, historical and sociological approaches in IR
19 Cox 1981, 89.
20 Ibid. 90.
21 Ibid.; according to Linklater (2001, 35), critical theory stands in “opposition to the dark side of modernity”.
22 Beyond the remark that “the basic ethical aspirations of the Marxist tradition are reaffirmed” (Linklater 2001,
30).
23 See the two chapters devoted to this question in Wyn Jones (ed.) 2001, namely Hutchings 2001 and Neufeld
2001.
24 Jahn 1998, 614ff; see ibid. for an assessment whether critical theory lives up to this – its own – standard of
„criticalness“.
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suggests that what is specific about critical theory is its explicit normativity, and hence its
ability to criticise the reality of international relations. However, as a result of the
interpretation of “critique” mainly in epistemological and methodological terms, the
substantive analysis of political processes and the critique of these processes on the basis of a
normative standard – in my view the raison d’être of critical theory – takes up only little
room in the critical IR literature25. My argument is, therefore, to abandon the inflationary use
of the term “critical” and restrict it to the narrower and, in my view, more-to-the-point
understanding as “critical of the reality of international relations”. This would not only
highlight the distinctiveness and importance of critical theory’s normativity (and thereby
presumably channel more academic energy towards its justification), but also allow critical
theory to move beyond the highly self-referential discourse of IR26 and thereby enhance its
practical importance.
(2.) The scant attention given, in established critical theories, to what is regarded as the core
of critical theory in this paper – the transparent and consistent development of a normative
standard, and an assessment of reality based on this standard – has even more far-reaching
implications. As already mentioned, the critical theorists’ lack of reflection upon their own
normativity also manifests itself in a “justification deficit” of their normative choices. Critical
theorists seem to regard their normative support for “emancipation”, “progressive” and
“counter-hegemonic” forces, “alternative” orders and redistribution of power and wealth as
not necessitating any justification. Critical theory thus counters the latent, and therefore by
definition arbitrary normativity of positivist theories with explicit, but prima facie equally
arbitrary normativity27. What is more, the normative commitment of critical theory is arbitrary
not only in that it is not systematically justified, but also in that its content is extremely vague.
While Linklater’s argument for “more openly dialogic arrangements”28 has, however detached
from political reality, at least a certain concreteness, concepts like “emancipation”,
“progress”, “improved forms of political community” and “alternative orders” are rarely filled
with any actual content. Mark Neufeld’s struggle to define “what characterizes a progressive
social force”29 is characteristic of the superficiality with which critical theory treats the object
of its normative commitment: “The answer, of course, is that the understanding of progressive
25 This is particularly evident in contrast to the massive, almost obsessive attention devoted to the critique of
neorealism. See Jahn 1998, 623: „[A]ll Critical Theory texts start with a critique of positivism/neorealism“.
26 See Buzan/Little 2001, noting the irrelevance of IR discourse beyond the confines of the discipline.
27 Jahn (1998, 614) makes a similar point: „[The] Anglo-American strand of Critical Theory in International
Relations uses the epistemological critique of the fact-value relationship not as the basis for a more rigorous
methodological approach than positivism, but rather as a licence for not observing any kind of rigour.“
28 E.g. Linklater 2001, 27.
29 Neufeld 2001, 131.
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is connected to the assumptions of critical theory, which are tested, in turn, in the process of
analysis and practice”30. Recognizing that it is hard to define a concept on the basis of
assumptions of which it is itself an essential part, Neufeld specifies that “[t]his admittedly
circular form of reasoning is that of a hermeneutic circle, which cannot be escaped either by
critical or noncritical theorists, as much as objectivists of various stripes might strive to find a
way out”31. It goes without saying that using the hermeneutic circle as an excuse for
dissolving into tautology the basic concepts of critical theory not only weakens its force, but
undermines its very quality as a theory. With its pervasive, but unspecified and unjustified
normativity, the critical theory’s “critique” of the reality of international relations amounts to
no more than an arbitrary assertion of political preference. As such, it can hardly qualify as a
theory32.
This dire state of critical theory in IR justifies a new start. As I hope to show when I develop
the normative premises of my theory in the next section, the shortcomings of established
critical theory can be avoided by transparently developing a normative framework with
comprehensibly and systematically justified premises. Moreover, as I will argue now, the
practical importance of a critical theory increases the more it concentrates on the critique of
reality, instead of other theories.
In my view, the best argument for the need of a critical theory is the practical orientation it
can deliver if it combines a persuasively developed normative standard with rigorous
empirical analysis. While the normative standard, on the one hand, prevents critical theory
from degenerating into a problem-solving theory, which is oblivious of its normativity, the
systematic engagement with concrete political processes, on the other hand, ensures that the
normative statements of critical theory do not dissolve into utopian visions that distract rather
than guide.
This practical guidance is particularly important in view of the changes brought about by the
processes associated with globalisation, and its counterpart, fragmentation33. These changes
challenge policymakers as well as scholars to preserve those norms, institutions and practices
which are indispensable for a legitimate world order, and at the same time to seize the
opportunities these processes provide for redressing those appalling conditions and flagrant
injustices still characteristic of the world at the beginning of the 21st century. This dialectic of
risk and chance is particularly evident in three processes which will be analysed in more detail
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Jahn (1998, 637) approvingly paraphrases Yosef Lapid’s similar conclusion: “[T]o give up the distinction
between facts and values means the end of Critical Theory as a theory”.
