Some useful links to follow UK Politics and Government:
https://www.tutor2u.net/politics
https://www.instagram.com/sospolitics/?hl=en
https://www.politics.co.uk/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics
https://www.theguardian.com/politics
https://www.politicshome.com/
https://www.politico.eu/tag/british-politics/
Boris Johnson: Senior Tories urge PM to quit after party apology - 13th January 2022
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59972859
As long as party donations can be obscured, British politics will not be clean - Liam Byrne - Mon 17 Jan 2022
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/17/party-donations-british-politics-funding-pandora-amendments-elections-bill
Apsana Begum MP - Maiden Speech - 5 March 2020
https://www.facebook.com/ApsanaBegum/videos/apsana-begum-mp-maiden-speech/552831495364554/
MPs' expenses: The Legacy of a Scandal (10 Years On) - 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48187096
UK ditches exam results generated by biased algorithm after student protests - Aug 17, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/17/21372045/uk-a-level-results-algorithm-biased-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-university-applications
How Priti Patel’s new policing bill threatens your right to protest - 7 Dec 2021
https://www.bigissue.com/news/activism/how-priti-patels-new-policing-bill-threatens-your-right-to-protest/
Soft drink sugar tax starts, but will it work? - 6 April 2018
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-43659124
Covid: Pubs and restaurants in England to have 10pm closing times - 22 September 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54242634
MPs 'informing' on immigration hotline - 12th October 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/12/mps-criticised-for-calling-immigration-hotline-68-times-in-year
Former Tory minister criticised for new job at firm she lobbied for - Thu 8 Oct 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/08/former-tory-minister-criticised-for-new-job-at-firm-she-lobbied-for
Ed Davey inherits a party optimistic about its future – it sounds silly now, but history proves the Lib Dems are survivors - 28 August 2020
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/sir-ed-davey-liberal-democrats-leadership-election-politics-a9691311.html
Referendums get a bad press – but to fix Britain, we need more of them - Wed 18 Oct 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/18/referendums-bad-press-fix-britain-more-of-them-participatory-democracy
2019 general election: the demographics dividing Britain - October 31, 2019,
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/10/31/2019-general-election-demographics-dividing-britai
The December 2019 UK General Election - Case Study
https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/A%20Level/Politics/2017/Teaching%20and%20learning%20materials/A_Level_Politics_2019_UK_General_Election_Case_Study.pdf
UK General Election 2017 Case Study
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rqmZ_wGTQ1Dt52Hx-wS94q7L0OompoZ2/view?usp=sharing
General Election in Focus - 1997
https://www.tutor2u.net/politics/collections/general-election-1997
How Margaret Thatcher really won the 1979 general election - JANUARY 26, 2020
https://www.markpack.org.uk/133777/how-margaret-thatcher-won-the-1979-general-election/
Turning Points - Unscripted Reflections by Steve Richards - 1 - 1979 Election (29 Mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8z2rCBpiM4
The General Election, 1979 - Professor Vernon Bogdanor (55 Mins)
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-general-election-1979
General Election - Thames at Six Election 1979 (5 Mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20Td5fFoTs
Prof. Douglas-Scot weighs in on why Britain needs a proper constitution - April 2, 2019
https://www.qmul.ac.uk/law/news/brexit/items/prof-douglas-scot-weighs-in-on-why-britain-needs-a-proper-constitution.html
Analysis - Constitutions at Work - @bbcradio4 - July 2017 (30 Mins)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wnc03
Historical and legislative landmarks in the development of Britain’s constitution - Nick Gallop - September 2017
https://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/media/Documents/magazine-extras/Politics%20Review/Pol%20Rev%20Vol%2027%20No%201/PoliticsReview27_1_British_constitution.docx?ext=.docx
The constitutional change at the heart of the UK Parliament’s endless deadlock - September 5, 2019
https://www.vox.com/2019/9/5/20849086/uk-brexit-fixed-term-parliament
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act and the snap election - April 18, 2017
https://constitution-unit.com/2017/04/18/the-fixed-term-parliaments-act-and-the-snap-election/
Will Brexit trigger an early general election? - 9 January 2019
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/the-staggers/2019/01/will-brexit-trigger-early-general-election
The Scottish Parliament has gained its first law-making powers under the Scotland Act 2016 - 23 May 2016
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36353498
Northern Ireland: A year without devolved government - 9 January 2018
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-42608322
Wales devolution date set for April 2018, Alun Cairns says - 17 July 2017
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-40635454
Domestic violence laws will go through Stormont, not Westminster - 28 January 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-51272815
Welsh justice review calls for Scottish-style devolution of powers - Thu 24 Oct 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/24/welsh-justice-review-calls-for-scottish-style-devolution-of-powers
The first task of Labour’s new leader will be to overhaul democracy in the UK - Adam Ramsay - Wed 29 Jan 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/29/labour-leader-overhaul-democracy-uk-devolution-constitutional-reform
