The Way of the Big Mac

social.studies@tjc

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Here's an interesting article I recently read in The Economist (which is a great magazine, everyone is highly recommended to read it!) It's entitled The New World Order by Andrew H. Webber. I've copied down an excerpt here which I found particularly relevant-in this part of the article, Mr Webber clarified the definitions of the state, state sovereignty and state security.

"A state is a legal-political entity, which functions as the primary player in international relations. To qualify for statehood, the following criteria should be met:

-a particular defined territory
-a permanent resident population
-a constituted effective government
-formal and real independence
-sovereignty
-recognition by other states in the international system of states
-the expectation of permanence
-the capacity to enter into relations with other states
-a state apparatus; a circulation system
-an organised economy
-various 'fictional parts' of states, such as the official residences of foreign diplomatic envoys

In geopolitical terms, perhaps the most critical quality of statehood is territory. Although territory alone does not constitute statehood, statehood is first and foremost tied to territory. For instance, many nationalist movements in Southeast Asia during the era of de-colonisation rallied national sentiments by evoking images of blood-ties to the land, to mobilise mass support against the European imperialists and alien immigrants (Chinese and Indians).

However, territory alone does not complete the picture. Sovereignty as a legal presumption elevates mere territories to the status of statehood by empowering it with the right to exercise the functions of a state to the exclusion of others, and conferring upon it the recognition and acceptance of other states in the international political system. The above definition of sovereignty implies "competency to control the territory and its contents and also relationships with other states through the totality of powers that state, under international law, have and may use". For example, it is the quality of sovereignty that distinguishes states from nations. As in the case of the Palestinians, though significant portions of territories are occupied in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it nonetheless is not accorded the recognition of statehood because its nationhood is subsumed under the sovereignty of Israel.

The above example of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict highlight an important aspect of statehood, namely, internal and external forces may challenge sovereignty This point addresses the concept of state security. The term security is ubiquitous, as evident in how governments usually proclaim national security as the highest stated value of their state's existence, if not its essential raison d'etre. Consequently, the term security is inherently ambiguous and openly contested, since its meaning is flexible and the object of many competing claims and attempts at definition. As such, security may be broadly defined as "a series of widely held desires to be free from threat".

In attempting to define security, a geopolitical paradigm to aid conceptualising the term may be construed in the form of specifying an internal community in antithesis to an external threat. This is so because security is not an entirely objective matter of military force calculation or economic analysis, but also substantially about creating the political identity of the domestic community. Precisely in the process of creating external threats, a domestic 'self' is constructed in terms of security.

Having defined the three concepts of statehood, sovereignty and security, attention will now be turned to the present debate calling for the re-conceptualisation of these concepts. In an age when Cold War zero-sum calculations have been laid to rest, and a sigh of relief heaved as the global community ushers in a "New World Order" of peace, co-operation and harmony, scholars have shifted their attention from Realist obsession with power politics to "softer" global political issues. The global discussion will now focus on two "softer issues" - globalisation and the environment - and the bearing these phenomena have on prompting scholars to rethink state security and sovereignty."

Whew! That's nearly the whole article! So this article got me thinking on how statehood, sovereignty and security are re-defined in today's modern society. I've talked about how state sovereignty and statehood are compromised in the previous post, but I have as yet never talked about state security. This is what I will be focusing on today.

So how does globalisation affect state security? You'd be surprised, it does in a multitude of ways.

For example, it affects the economic security of a country. To use a very relevant case study to illustrate my point, Singapore's economic security no longer depends on the strength of our local economy alone. Our economy is also affected by the markets of our trade partners, our neighbours and so on. For example, in March 2007, stock market points around the world, included Singapore, dropped to an all time low, a result of Shanghai's major market drop.

Military security also needs re-thinking. In today's nuclear age, the possibility of an international nuclear war is growing greater. States are rendered incapable of guaranteeing the safety and security of their citizens. What do we do when we have countries around the world, such as Iraq under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, who claim to possess weapons of mass destruction potent enough to wipe out the entire human race? It is not always possible to verify these claims, but the threat to the security of surrounding states is still real and omnipresent.

There is an increasing need for global security, as state security no longer does the trick of keeping people safe. But yet, in a very paradoxical manner, this global security is a facet of globalisation. It compromises statehood and state sovereignty. This is a common occurance in today's globalised world-states no longer have the capacity to deal with global problems and are forced to turn to global measures, compromising their state sovereignty in the process. This results in various International Organisations and international treaties such as the World Trade Organisation, the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and the recent United Nations efforts at banning landmines.

How about psychological security? Another aspect of security to be re-thought in response to globalisation, is security in the form of a common group identity, be it ethnic or religious. This is a cause of much of the violence, bloodshed and carnage we see in the world today-these are acts by people who see a need to maintain an identity in the face of a globalised world that threatens uniformity.

And in today's society, more than ever, environmental security must take the spotlight. For the first time the human species at large is vulnerable. We are now faced with a new serious security problem. How do we protect ourselves against a little understood but extremely destructive threat to our existence, such as tsunamis, droughts, floods and the like? We have in actual fact created this threat ourselves and may not be able to stop it if we do not change our activities in time. One need not look very far to grasp the gravity of the above statement. Last year's haze is a case in point. Forest fires in Sumatra not only affected neighbouring islands within its immediate radius, winds actually carried the smog as far north as Manila. In fact, one of the worst hit areas was the Klang valley in Malaysia. Ecological security is a global concern because Mother Nature knows no boundaries.

Is it not evident then, the impact that globalisation in all its forms has on state security today? There is an increasing need to find global solutions to global problems, but here's something to think about-why do you think most of these global problems and negotiations fail? My theory is that states are unwilling to compromise their state sovereignty too much, even at the expense of finding a feasible global solution. Interesting how selfish international relations can get, don't you think? Till next time, signing off Mcdonald's Crew!

Always staying safe,
Xiu Qing!

ended entry at
10:17 PM