33 On the “crux of globalization vs. fragmentation”, see Menzel 2004, especially 184ff.
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later in this paper: The first process is a trend towards increased international integration,
sometimes characterized as “constitutionalization”, which is evident in supranational
integration, as in Europe, the strong influence of international organizations, such as the WTO
and the Bretton Woods institutions, the more assertive role of the UN Security Council as a
“global executive”, and the generally increasing “legalization” of international relations. The
second process is the rise of extremely powerful non-representative or “private” actors, such
as international corporations, but also NGOs, which enjoy unprecedented influence. While
these two processes presuppose a higher density in organization, the third phenomenon
concerns institutional decay: Since the end of the Cold War, state failure, often accompanied
by devastating armed conflicts, has provoked international interventions aimed at alleviating
humanitarian crises and rebuilding institutions on an unprecedented scale. It is the farreaching
questions these developments bring up that make the need for a critical theory of
globalization so acute. In the remainder of this paper I will outline some basic suggestions on
how the task of constructing a theory which does justice to these immensely complex and
multi-faceted problems might be tackled.
3. A New Beginning in Critical Theorizing about Globalization
a. The Normative Premises of a Critical Theory of Globalization
In his article “ ‘Objectivity’ in Social Science and Social Policy”34, Max Weber discusses the
limits of the scientific evaluation of ideals and values. “An empirical science”, Weber writes,
“cannot teach anyone what he should do, but merely what he can do and – under certain
circumstances – what he wants to do”35. Science can illuminate what people want by tracing
back the content of their will to the “last axioms”36 which underlie it: “To make them aware
of these last standards, which manifest themselves in the concrete value judgement, is,
however, the ultimate thing it can do without entering the area of speculation”37. It is up to the
individual to take a decision for one of these ultimate values, and this ultimate normative
decision cannot be made scientifically38.
If Weber is right, how can a theory prescribe without becoming unscientific? Two strategies
come to mind: Firstly, a theory could establish empirically what the “last axioms” of the will
34 All quotations are my translations from the German original (Weber 1904).
35 Weber 1904, p.81.
36 Ibid. 80.
37 Ibid. 81.
38 For a similar view, see Wittgenstein 1989.
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of the subjects which it studies are. The theory could then go on to prescribe what these
subjects would have to do if they wanted to heed these last axioms and to act consistently.
Secondly, a theory could state the “last axioms” of the subjects’ will hypothetically, and then
go on to spell out their implications. Both strategies result in theories which are normative,
because they prescribe what people should do. But they are not unscientific, by Weber’s
standards, because they do not themselves decide between ultimate values. In fact, the
ultimate source of the normativity of such theories is the will of the subjects whom their
prescriptions concern.
However, for the purpose of developing a normative framework for a critical theory of
globalization both alternatives seem rather impracticable. As to the first option, it seems
impossible to tell empirically what the “ultimate value” of so pluralistic and heterogeneous a
community as the international one is, so that a theory based on any such value would
inevitably acquire a paternalistic quality. And although a theory of the second sort, which
spells out the implications of a hypothetical ultimate decision, could not become paternalistic,
the content of this hypothetical ultimate decision is highly likely to be endorsed only by a
fraction of the international community, at least as long as this ultimate decision involves the
endorsement of a substantive value. The theory would thus become particularistic, and as such
inadequate for the development of a universal normative standard.
I contend, however, that there is one way to avoid these pitfalls: If a theory, in order not to
become paternalistic or particularistic, leaves open the decision on the basis of which values
the subjects of the international community should organize themselves, it can still derive
normativity precisely from the fact that only the subjects of the international community
themselves can legitimately make that decision. This normativity is limited to the conditions
which must be fulfilled for the subjects of the international community to effectively exercise
their autonomy in all normative decisions which concern them. Even such a theory retains a
hypothetical core, where the “volitive moment” 39 that Weber so insists on is brought to bear.
But this “decisionist rest”40 boils down to the question whether the subjects of the
international community actually want to enter into legitimate relations with each other. For a
critical theory of globalization, this limitation in scope is acceptable: Although the theory
cannot criticise the violation of the principles (which follow from the pre-conditions for a
legitimate world order) by a subject of the international community which does not want to
organize its relationships with other subjects in a legitimate manner with the authority of the
will of that same particular subject, it can establish, as an empirical statement, that these acts
39 Habermas 1983, 109.
40 Ibid.
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are incompatible with a legitimate world order. Furthermore, it will become clear, when I
specify what the commitment to a legitimate world order entails, that the case of a subject of
the international community actually rejecting it is a very hypothetical one indeed.
Let me summarize the argument so far: In order to avoid any kind of paternalism and
particularism in the development of a normative framework for a critical theory of
globalization, one has to accept that this framework can only consist of those abstract rules
and principles which can be derived directly from the necessary pre-conditions for the free
exercise of autonomy by the subjects of the international community. To preserve (or (re-)
establish) the autonomy of the subjects of the international community is, in turn, the conditio
sine qua non of a legitimate world order, because only the subjects of the international
community themselves can legitimately decide on those substantive principles which the
international order should be based on.
This formulation of the normative premises of a critical theory of globalization leads to a lot
of questions. Firstly, who is endowed with “autonomy” in the international realm, or, more to
the point, in the processes associated with globalization? And secondly, what are the abstract
rules and principles that would preserve the autonomy of the subjects of the international
community and could thus serve as a measure for the legitimacy of the world order and as a
normative standard for the critique of actual norms and processes? The following part devotes
itself to these questions.
b. The Normative Framework of a Critical Theory of Globalization
On the basis of the normative premises formulated above, I can now proceed to outlining the
normative framework that will serve as a standard for the critical assessment of globalization.