Brexit: Welsh Assembly joins Holyrood and Stormont in rejecting bill - 21 January 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-51181641
Ian Blackford: UK now facing a post-Brexit 'constitutional crisis' - 23 January 2020
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18182708.ian-blackford-uk-now-facing-post-brexit-constitutional-crisis/
If Johnson wants to ‘level up’, this is what he must do - JANUARY 17 2020
https://www.ft.com/content/d2e49920-3860-11ea-ac3c-f68c10993b04
Parliamentary sovereignty, the judiciary, the government and Article 50 - Politics Review - Andrew Stone -April 2017
https://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/media/Documents/magazine-extras/Politics%20Review/Pol%20Rev%20Vol%2026%20No%204/PoliticsReview26_4_UK_Article_50.docx?ext=.docx
The roles of parliament and the people in the Brexit debate - Guardian Letters - Thu 9 Feb 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/09/the-roles-of-parliament-and-the-people-in-the-brexit-debate
Gay consent at 16 becomes law - 30 November, 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1047291.stm
Syria bombing: Jeremy Corbyn calls for War Powers Act to limit Government's ability to launch air strikes without asking MPs first - 15 / 04 / 2018
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/syria-crisis-latest-air-strikes-bombing-attack-jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may-war-powers-act-parliament-russia-a8305411.html
Does Theresa May need MPs to approve UK action in Syria? - 11 April 2018
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43731390
Theresa May to UK: I know you’re tired of Brexit, but blame Parliament - March 21, 2019
https://www.vox.com/world/2019/3/21/18275752/brexit-theresa-may-parliament-speech-delay
Ken Clarke – 2017 Speech on Withdrawal from the EU
https://www.ukpol.co.uk/ken-clarke-2017-speech-on-withdrawal-from-the-eu/
Labour to vote against ‘disproportionate’ policing bill curbing right to protest - 14 March 2021
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/policing-bill-protest-labour-vote-b1816967.html
Windrush scandal explained: Who was involved in the deportation crisis? 08 June 2020
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/windrush-scandal-generation-explained-a4463106.html
How Amber Rudd was brought down by a simple question - APRIL 29 2018
https://www.ft.com/content/5f87dce6-4bf2-11e8-8a8e-22951a2d8493
Johnson makes U-turn on free school meals after Rashford campaign - Tue 16 Jun 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/16/boris-johnson-faces-tory-rebellion-over-marcus-rashfords-school-meals-call
Theresa May urged to sack Johnson over Brexit articles - 1 October 2017
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41460044
Ministers conclude crunch Brexit talks at Chequers - 23 February 2018
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43136076
Knife crime: Sajid Javid clashes with Theresa May over police cuts - Tue 5 Mar 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/05/knife-crime-sajid-javid-calls-for-emergency-cash-to-help-police
The Guardian view on Chris Grayling: the joke is on the voters - Mar 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/03/the-guardian-view-on-chris-grayling-the-joke-is-on-the-voters
Thatcher's Cabinets - Case Study https://docs.google.com/document/d/110Dmc4j4U6oMaTTS9FV022lEZDkr-JrzfWfnmB8MwKM/edit?usp=sharing
Margaret Thatcher: Thatcher's Cabinets
https://www.tutor2u.net/politics/reference/margaret-thatcher-cabinets
Rather than demonstrating Theresa May’s strength, the cabinet reshuffle confirmed her weakness - 8 January 2018
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2018/01/rather-demonstrating-theresa-may-s-strength-cabinet-reshuffle-confirmed-her
Theresa May’s cabinet in chaos as three top ministers under fire over gaffes - 07 March 2019
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-cabinet-resign-karen-bradley-amber-rudd-andrea-leadsom-a8812946.html
The sofa government of Blairism has been an unmitigated disaster - Max Hastings - Tue 16 May 2006
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/may/16/comment.labour
Tony Blair: Blair's Cabinets - Tutor2U
https://www.tutor2u.net/politics/reference/tony-blairs-cabinets
The sofa government of Blairism has been an unmitigated disaster - Max Hastings - Tue 16 May 2006
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/may/16/comment.labour
Tony Blair: Blair's Cabinets - Tutor2U
https://www.tutor2u.net/politics/reference/tony-blairs-cabinets
As a judge, I can see the racism embedded in the system - Tue 22 Nov 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/22/judge-racism-judicial-system-black-communities
Legal aid residence test was ultra vires, Supreme Court says in full judgment - July 2016
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/legal-aid-residence-test-was-ultra-vires-supreme-court-says/5056544.article
Poundland case: government defeated again over back-to-work schemes - 30 Oct 2013
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/30/poundland-case-government-defeated-work-schemes-duncan-smith
The Brexit Supreme Court case ruling explained - 24 January 2017
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38733090
Supreme Court: Suspending Parliament was unlawful, judges rule - 24 September 2019 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49810261
Brexit: What you need to know about the UK leaving the EU - 30 December 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887
What’s Next for the WTO?
December 13, 2021 https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/whats-next-wto
Will covid kill globalisation? | The Economist
30 Sept 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJhlo6DtJIk
Will coronavirus reverse globalisation?
2 April 2020 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52104978
What is the Aukus alliance and what are its implications?