I will do so in two steps. As the only source of the normativity of the framework shall be the
conditions that must be fulfilled for the subjects of the international community to be able to
exercise their autonomy, I will start by determining, firstly, who the subjects of the
international community are, and secondly, what the imperative of providing for the effective
exercise of their autonomy entails (“teleological” standard). Thirdly, I will sketch those
principles which the subjects of the international community have to observe if they want to
organize their relations in a legitimate manner.
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i. The “Subjects” of the International Community
Any attempt to define the “subjects” of the international community under the normative
premises outlined above inevitably runs into what has been called the “democratic paradox”41:
on a purely logical level, there can be no decision by the subjects of the international
community on who is a subject of the international community, because that decision already
presupposes the existence of subjects of the international community. As I do not want to
simplify the problem, e.g. by assuming, in a Rawlsian vein, the existence of “peoples” with a
“moral character” and “reasonably just, or decent” regimes42, I suggest the following way of
tackling the question.
The notion that a legitimate world order can only be based on the autonomous decisions of the
subjects of the international community implies the assumption that the decisions made by the
subjects of the international community reflect the will of the people whom these subjects
comprise. This is so because one can only meaningfully speak of the legitimacy of a given
order, including the world order, with reference to the views of concrete individuals. For the
theory advanced here to be consistent, I then have to restrict the notion of a “subject of the
international community” to those entities whose decisions can plausibly be regarded as
flowing from the collective autonomy of concrete human beings. It follows that any entity
whose decisions can be seen as expressions of the collective autonomy of people is a subject
of the international community, relevant, however, only with respect to these decisions. The
subjects of the international community to be studied in order to determine the legitimacy of
rules or actions are thus no longer fixed, but vary depending on the concrete question which is
analysed. In other words, the exercise of collective autonomy by a group of people constitutes
this group as a subject of the international community in a specific realm.
From this perspective, every individual can belong to various subjects of the international
community on different levels, through which he or she realizes the collective autonomy
enjoyed with others, and each of which is relevant depending on the subject matter43 (e.g.
trade regulations, security, social welfare, cultural questions typically concern different
levels). In some extreme cases, however, when no higher entity can be seen as representing
the will of an individual in a certain respect, the individual itself becomes the relevant
“subject” of the international community. This situation regularly arises when the individual
autonomy of a human being is infringed upon in a manner that effectively impairs its exercise
41 Doucet 2005; see also Näsström 2003.
42 Rawls 1999, 23ff.
43 For the context of the European Union, see Weiler 1995, who argues for the notion that each individual can
belong to „multiple demoi defined in different ways“ (219).
15
of collective autonomy in interaction with others, as is typically the case when basic human
rights are violated.
If one defines the subjects of the international community with reference to collective
autonomy, the question arises: how does collective autonomy manifest itself? This question
has to be answered empirically and with utmost sensitivity for legitimisation patterns other
than representational democracy, in order to appreciate the diverse forms legitimate
leadership can take. Special attention should also be given to processes of deliberative
democracy44, for several reasons: firstly, formally democratic procedures do not guarantee
that a particular decision can be regarded as an expression of collective autonomy; therefore,
the “deliberative legitimacy” of the decision has to be ascertained45. Secondly, as deliberative
democracy is not necessarily bound to any institutional structures and, indeed, the
“deliberative and decisional moments of democracy” can be “decoupled”46, it is particularly
suited to study the “subjects of the international community” as understood here, namely as
fluid and hybrid entities which do not always coincide with “fixed” units of analysis, as for
example states. Thirdly, deliberative democracy may itself contribute to the formation of
communities, as the sense of community and the shared notions, which have traditionally
been regarded as preconditions for democracy, can be produced endogenously to the
deliberative democratic process47. Furthermore, deliberative democracy puts its emphasis on
an essential characteristic of collective autonomy which is sometimes obscured in models that
reduce democracy to the aggregation of individual interests: self-determination concerns the
basics of human organization, i.e. the rules by which the members of a community want to
live. For decisions upon these rules to be legitimate, they have to be made in light of reasons
which convince, or are at least acceptable to, all members of the community. No matter
whether these reasons appeal to moral convictions or cultural traditions, it is clear that they
have to be framed in a different way than self-interested claims, and that a practical
rationality distinct from the instrumental type is at work in deciding between them. One of the
central tasks of these practical discourses is to legitimately delimit the spheres where
instrumental rationality, or, more concretely, the market, is to reign48. Collective autonomy
44 See Habermas 1998a, especially chapters 8 and 9; according to Dryzek (2005, 218), “[f]or contemporary
democratic theorists, democracy is largely a matter of deliberation”.
45 For the need to supplement legal arguments with an analysis of the “deliberative legitimacy” of the use of
force in international relations, see Bjola 2005. With regard to the question of collective autonomy, such an
analysis is necessary in order to determine whether the use of force can be regarded as an act of collective law
enforcement and thus an expression of the collective autonomy of the subjects of the international community, or
not.
46 Dryzek 2005, 220.
47 See Schmalz-Bruns 1999.
48 See Habermas 1995, 332ff, especially 341 and 346.
16
thus presupposes the prevalence of “politics”, which is accessible to practical rationality, over
the economic space49. In the context of globalization, and particularly the worldwide spread of
capitalism50, this aspect is of enormous importance51.
As the legitimisation patterns which may constitute collective autonomy are so diverse, a
further clarification of the relationship between collective and individual autonomy is in
order. As was already mentioned, individual autonomy is a precondition for collective
autonomy, but at the same time, individual autonomy, which is most often thought of in terms
of “human rights”, has to itself an irreducible social dimension52: The specific forms and
boundaries of individual autonomy have to be agreed upon in collective decisions. Thus
individual and collective autonomy presuppose each other; it is almost impossible to conceive
of one without the other53.
Let me summarize the argument so far: As I am mainly interested in the “subjects of the
international community” as agents whose autonomous decisions would give rise to a
legitimate world order, I restrict the notion of “subjects” to those entities whose decisions on a
given subject matter can be seen as expressions of collective autonomy. While collective
autonomy can manifest itself in diverse forms, I have identified a capacity to “set the rules”
through practical discourses as a primary indicator that collective autonomy is effectively
exercised. Furthermore, I have argued that collective autonomy presupposes individual
autonomy, and vice versa.
The identification of “subjects” of the international community – going down the ladder of
human organisation to the level on which we find collective autonomy – is the indispensable
first step in a critical analysis of globalization, because, under the normative premises outlined
above, the autonomy of the subjects of the international community is the most important
point of reference to evaluate the legitimacy of the norms, actions, and processes studied in a
49 Indeed, according to Underhill (2000, 806), it is one of the central tenets of international political economy
that “political interaction is one of the principal means through which the economic structures of the market are
established and in turn transformed”. However, to answer the question, whether, in a concrete case, the collective
autonomy of a community is preserved, one has to study whose political interaction transforms whose market
structures.
50 Note that in many countries it is only with the spread of capitalism that a distinct “economic space” is
constructed; see Williams 1999.
51 See e.g. Darby 2004, who stresses the importance of “pursuing the political” and argues that, as “market
rationality has colonised the space of politics” (16), “the will of the people is expected to manifest itself within
the parameters set by the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation” (21): “To take stock of the
position we have reached, if politics was once regarded as the sphere of the unsettled, in the developed world in
recent years it has come to connote that which is settled” (ibid.). This is clearly incompatible with collective
autonomy.
52 See Frank Michelman, quoted in Habermas 1998a, 116: “A right, after all, is neither a gun nor a one-man
show. It is a relationship and a social practice, and in both those essential aspects it is an expression of
connectedness. […] In appearance, at least, [rights] are a form of social cooperation […]”.
53 For a powerful argument for the mutual presupposition of individual and collective autonomy see Habermas
1998a, chapter 3, and, with a special focus on non-Western contexts, Habermas 1998b.
17
concrete case. I will discuss the deontological normative standard which legitimises norms
and actions which are a product of the collective autonomy of the subjects of the international
community later. In the next section I will argue that this deontological standard, which will
in many ways resemble the normative standard Habermas has developed for the national
arena (substituting “subjects of the international community” for “individuals”), has to be
supplemented by a teleological standard, which is specific to the international realm, in order
to do justice to the frequently stark discrepancy between the level on which collective
autonomy is actually exercised by the subjects of the international community and the level
on which it would have to be exercised to be effective.
ii. The “Teleological” Standard: Establishing Effective Collective
Autonomy
The way of defining the “subjects” of the international community proposed above has a
peculiar implication: As by definition all subjects of the international community exercise
collective autonomy in some way, we may get the impression that – except for the cases
where we cannot detect any autonomy above the individual level – self-determination is
flourishing all over the world. Of course, this conclusion would be rather misleading.
It would be misleading because, although we may find collective autonomy on some level,
this does not imply that it is exercised on a level and in an institutional form which would
make it effective. Let us suppose, for example, that a village community in a failed state
enjoys collective autonomy in all its internal matters; this does not mean that it effectively
controls its fate, because when it comes to, say, an armed attack by a foreign army, or trade
negotiations in an international organisation, the collective autonomy it enjoys in internal
matters does not serve it for anything. In these cases, the village community could only
effectively protect and realize its collective autonomy as part of a higher entity, e.g. a state or
a supranational entity.
A critical theory of globalization has to confront this mismatch between the level on which
collective autonomy is exercised and the level on which it would have to be exercised to be
effective. To this end, it has to contrast the reality, namely the level and forms in which
collective autonomy is actually exercised, with a normative standard, derived, according to
the normative premises spelled out above, from the conditions which must be fulfilled for the
subjects of the international community to effectively exercise their autonomy in all decisions
which concern them. The principle which can best serve as such a normative standard is the
principle of subsidiarity.
18
The principle of subsidiarity requires that any task shall be executed on the level which is best
suited to execute it. Applied to the context discussed here, the principle demands that, in order
to provide for the effective exercise of collective autonomy by all people of the world, the
conditions must be created so that collective autonomy concerning a certain task can be
exercised on the level on which it is most effective. Where institutions with multiple levels of
governance already exist, as for example in Europe, and in most federal states of the world,
the task of critical theory is limited to criticising instances where the principle of subsidiarity
is not observed. Arguably more important is the critical theory’s role in guiding and assessing
rules and actions in settings where institutions have yet to be created to allow for the effective
exercise of collective autonomy, as for example in cases of state failure. Here the principle of
subsidiarity provides the normative standard for a critical teleological assessment of
interventions54, i.e. an evaluation of the legitimacy of interventions depending on their
suitability for contributing to the establishment of a subsidiary political order.
Before I go on to outline the characteristics of subsidiarity in greater detail, some important
caveats are in order. The teleological standard which I will outline here is probably the most
controversial part of the theory for the following reason: The actions to be assessed by this
standard are by definition carried out in circumstances where the people who are affected by
them do not exercise effective collective autonomy. The danger of paternalistic, or worse,
imperialistic, behaviour by outside intervening actors is therefore extremely high55. This
danger is further increased by the fact that the standard, due to its teleological, or
consequentialist, nature, is agent-neutral56, i.e. it is, in principle, normatively irrelevant, who
intervenes, as long as the intervention occurs with the aim of securing collective autonomy or
helping to establish it on the most effective level.