Thu 16 Sep 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/16/what-is-the-aukus-alliance-and-what-are-its-implications
What are the solutions to climate change? https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/challenges/climate-change/solutions-climate-change/
What are the key points of the Glasgow climate pact? Guardian Sun 14 Nov 2021
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/14/what-are-the-key-points-of-the-glasgow-climate-pact-cop26
COP26: New global climate deal struck in Glasgow - BBC News - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GOM8wumFY4
2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war
Taiwan says dozens of Chinese planes entered defence zone
3 October 2021 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58771369
Who is attending COP26? Full participants’ list and which countries aren’t going to the Glasgow climate summit
October 26, 2021 https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/cop26-where-held-glasgow-locations-events-schedule-climate-change-summit-explained-1273429
US President Joe Biden 'pauses' TikTok and WeChat bans
12 February, 2021 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56041209
US recession: What can the 2008 recession teach us about this one?
8 June 2020 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52815357
Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan
Thu 16 Sep 2004 - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq
Brexit: What you need to know about the UK leaving the EU
30 December 2020 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887
Stop trying to ‘win’ Brexit : A negotiation shouldn’t be a zero-sum contest.
July 31, 2018 https://www.politico.eu/article/opinion-uk-stop-trying-to-win-brexit-article-50-negotiations-withdrawal-agreement/
Tories to push on with £130bn Trident renewal despite pandemic
7th February 2020 - https://www.thenational.scot/news/19071990.tories-push-130bn-trident-renewal-despite-pandemic-finances/
Social Media Made the Arab Spring, But Couldn't Save It
01.26.2016 - https://www.wired.com/2016/01/social-media-made-the-arab-spring-but-couldnt-save-it/
World marks UN Human Rights Day
9 December 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/226427.stm
How valid is the claim that the EU has delivered peace in Europe?
9 May 2016 https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2016/05/how-valid-claim-eu-has-delivered-peace-europe
Biden promises eastern Europeans support in event of Russian attack on Ukraine - Thu 9 Dec 2021
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/09/eastern-europe-urges-nato-unity-in-biden-talks-with-russia
Russia and Nato meet for talks over Ukraine tensions - BBC News - 12 Jan 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndoe3KlNLdg
NATO-Russian Talks Go Into Overtime With Ukraine Watching - January 12, 2022
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-12/nato-russian-talks-go-into-overtime-with-ukraine-watching-warily
Ukraine '99.9%' sure Russia behind massive cyber attack targeting govt websites
https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-99-9-sure-russia-behind-massive-cyber-attack-targeting-govt-websites-12516208
70 Ways the UN Makes A Difference
https://www.un.org/un70/en/content/70ways/index.html
Chicago Speech - Tony Blair
April 22, 1999 https://archive.globalpolicy.org/empire/humanint/1999/0422blair.htm
Failed state? How the DRC continues to deliver public services
September 25, 2019 https://qz.com/africa/1716136/failed-state-how-the-drc-continues-to-deliver-public-services/#:~:text=The%20Democratic%20Republic%20of%20Congo,provided%20at%20the%20local%20level.
G20 fails to agree on climate goals in communique
July 23, 2021 https://www.reuters.com/world/g20-loath-commit-climate-meeting-tussle-over-carbon-wording-2021-07-23/
In June 2016, the UK held a referendum on the country’s continued membership of the EU. The question on the ballot paper was ‘Should the UK remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’
During the morning of Friday 26 June, it was announced that 51.89% of UK voters had voted to ‘Leave’ and 48.11% to ‘Remain’. The UK prime minister, David Cameron, who had called the referendum and campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU, resigned, stating that ‘the British people have voted to leave the European Union, and their will must be respected’.
The ‘Leave’ campaign involved prominent Conservative, Labour and United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) figureheads, including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage. The language, slogans and key messages of the ‘Leave’ campaign can all be analysed for realist themes. This is an example of theory being used for explanatory purposes — in other words, attempting to explain why something happened in the way that it did.
During the 2016 US presidential election race, former US secretary of state (the US Cabinet’s equivalent of the UK’s foreign secretary) Hillary Clinton tried to present an image of competence and experience in foreign policy, in comparison with her election rival, Donald Trump. Much of the language she used implied that her foreign policy as president would be liberal in its nature, and that she would retain partnerships with IGOs and defend the international deal struck with Iran to limit its nuclear weapons programme.
Clinton argued that nation-states working together to protect each other’s national security through a collective military alliance such as NATO (see page 119) was in the US national interest:
NATO… is one of the best investments America has ever made… from the Balkans to Afghanistan and beyond, NATO allies have fought alongside the United States, sharing the burdens and the sacrifices.
Clinton also argued that a combination of military power, economic sanctions and diplomatic negotiation (often known as ‘smart power’, see page 255) had paid off in successfully persuading Iran to halt its nuclear weapons programme:
We brought Iran to the negotiating table. We began talks. And eventually, we reached an agreement that should block every path for Iran to get a nuclear weapon.
Finally, Clinton emphasised the importance of diplomacy and negotiation in resolving conflict, and cautioned against conflicts that might become lengthier and more costly. She argued that investing in development and diplomacy would help tackle problems at their source:
We need to embrace all the tools of American power, especially diplomacy and development, to be on the frontlines solving problems before they threaten us at home.
Diplomacy is often the only way to avoid a conflict that could end up exacting a much greater cost. It takes patience, persistence and an eye on the long game — but it’s worth it.
In 2008–9, a house price crash sparked a lending crisis in US banks, which spread around the world. The effects were felt in the global banking system, as banks became nervous about taking on risk and stopped lending to each other. In some cases, customers began withdrawing their savings, putting banks under even greater pressure. It led to what has been described as the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Economic growth slowed across the world and unemployment rose. North America and Europe were particularly severely affected. Economic growth in China slowed. A crisis was sparked in the Eurozone single currency area, as several indebted economies, notably Greece, were unable to borrow from international markets and required other Eurozone member states and the European Central Bank (ECB, see page 315) to bail them out.
The financial crisis fallout dominated UK prime minister Gordon Brown’s time in office. As part of international efforts to deal with an international crisis, in April 2009 Brown hosted a Group of Twenty (G20, see page 147) summit in London. The meeting resulted in national governments and the IMF agreeing a financial stimulus to inject much-needed funds into the international banking system. While facing domestic problems of a different nature, Brown led the international summit effectively. Humiliatingly, he later misspoke in the House of Commons, claiming that ‘we saved the world…’, much to the mockery of MPs.
The crisis raised questions of whether or not the international financial system needed tighter regulation and if the IMF could have done more to both prevent and react to the crisis (see Chapter 4).
Despite Fukuyama’s arguments, China, the world’s second-largest economy, is neither a liberal democracy nor does it fully conform to a capitalist free-market economy. It is worth examining the system of political and economic government that has delivered exceptional economic growth for China.
China is a single-party state. The Communist Party of China governs it, there is no accepted political opposition and, consequently, there are no democratic elections. The government controls all news media — no independent media outlets exist. In its 2016 Annual Report, Human Rights Watch declared that ‘China remains an authoritarian state, one that systematically curtails a wide range of fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion’.
While political freedoms are almost entirely absent, China does have considerable economic freedoms. These were initiated in the late 1970s by reformists within the Communist Party of China, and led by the eventual president Deng Xiaoping. As part of these reforms:
• agriculture was moved from collective ownership to private ownership
• China was opened up to foreign investment
• private individuals were allowed to set up their own businesses
The Chinese government has defended its lack of political freedom as a so-called China model, where it is possible to have economic freedom leading to spectacular economic growth but without political freedom holding this back. Certainly, the Chinese economy has seen huge growth (by an annual average of close to 10% since 1989). Furthermore, China’s growth has been a major contribution to worldwide economic growth. While this growth has slowed since the global financial crisis, it continues to outstrip the USA. Many economic forecasters predict that China will overtake the USA as the world’s largest economy by around 2020.
Despite this economic success, the proceeds of economic growth remain very poorly spread among the Chinese population compared with the USA. In 2016, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (the value of goods and services produced by a state) in the USA was seven times that in China.
Political unrest is rare in China. Government forces ruthlessly suppressed pro-democracy protests in 1989 in major Chinese cities and, most notably, in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, resulting in the deaths of over 200 civilians. In response, the government reversed some political freedoms that had come with China’s economic liberalisation, including clamping down on media freedom.
China’s educated and economically empowered middle class is growing fast. Some analysts believe that as much as 75% of China’s population will be earning middle incomes by 2022, driven on by the growing economy. However, there is still discontent, with demonstrations against issues such as government land seizures leading to protesters being arrested and imprisoned.
But for the time being China’s system of so-called Marxist capitalism seems secure enough. A growing educated and empowered middle class was one key factor in the Arab Uprisings of 2010–12. Whether China’s burgeoning middle class will respond with similar calls for political freedom, proving Fukuyama’s theory decisively correct, remains to be seen.
During the nineteenth century, liberal economists and politicians were keen to point out the close connection between free trade and peace. British liberals such as John Bright, Richard Cobden and William Gladstone viewed free trade not only as an economic good but as a moral good, according to the principle that ‘if goods do not cross borders, armies will’.
More recently, Thomas Friedman, in his Dell Theory of Conflict Resolution, has argued that not only does economic globalisation encourage greater global prosperity, it also greatly reduces the risk of conflict between nation-states. This is because such a complex web of economic interconnectedness is established between states, that it would be irrational for any state to go to war with another in the same supply chain. The USA’s and China’s reliance on each other for both trade and foreign investment has therefore created such a symbiotic relationship that it would be self-defeating for them to go to war with each other.
However, realists have criticised this theory, pointing out that states are primarily ‘power-maximisers’ as well as risk-takers, and that they do not always act according to rational principles. In 1910, Norman Angell published The Great Illusion, which argued that war between Germany and the UK was inconceivable because it would be economic suicide for both sides. After all, in 1913 there was a greater volume of trade between the two countries than ever before. The following year, of course, the First World War broke out as a result of these great powers’ struggle for strategic influence. This suggests that we ought not to be too confident about the extent to which free trade really does make war unthinkable.
The internet has made it possible for people virtually anywhere in the world to communicate with each other in ways that would, until very recently, have been unthinkable. This globalisation of communication challenges the power of the state in determining the political allegiance and cultural preferences of its citizens. For example, the use of Facebook and Twitter helped to provoke the Arab Uprisings, as citizens succeeded in organising themselves electronically, so undermining the authority of repressive governments.