Apart from the limits placed on “interventionism” by the deontological standard to be outlined
below, it should be stressed that the teleological standard is not about “bringing the lesser
breeds within the law of civilization”57 by imposing political systems modelled on the
Western experience to non-Western contexts. As was already pointed out, collective
autonomy may come in diverse forms, and it is precisely because the “idea of subsidiarity
does not demand any specific form of political or economic organization”58 that it is
acceptable as a normative standard. The principle which is at the heart of a subsidiary political
54 I use the term intervention in a much broader sense than it is normally understood, namely to designate any
action that affects people which have not decided on it.
55 And real, as the recent revival of “empire” shows: see e.g. Ignatieff 2003, for a critique, see Rao 2004.
56 See the entry “Agent-Neutral vs. Agent-Relative Reasons” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-agent/ (15 February 2006).
57 Ignatieff 1997, 18.
58 Carozza 2003, 44 (emphasis in original).
19
order – “intervention-but-not-interference”59 – does also apply to actions aimed at establishing
that order in the first place.
Subsidiarity has a negative as well as a positive dimension60: On the negative side, it requires
all actors “to limit [their] intervention into lower forms of social organization, and to do only
what the lesser group cannot accomplish for itself without assistance”61. On the positive side,
it establishes a duty for “higher” entities to assume responsibility and intervene in situations
“where “lower” forms of organization cannot achieve their ends by themselves”62. There are
in principle no upper limits to this logic of subsidiary responsibility for ensuring the collective
autonomy of the subjects on the respective lower levels. In case of the most immediate and
destructive violation of collective and individual autonomy, the systematic violation of basic
human rights, this responsibility takes the form of what has been called the “responsibility to
protect”, a responsibility which has no fixed addressee63. But is not blurring all distinctions
between agents, and not even assuming a primary responsibility of the state, taking the agentneutrality
too far? Is there, in other words, no “subsidiarity of responsibility”? This point
needs further clarification.
Although I have introduced the principle of subsidiarity as the principle of organization for a
political order the establishment of which is the only legitimate aim of interventions, I have
several times hinted to the possibility that the principle of subsidiarity might also apply to the
intervention itself, in two respects. Firstly, when it comes to how the intervention is carried
out, it is self-evident that the intervention itself must do justice to the principle of subsidiarity,
e.g. by not assuming tasks the “lesser groups” could fulfil themselves. As the protection
and/or restoration of collective autonomy by way of establishing a subsidiary political order is
the aim of the intervention, a violation of the principle of subsidiarity would render the whole
enterprise self-contradictory. The proposition that the intervention must not itself violate the
principle of subsidiarity is therefore an integral part of the normative standard by which the
legitimacy of the intervention is judged.
The second respect in which the principle of subsidiarity might apply to the intervention itself
is the question of who should intervene; in other words: is there a “subsidiarity of
responsibility”, according to which the intervention should be carried out on the “lowest”
feasible level or by the agent which is nearest to the spot? To take an example, is there, from a
purely consequentialist point of view, a prima facie normative difference between, say, Egypt,
59 Ibid. 41.
60 Ibid. 44.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid.
63 Warner 2003, 11ff; cf. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty 2001.
20
the African Union or the United Nations intervening in Sudan in order to protect the
inhabitants of Darfur? As long as they achieve the same results, no. At the same time, hardly
anyone would deny that there is, even from a consequentialist perspective, a normative
difference between any of these actors or the Sudanese government fulfilling the task. So how
can we make sense of this difference without recourse to a “subsidiarity of responsibility”
which would not be justifiable under the normative premises of the theory? I suggest that the
answer lies in the fact that, by protecting the inhabitants of Darfur, the Sudanese government
would permanently assume its place in the subsidiary political order the establishment of
which is also the ultimate aim of the only temporary involvement of the “outside actors”. The
normative difference then lies between interventions by “inside” actors who themselves
become a part of the political structure to be established, and intervention by “outside” actors
who only assume a temporary substitutive function, because the fulfilment of the task by an
“inside actor”, even if that actor is not legitimised as an expression of collective autonomy
and can thus not (yet) qualify as a subject of the international community, is more of an
contribution to the ultimate aim than the intervention by “outside” actors64. The notion of
“inside” actor is not restricted to the state65; a supranational organisation equally becomes an
“inside” actor the moment it assumes a role as an integral part of the political structure to be
established66.
Let me summarize the normative standard which can be deduced from the necessity to create
the conditions for the effective exercise of collective autonomy by all people of the world, a
precondition for the construction of a legitimate world order, and which serves as the basis for
a teleological assessment of interventions undertaken to this end.
(1) An intervention can only be considered legitimate insofar as it contributes to the
protection or establishment of collective autonomy on a level where this autonomy can be
effectively exercised, that is the establishment of a subsidiary political order.
(2) “Inside” actors, i.e. actors which themselves should assume a permanent role as integral
part of that subsidiary political order67, have a primary responsibility to intervene with that
aim. “Outside” actors have a secondary responsibility.
64 This is why the International Commission does not necessarily contradicts itself, as implied by Warner, when
it assumes a universal responsibility to protect and at the same time points to the primary responsibility of the
state.
65 In fact, the respective state could become an “outside” actor if its role is not essential for ensuring the
collective autonomy of the people concerned.
66 This is e.g. the case on the Balkans where the European Union aims at rebuilding states not as completely
independent entities, but as “member states” and thus part of its political structure; see European Stability
Initiative 2005.