Liberals optimistically hope that the internet can become a way of creating a genuinely global dialogue in which people exchange ideas and shared experiences beneath the radar of government. International pressure groups, such as Make Poverty History, also use the internet to coordinate ‘global people power’, which further illustrates how instantaneous electronic communication has the potential to create new supranational movements and allegiances. More negatively, the internet has enabled extremist ideologies, such as Islamic fundamentalism, to challenge national allegiances.
However, what liberals have failed to appreciate is that there is no reason why states should not use the internet to advance their own nationalistic world view at the expense of others. RT (formerly Russia Today) illustrates how the power of the internet can be deployed to advance a highly nationalistic interpretation of world events. The Chinese government has successfully used the internet to advance its own nationalistic agenda, while restricting outside electronic influences through its ‘firewall’. World leaders have also become adept at tweeting their opinions, sometimes criticising other nation-states, in a way that mobilises national support. Both India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump are inveterate tweeters and use Twitter to advertise and advance the interests of their own nations rather than the global community.
In November 2012, the UNGA voted by 138 to 9 (with 41 abstentions) to approve Palestine as a non-member observer state at the UN. Granting Palestine any form of recognition as an independent territorial and political body has been controversial, as the Palestinian territories lie within the state of Israel.
The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, reacted to the vote by saying that it was the first step in Palestine achieving independence:
We did not come here seeking to delegitimise a state established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine.
In contrast, the Israeli government reacted with disappointment. The ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, declared that the UN should not have been used as a means of trying to secure Palestinian statehood:
there’s only one route to statehood and that route does not run through this chamber in New York. It runs through direct negotiations between Jerusalem and Ramallah [the capital of the Palestinian territories].
The vote came as peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians had stalled for 2 years. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saw the vote as a means to kick-start those peace talks. He said:
we must give new impetus to our collective efforts to ensure that an independent, sovereign, democratic State of Palestine lives side by side with a secure State of Israel.
The secretary-general was referring to the so-called two-state solution to the Israel and Palestine issue, which both the Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to in principle.
The UN and specifically the UNSC have come under significant criticism for their response to the war in Syria, which began in 2011. Critics say that the UNSC should have done more to prevent government forces led by President Bashar al-Assad from committing what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called ‘systematic torture’ and ‘barrel bombing of neighbourhoods’. In his final speech to the UNGA, Ban Ki-Moon said that Assad’s forces were responsible for the deaths of 300,000 people because of a ‘failure of leadership’. Strong criticism from the secretary-general, but by 2016 what had the UN and the UNSC done to help in Syria?
Use of chemical weapons
After the Assad regime used chemical weapons against civilians in 2013, some expected that the USA would lead military action against the regime. President Obama had previously stated that the use of chemical weapons represented a ‘red line’. By September 2013, it was clear that Russia, Syria’s ally, and the UK and US public would not support a resolution for military action. Therefore, UNSC Resolution 2118 set out a plan to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons. Weapons were shipped out under neutral observers, but barrel bombings using toxic chemicals continued.
Action against rebel groups, including so-called Islamic State
UNSC agreement for condemning the activities of so-called Islamic State heightened after the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. A UNSC Resolution was approved in December 2015, condemning the activities of so-called Islamic State, al-Qaeda and affiliated organisations in the middle east, north Africa and beyond. The resolution took action to freeze the bank accounts and other financial assets of these groups. It did not authorise any military action against Islamic State but was clear in its condemnation and also highlighted a number of other activities (such as a travel ban for individuals associated with Islamic State and a ban on the sale of weapons).
Peace talks
The UNSC has passed several resolutions supporting peace talks that took place in Vienna. The International Syria Support Group is 15 states, including several major global and regional powers that have an influence on the conflict (Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the USA are among its members). The Support Group has secured only temporary ceasefires but has nevertheless provided a forum for influential actors to keep the dialogue open.
Humanitarian assistance
The UN has provided humanitarian assistance through its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is responsible for the UN’s emergency humanitarian responses. As of 2016, there were 13.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Difficulties in accessing key areas of need, such as the besieged city of Aleppo, have hampered the UN’s efforts. In 2016, an air strike attacked a UN humanitarian convoy, killing 18 civilians. Ban Ki-moon later condemned the strike as ‘sickening, savage, and apparently deliberate’.
The UN peacekeeping missions in Rwanda (1994) and Bosnia (1995) have been much criticised for failing to prevent two major genocides. In Rwanda in April 1994, the Hutu majority government attacked the Tutsi minority, killing as many as 1 million in just over 100 days. In Srebrenica, Bosnia, in July 1995, Serbian forces killed 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in just over 10 days. In both cases, UN peacekeepers were present. How, then, did these atrocities happen?
Rwanda
• A 1999 inquiry concluded that not enough was done to respond to indications that a genocide was likely to happen.
• 2,500 UN peacekeepers were withdrawn after ten Belgian peacekeepers were killed earlier in the conflict.
Bosnia
• Bosnian Muslims had surrendered their weapons to UN peacekeepers days before the massacre took place. Serbian forces exploited this. The UN peacekeepers refused a request from the Bosnian Muslims to have their weapons returned.
• Srebrenica was a UN-declared ‘safe zone’, but Serbian forces ignored this. They overwhelmed UN peacekeepers, who did not have sufficient resources to defend themselves so they stood aside.
During his election campaign, President Donald Trump pledged that he would consider withdrawing the USA from NATO, calling it ‘obsolete’ and stating that the alliance was ‘costing us a fortune’. Criticism was aimed at member states that were not meeting NATO’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defence. Current estimates suggest that the USA accounts for 22% of NATO’s budget.
Who is not paying enough?
As of 2016, it is easier to identify who is paying enough. Only five member states — Estonia, Greece, Poland, the UK and the USA — met the 2% target. Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey are among those member states that have not met the agreed targets.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill first set British scientists to work on developing an atom bomb in 1941. By 1952, Operation Hurricane was the first successful test of a British nuclear weapon, on remote islands off western Australia. In the 1950s and 1960s, British nuclear weapons were air-based, launched from RAF Vulcan bombers (known as V-bombers). Concerned that the V-bomber fleet could be pre-emptively attacked, a submarine-based Polaris nuclear weapons system was developed and became operational in 1968. By 1994, the weapons system had been upgraded to the Trident missile system used by Royal Navy submarines today.
One of the first duties of a new UK prime minister is to write final instructions to Royal Navy Trident submarine commanders in the event that a nuclear attack has wiped out the UK government. Historian Peter Hennessy commented that ‘the nuclear bit shakes them all. Then you realise you are prime minister at a deeper level’.
The future of the UK’s nuclear weapons, often referred to as a nuclear ‘deterrent’, came up for debate again in July 2016. The UK Parliament voted overwhelmingly to renew the Trident missile system, which would see the building of four new submarines at an estimated cost of £31 billion. Prime Minister Theresa May said that it would be an ‘act of gross irresponsibility’ to abandon a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent. At the same time, the UK committed to reducing its stockpile of nuclear warheads to 180 by 2020.
The current UK government sees the retention of nuclear weapons as an important symbol of its continuing relevance and power in global politics. Without nuclear weapons, the UK would be the only non-nuclear member of the UNSC permanent five, and some say that its permanent member status would be open to greater question.
Iran’s apparent intent to develop nuclear weapons has been a major concern in recent decades. However, these ambitions were dealt a significant blow in 2015, when Iran and the UNSC’s permanent five members (plus Germany) agreed a major deal whereby Iran committed to halting its nuclear weapons programme. In return, the permanent five and the EU agreed to end decades of economic sanctions against the country, which had crippled its economy.
Former US president Barack Obama hailed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as a triumph of diplomacy, which had achieved ‘something that decades of animosity [had] not, a way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.’
Critics of the deal, including President Donald Trump, say that it is too trusting of Iran. During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, Trump said, ‘They are laughing at us back in Iran’, and that the deal was a ‘one-sided, lopsided disgrace’. Iran might attempt to continue clandestine nuclear programmes — sceptics warn of a ‘cat and mouse’ chase between Iran’s regime and international nuclear inspectors for years to come. Much also depends on whether the reformist faction in the Iranian government holds power over the security hardliners.
Greece has been a major recipient of IMF loans. The country had accumulated large debts in the international financial markets due to high public spending and low GDP growth. As the world banking system froze in response to the global financial crisis, heavily indebted Greece was unable to make repayments and defaulted on its debts.
The so-called Troika of the ECB, the European Commission and the IMF decided that the impact of the Greek debt crisis could spread within the euro currency zone and a rescue package was needed. In 2010, the first package of €110 billion to Greece was approved.
In return, the Troika demanded that Greece implement austerity measures to reduce public spending and privatise expensive state-owned assets. The Troika negotiated a 50% reduction (a so-called haircut) on the amount Greece owed to private banks.
By 2014, with two bailouts, a deepening economic recession and rising unemployment, the anti-austerity party Syriza won a snap general election. This pitched a legitimately and democratically elected party rejecting austerity measures against the Troika, which was demanding the measures as its condition for keeping the Greek economy afloat. It prompted attempts to renegotiate the conditions, and represented a unique clash between political and economic IGOs and state sovereignty.
When renegotiations between the Syriza government and the Troika broke down, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum, asking the Greek people directly whether they supported the conditions of the bailout package. They overwhelmingly rejected the package by 61% to 39%.
In 2015, Greece failed to make a payment to the IMF, the first developed country ever to do so. Banks closed as fears grew that Greece would leave the Eurozone (so-called Grexit) and cash machines were limited to withdrawals of €60 per day. Ultimately, the imperative of preventing ‘Grexit’ prevailed, with a new bailout deal agreed later in 2015 in order to keep the Greek economy afloat
The CAP is a central part of the EU’s trading arrangements. It amounts to 40% of the EU’s budget and is used to subsidise farmers to enable them to sell produce at low prices outside of the EU. Agricultural exports from the EU that would otherwise be uncompetitive are given huge EU subsidies to make them competitive.
The CAP is an example of economic protectionism, with the free-market rules of supply and demand largely ignored. In normal free-market circumstances, agricultural production would fall if demand falls. However, because farmers receive income from subsidies as well as from sales, they are therefore able to keep producing even if demand falls. Critics of the CAP say this often results in waste and overproduction. They also say that spending close to half of the EU’s budget on a small agricultural sector that represents less than 5% of the EU population is not defensible.