67 Actors “should” assume such a role if it is necessary for the people concerned to effectively exercise their
collective autonomy.
21
(3) It is implicit in the aim of the intervention that the intervention itself shall not violate the
principle of subsidiarity, and in particular that it shall not in any way infringe upon the
collective and individual autonomy of the people who are affected by it.
(4) This normative standard can serve to evaluate the legitimacy of actions which are not
legitimised by the collective autonomy of the people who are affected by it. Apart from
interventions by “outside” actors of any kind, it can also be used to appreciate the role of not
legitimised state structures in protecting the individual autonomy of the people subject to
them. Although the normative standard creates an imperative to transform not legitimised
structures, this role enters the balance when it comes to decide whether an outside
intervention is likely to increase or decrease the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the people.
(5) The imperative to provide for the effective exercise of autonomy by the subjects of the
international community also includes an obligation to provide for the material well-being of
the people of the world and for the institutional and personal infrastructure of the subjects of
the international community insofar as is necessary for the exercise of individual and
collective autonomy.
iii. The “Deontological” Standard: Legitimisation by Collective
Autonomy
In the last section I have outlined the imperatives which can be derived from the necessity that
the subjects of the international community exercise effective collective autonomy at all. I
have argued that this is best achieved in a subsidiary political order, where collective
autonomy on different questions is exercised on different levels, depending on where it is
most adequate and effective. The principle of subsidiarity thus provides the basis for the
vertical integration of subjects of the international community. Now I turn to the question of
which principles have to be observed in order to preserve the autonomy of the subjects of the
international community in their horizontal relations with each other.
Let me recall the normative premise underlying the following analysis. The premise is that a
legitimate world order can only be the result of the autonomous decisions of the subjects of
the international community, and that a critical theory of globalization, in order to avoid any
kind of paternalism and particularism, can derive its normative standard only from the
conditions that must be fulfilled for the subjects of the international community to effectively
exercise their autonomy.
To understand the implications of these premise for the interaction between subjects of the
international community, let us imagine a “first encounter” between two subjects of the
22
international community, or simply two subjects which have not agreed on any rules
regulating their relations. What would be legitimate for these subjects to do toward the other?
In his philosophical sketch “Perpetual Peace”, Kant states that, what these subjects have a
right to do, extends “no further than to conditions of the possibility of seeking to
communicate” with each other68. The attempt to communicate is indeed the only act which
cannot violate the autonomy of the other subject, and, at the same time, communication is the
precondition for building legitimate relations with the other subject, because legitimate
relations are consensus-based, and consensus can only be reached through communication.
There are thus two possible results of the “first encounter”: Either one of the subjects rejects
any contact with the other, or both agree to enter into a relationship based on mutual
consensus. In the first case, any further action directed towards the subject that refused
contact would have to involve coercion and would thus constitute a violation of that subject’s
autonomy. As such a violation is incompatible with a legitimate world order, it has to be
considered wrong, and so we arrive at the first principle of the normative standard, Kant’s
“universal principle of right”: (1) “Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s
freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim, the freedom of choice of each
can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law”69. On the basis of
this principle, the theory can criticise any kind of coercion and use of force and any
asymmetrical relations between subjects of the international community, as these are clearly
incompatible with a universal law.
If the “first encounter” results in an agreement to regulate the mutual relations, (2) the rules
which this agreement codifies can only be considered legitimate if they are the result of the
free exercise of autonomy by the subjects which are parties to the agreement. For this to be
the case, the procedures in which the agreement is reached have to be transparent and the
agreement has to reflect to the greatest possible extent the opinions and interests of the people
affected by it. This is best ensured in a deliberative process open not only to the
representatives of the respective subjects of the international community, but to all affected
people.
(3) In cases where subjects of the international community enter an agreement to found a
supranational or international organization with the competence to take binding decisions,
appropriate (judicial) review procedures have to ensure that these decisions are in accordance
68 Kant 1984, 21f; for the translation I consulted the website http://www.constitution.org/kant/perpeace.htm
(15 February 2006).
69 Kant 1977, 337; for the translation I consulted the website
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/sefd0/crsold/tt1034/tt1034kant.htm (15 February 2006).
23
with the underlying agreement and thus can be plausibly seen as legitimised by the collective
autonomy of the subjects making up the organization. In particular, the review process has to
establish that the decision does not violate the collective autonomy of any subject of the
international community. Although binding decisions adopted by a supranational or
international body are not a priori illegitimate if there is no possibility of review and, indeed,
the (deliberative) legitimacy of a decision has to be analysed in every single case, the rules
constituting the organization can be criticised if they do not provide a review process, because
the absence of such a process increases the danger of illegitimate decisions not only taken but
also implemented, and is thus detrimental to a legitimate world order.
The normative standard outlined here very much resembles the system of “absolutely justified
rights of freedom and participation”70 Habermas showed to be the core of the democratic
Rechtsstaat. However, there are some differences between the “system of rights” in the
national context and the normative standard of a critical theory of globalization.
First, the normative standard is not formulated in terms of rights which the subjects of the
respective order have to grant each other in order to establish a legitimate order based on the
rule of law, but in terms of the principles underlying these rights. The reason is that in the
international realm, the subjects do not necessarily organize themselves into a coherent whole
such as a Rechtsstaat; instead, we have to admit for different densities of organization
between different subjects of the international community, ranging from no contact at all to a
degree of organization comparable to a Rechtsstaat. Furthermore, the notion of “subjects” is
much more fluid and problematic in the international context. Whereas Habermas can
presuppose the autonomy of individuals, the “dogmatic core”71 of his theory, as
unproblematic, it has to be established for any single case who can count as a subject of the
international community and as such can claim autonomous rights. Although the principles
developed above will mostly be realized in terms of international law, I therefore considered it
more useful for the purposes of a critical theory of international relations to use the abstract
principles, not any fixed rights, as a normative standard.