The biggest criticism is the impact on developing countries that are dependent on agriculture, but cannot compete with subsidised EU prices. Such dramatic intervention to manipulate the market and give unfair advantage to EU farmers also goes against the neoliberal nature of international free trade.
The TPP is a trade agreement between the states of the Pacific Rim, excluding China. The deal was agreed in 2016 in Auckland, New Zealand. It includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the USA. Together, the member states amount to 40% of global GDP.
The agreement reduces tariff barriers to trade in the region, cutting 18,000 tariffs.
In one of his firsts acts as president, Donald Trump withdrew from the TPP, stating that membership would have lost US manufacturing jobs to lower-wage nations in Asia. Refusing to be a member of the TPP would therefore, according to Trump, represent ‘a great thing for the American worker’.
Those who defend the TPP say that it is designed to create a free-trade zone that will reduce economic protectionism by reducing tariffs on imports. This would therefore encourage greater trade, which would, in turn, generate greater wealth in the region. In terms of geostrategy it would also encourage greater unity among states in the region against China’s growing economic influence.
China needs natural resources, principally oil, in order to keep its rapidly expanding industries operating successfully. Africa has the natural resources that China lacks.
According to Chinese government figures, Chinese foreign direct investment in Africa rose from US$74 million in 2005 to US$5.5 billion in 2009. The scale of the investment and the rapidity of its growth are breathtaking. But when the Chinese economy slowed after the 2008 global financial crisis, Chinese investment in Africa fell rapidly — in 2015, estimates suggested that investment fell by as much as 84%.
Africa is increasingly dependent on Chinese investment for infrastructure projects ranging from the building of roads and rail to dams and bridges. As China becomes Africa’s biggest trading partner, Africa is increasingly exposed and linked to China’s economic fortunes, since when China’s economy slows, it needs less of the natural resources that Africa provides.
Slobodan Milošević was Serbia’s president from 1989 until mass protests overthrew him in 2000. During the Balkan Wars (1991–95) he backed Serb military forces in Bosnia and Croatia. However, in 1995 he used his influence to help broker the Dayton Peace Accords, which briefly gained him Western goodwill.
In 1998–99, Albanians in Kosovo stepped up their attempts to break free from the Serb Federation. In response, Milošević was accused of instigating ethnic cleansing, provoking the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) air war against Serbia. Following his overthrow, Milošević was arrested and then deported to The Hague, where he was put on trial before the UN Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Milošević never accepted the court’s legitimacy and died in 2006 of a heart attack while the case against him was being heard. His trial for war crimes was the first for a former head of state and set an important precedent in the development of international law.
Benjamin B. Ferencz was born in 1920 in Hungary. A year later his parents immigrated with him to the USA. He won a scholarship to Harvard Law School and during the Second World War fought his way across Europe as a sergeant in the US army. In 1947, he stood as US chief prosecutor at the trial of Nazi Einsatzgruppen (task force) leaders, who were held responsible for the deaths of over a million people. Associated Press called it ‘the biggest murder trial in history’, and Ferencz opened his prosecution by reminding the court of ‘man’s right to live in peace and dignity’ as he made ‘his plea of humanity to law’.
Since then, Ferencz, as both a lawyer and peace activist, has devoted his life to the cause of international law, arguing that the rule of law must replace the rule of force. As a leading advocate of international justice, his ideas played a significant role in the establishment of the ICC in 2002, and in 2011 the prosecution invited him to speak at the conclusion of the trial of Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga, the first case to be heard by the ICC. Sixty-four years after leading the prosecution at Nuremberg, Ferencz once again made his ‘plea of humanity to law’, as he called for international standards of justice to be used to ensure that ‘human beings behave in a humane and lawful manner’.
Dismayed by the withdrawal of South Africa from the ICC, he regards British prime minister Theresa May’s criticisms of the European Convention on Human Rights as ‘short-sighted’. At 97, he admits that he is still busy ‘trying to save the world’. You can learn more at benferencz.org
Following independence in 1979, the Zimbabwe government sought to create a fairer distribution of land between white and blacks since, historically, the white minority had owned a hugely excessive share of the land. During the early 2000s, Robert Mugabe’s government accelerated the takeover of white land by tacitly encouraging ‘war veterans’ to invade and claim it for themselves, even though they had no legal claim to it. In 2006, a law was passed, which gave the Zimbabwean government the authority to compulsorily acquire selected land. The existing ‘owners’ would have to leave it or face eviction.
Facing the loss of his land, a white farmer, Mike Campbell, applied to the tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for a judgment in the case. As a member of SADC, Zimbabwe was bound by the court’s authority to settle issues involving ‘human rights, democracy and the rule of law’. In the resulting 2008 case, the tribunal declared that the Zimbabwe government had acted illegally in nationalising the land, since Campbell, and others, had been discriminated against on the grounds of race.
However, in 2009, Zimbabwe announced that the tribunal did not have authority in its internal affairs. According to President Mugabe:
Land distribution will continue. It will not stop. The few remaining white farmers should quickly vacate their farms as they have no place there… Our land issues are not subject to the SADC tribunal.
Mike Campbell was subsequently beaten and tortured, and then evicted from his farm. He died in 2011. In the same year, the SADC suspended the tribunal as a result of criticism from the member states that it had no legitimacy to intervene in their domestic affairs.