The second difference between Habermas’ system of rights, or the underlying principles,
applied in the national vs. the international context, is that the idea of “horizontal
constitutionalization” is much less of an abstraction in the international realm, i.e. the
processes imagined in Habermas’ reconstruction – individuals coming together and granting
each other rights – are very much the processes which actually occur in the international
70 Habermas 1998a, 157; cf. 155ff.
71 Ibid. 537.
24
realm. This makes Habermas’ model mutatis mutandis easier to apply in the international
sphere than in the national context which it was originally developed for.
The normative standard developed above is “deontological” in the sense that the legitimacy of
rules and actions is not assessed on their possible or likely effects, but on characteristics of the
rule or action per se:
(1) No matter what its practical effects are, a rule or an action is not compatible with a
legitimate world order, if on its maxim, the autonomy of one subject of the international
community cannot coexist with every subject’s autonomy in accordance with a universal law.
(2) No matter what its practical effects are, a rule is illegitimate, and thus incompatible with a
legitimate world order, if it is not the result of the free exercise of autonomy by the subjects of
the international community which are affected by it.
(3) No matter what its practical effects are, a binding decision by a supranational or
international body is only legitimate, and thus compatible with a legitimate world order, if it
can be seen as reflecting the collective autonomy of the subjects affected by the decision,
which has to be established in a deliberative process, and in some cases, by way of judicial
review.
As I have now developed both parts of the normative standard for a critical theory of
globalization, in the following I am going to clarify their relationship, i.e. I delineate the
application of the two parts of the standard. Fortunately, the lines can be clearly drawn: Rules
and actions which affect people who had no say in the decision upon them can only be judged
by the teleological standard. On the other hand, we can only apply the deontological standard
to judge rules and actions when the conditions for the free exercise of autonomy by the
subjects of the international community are already fulfilled. In these contexts, the
teleological standard (which can only justify actions directed at creating those conditions)
cannot be applied. The only case in which there is an overlap between the two standards, is
the case of “self-defeating democracy”, i.e. a decision legitimised by the collective autonomy
of subjects of the international community, and thus justified according to the deontological
standard, which would jeopardize the conditions for the continued exercise of collective
autonomy by the same subjects, and thus violate the teleological standard. Although this case
is extremely rare, it is clear that the teleological standard prevails, because the conditions for
the free exercise of autonomy by the subjects of the international community have to be
preserved for a legitimate world order to be possible.
25
c. Application of the Critical Theory of Globalization
When I argued for the practical importance of critical theory in the first part of this paper, I
mentioned three processes associated with globalization and fragmentation which pose a
particular challenge to the realization of collective autonomy by the subjects of the
international community. In this section, I want to sketch how the normative framework
developed so far can be applied to these processes. However, due to limited space, I cannot
carry out a comprehensive critique here and have to limit myself to providing some
illustrative examples.
i. International Integration
The process of international integration is evident in the increased role of international
organizations, supranational integration, and the general trend towards “legalization” in
international relations72. Although the decisions taken at the supranational level in the
European Union can generally be expected to have a high degree of legitimacy, as the strong
role of the European parliament, the possibility of judicial review by the European Court of
Justice and the principle of subsidiarity create optimal conditions for the exercise of collective
autonomy by its citizens, there are probably numerous examples of intransparent decisionmaking,
which a critical theory would have to highlight. However, there is definitely much
more to criticise when it comes to institutions such as the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank and
even the UN. Even if the decision-making procedures in the WTO are formally democratic,
agreements are often prepared by the major players in so-called “Green Rooms”, and the other
countries are left with little choice but to accept them73. And although the possibility of
judicial review exists, poorer countries often lack the resources and expertise to make use of
it. A critical theory would therefore highlight the importance, for the legitimacy of the WTO,
of initiatives such as the creation of an “Advisory Council on WTO Law”74. A further task
would be to critically examine the policies of the IMF and the World Bank, which are
notorious for intransparent decision-making and which might in many cases violate the
autonomy of the people affected by their programs75. As would become evident in light of the
normative framework sketched above, the legitimacy of the United Nations is especially
jeopardized by the lack of judicial review for decisions by the Security Council; such review
procedures would probably have made impossible such obvious violations of collective and
72 Goldstein et al. 2000.
73 See Burgmer/Fuchs 2004, 6f.
74 See Greisberger 2004.
75 See Stiglitz 2002.
26
individual autonomy by the Security Council as brought about, for example, by the Iraqi
sanctions regime.
ii. The Emergence of Powerful Private Actors
Violations of the collective autonomy of subjects of the international community by private
actors such as transnational corporations and NGOs differ from violations by international or
supranational organizations in one important respect: The participation in international and
supranational organizations holds the potential to enhance the autonomy of the subjects of the
international community through cooperation and mutual support; when the autonomy of a
subject is violated by the organization, the solution to this problem can be sought in more
transparent and open procedures and institutional safeguards such as review processes. But in
principle the subjects of the international community always surrender part of their autonomy
to international organizations (by entering binding agreements etc.) in order to enhance their
autonomy on balance.
The surrender of autonomy to private actors is a different story. It in no way enhances the
collective autonomy of people; to the contrary, for autonomy to be preserved, political
decisions have to delimit the scope of economic activity, not vice versa. Regulations such as
those contained in NAFTA, according to which corporations can sue local governments for
compensation in case these implement new environmental regulations76, are therefore a clear
violation of collective autonomy. The fact that these regulations have been accepted by the
participating states is a clear case of self-defeating democracy, and has to be criticised as
such.
A critical theory would also have to analyse the complex architecture of the global financial
system, in order to determine whether the overwhelming, and often arbitrary power of
financial markets violates the autonomy of subjects of the international community. It should
also be noted that, for the investigation of violations of collective autonomy by economic
actors, the national level is not always the appropriate level of analysis. Often economic
actors violate the autonomy of local communities with the consent of the national
government. As Rahul Rao points out, “[e]ven in a democratic polity such as India, to the
extent that the state is engaged in repressing legitimate self-determination struggles or in a
civilising mission vis-à-vis its tribal population for example, the imperial quality of political
life is palpable”77. In such cases of “inner-state imperialism”, the local community is the
relevant “subject of the international community” whose autonomy is the point of reference
76 See Burgmer/Fuchs 2004, 6.
77 Rao 2004, 160.
27
for a critical analysis. The same holds true for instances of “green imperialism”, where
governments, often under pressure from Western governments and NGOs, expel indigenous
population from their habitats in order to “protect” supposedly untouched “wilderness”78.
iii. State Failure and Humanitarian Crisis
The normative standard outlined above also sheds a new light on two of the most
controversial issues in international relations in recent years: “humanitarian interventions”
and “state building”. As the teleological standard establishes, violations of individual
autonomy in the case of human rights abuses, and lack of effective collective autonomy in
failed states create an imperative to protect and re-establish the individual and collective
autonomy of the affected people. The accomplishment of these aims is the only source of
legitimisation for outside interventions.
From this perspective, the Kosovo intervention can be criticised firstly, for not protecting the
individual autonomy of the Kosovo Albanians (in fact, their situation deteriorated when the
OSCE withdrew its observers in the wake of the bombings), and secondly, for violating the
individual and collective autonomy of the Serbs (by killing Serbian civilians and by
employing coercion in a manner not justified by the necessity to protect the individual and
collective autonomy of the Kosovo Albanians)79. Yet the intervention can be credited with reestablishing
the collective autonomy of the Kosovo Albanians. A critical analysis of the
Kosovo intervention would thus probably come to the conclusion that the intervention would
have been legitimate if carried out in different manner, e.g. by expanding the presence of
OSCE observers and, if necessary, reaching a consensus on an international protection force
for the Kosovo in the United Nations Security Council.
An analysis of the Third Gulf War under the normative framework developed above would
most likely lead to an even more negative assessment. Although the Iraqi people, with the
exception of the Kurds, enjoyed no collective autonomy in pre-war Iraq, and their individual
autonomy was thus also rather limited, the invasion unquestionably worsened the situation
with respect to individual autonomy, as is evident in the death of tens of thousands of Iraqis,
the deteriorating security situation, and well-founded doubts whether the new state (or the
Americans, for that matter) display more respect for the human rights of Iraqis than the prewar
state. And although the collective autonomy of the Iraqi citizens has been enhanced, as is
evident in the elections, it is still extremely limited, first, by the lack of individual autonomy,
and second, by the wide-ranging influence of the United States, especially in economic
78 Stille 2000.
79 For this interpretation of the Kosovo intervention, see Chomsky 2002.
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matters. On balance, the Iraq war could not be justified in light of the normative standard
developed above. In cannot be ruled out, however, that it would have been justifiable if it had
been carried out in a radically different manner. This is why a critical analysis on the basis of
the teleological standard has to focus on concrete actions rather than on the question of the
overall rationale.
This focus on concrete actions is also of utmost importance when it comes to the assessment
of state building efforts. The rationale for state building is often compelling, not least from the
critical theoretical perspective developed in this paper: In failed states, collective autonomy is
at best exercised at the village level, and individual autonomy is regularly violated on a
massive scale. Nevertheless every action taken by outside actors has to be subjected to critical
analysis. The intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s, for example, was tainted by
disrespect for human rights and insensitivity to traditional forms of political organization80.
These traditional structures would not only have provided a more promising starting point for
conflict resolution than the confrontational approach adopted by the intervening forces, they
would also have to be appreciated as expressions of the collective autonomy of the Somali
people. The continued efforts at state building in Somalia, or in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, should focus on the local and regional level, because it is only on these levels that
there is a reasonable prospect for the effective realization of collective autonomy, at least in
the medium term perspective81. The principle of subsidiarity also point toward criticising
instances where international aid organizations, or other outside actors, take over tasks which
could also be fulfilled by local actors, and thus hamper the development of local capacity82.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, I have developed the basics of a critical theory of globalization. In an attempt to
avoid the shortcomings of other critical and normative theories, I have designed the theory not
as a dogma, but as guidance how to think about globalization and how to criticise norms,
actions and processes if one is interested in the creation of a legitimate world order. It is only
with respect to the necessary conditions for the accomplishment of this aim that the theory is
normative: The concrete shape of a legitimate world order cannot be determined by a theory,
but only the subjects of the international community themselves.
80 Debiel 2003, 130-160.
81 See Dill/Lamp 2005, 115ff and 127ff, for a critique of the focus on the (re-)establishment of central state
structures in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
82 See ibid. 131f, for Afghanistan; there are also numerous examples in the reconstruction process in Iraq.
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Of course, most of the work on a critical theory of globalization remains to be done: the
normative framework has to be further developed and specified; it has to be defended in a
more detailed discussion of other normative theories; and most importantly, it has to be put to
work for a comprehensive critique of the processes associated with globalization and
fragmentation, based on detailed empirical analysis. This is the main task ahead.