President George H. W. Bush made his decision to commit US troops to Somalia during the final weeks of his presidency with the best possible intentions. The USA had little strategic interest in the region and the US military was tasked with restoring the conditions necessary for the delivery of aid to the starving population. However, this was easier said than done, and US forces found themselves pulled into relentless bitter clan fighting.
In October, Operation Gothic Serpent aimed to capture rebel leaders loyal to self-proclaimed president Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Early on in the engagement, Somali militiamen shot down two US Black Hawk helicopters and the offensive operation suddenly became a rescue mission, as US ground troops fought their way to the two crash sites. Eighteen US soldiers were killed and television footage showed jubilant Somali mobs dragging the bodies through the streets of Mogadishu, provoking revulsion across the USA and sparking debate over US involvement in a conflict that was of no concern to the USA and, anyway, was quite likely unsolvable. As the radical Texas congressman Ron Paul put it on 15 October, ‘Somalia is just one more reason why we should mind our own business and not stir the flames of hatred there or anywhere else in the world’.
As a result of the events, Bush’s successor to the White House, Bill Clinton, decided that the risks to US servicemen and women were not worth it. Four days later, he pulled US troops out of combat and, by March 1994, all US forces left Somalia. A year later, the UN also abandoned operations and to this day, Somalia remains a failed state and a haven for pirates and Islamist terrorists.
Somalia demonstrates many of the problems connected with humanitarian interventionism. Realists question whether it is justifiable to risk the lives of servicemen in conflicts that do not directly affect national interests. There is also the danger that involvement in a complicated conflict can become open-ended, with no easy exit strategy. Furthermore, does intervention in an alien culture really achieve its humanitarian objectives or might it even exacerbate conflict as resentment grows for the ‘foreign imperialist interlopers’? After the First Gulf War, one of George H. W. Bush’s advisers allegedly stated that ‘now was the time to solve the problems of the middle east’, to which another aide responded, ‘Mr President, we can’t even solve the traffic problem in DC, let alone the middle east’. No wonder realists question both the justification and the practicality of humanitarian intervention.
With climate change sceptic President Donald Trump elected to the White House, following former president Obama’s more climate change-conscious presidency, there are signs that China may now take over as the most vocal international supporter of climate change action.
There are a variety of reasons why China might become a world leader on climate change:
• China’s leaders’ public statements are increasingly recognising the importance of protecting the environment, even referring to the need to conserve the global commons. In 2016, President Xi Jinping referred to the Paris climate change agreement as:
a milestone in the history of climate governance. We must ensure this endeavour is not derailed. There is only one Earth in the universe and we, mankind, have only one homeland.
• The seriousness of its own pollution problems at home. Even if the USA becomes less committed to collective action, the need in China for decisive action at national level will remain compelling. The growing cost of serious health problems may become a major economic, as well as human, concern — as many as 1.6 million people are estimated to die in China each year from pollution-related causes.
• There are signs that the clean energy industry in China is becoming extremely profitable. Rather than arguing that moving from fossil fuels to cleaner energy will be costly to economic growth, China is seeing an opportunity to dominate the global market for renewable energy technology in a world that will become increasingly reliant on this energy. In 2016, China was investing twice as much as the USA in the renewable energy market.
• Chinese foreign investment abroad means that its own climate change action is not just limited to China. It is estimated to have spent US$32 billion on renewable energy projects in other countries in 2016 alone. With investment and partnerships in Africa far exceeding those of any other state, the opportunities for China to have an impact in helping poorer states move to cleaner energy sources are real.
In 2012, Donald Trump argued that China had invented the notion of climate change in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive. Around 20 years earlier, similar claims were made in China that climate change was designed to hold back China’s economic development.
The Chinese government strongly rejected Trump’s accusation. Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said in 2016 that:
if you look at the history of climate change negotiations, these were initiated by the IPCC with the support of the Republican presidents during the Reagan and senior Bush administration during the late 1980s.
Foreign affairs warned that the reversal of climate change policies (under President Trump) could bring about a global knock-on effect, pushing the world towards harsh nationalism and reducing international cooperation. Upon election, President Trump published an America First Energy Plan, indicating that he would overturn President Obama’s Climate Action Plan and stating that his administration would ‘take advantage of the estimated US$50 trillion in untapped shale, oil and natural gas reserves’ on US soil, in an effort to reduce the USA’s energy dependency.
He has also stated that he is committed to clean coal technology and to reviving the US coal industry. In his first weeks in office, Trump was criticised by environmentalists for approving the construction of a new oil pipeline from Canada to Texas. The policy highlighted a continuing thirst for using oil and threatened damage to sensitive environments along the pipeline’s path.
During his election campaign, Trump was inconsistent about his views on the Paris Agreement. He also modified his position on the extent of climate change, from being a ‘hoax’ to stating that ‘there was some connectivity, some’ between human activity and climate change. In June 2017, Trump officially withdrew the USA from the Paris Agreement, stating that the USA would, ‘begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris Accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers’.
President Bill Clinton (Democrat) signed the Kyoto Protocol, but it was never submitted to the Senate for ratification. It was clear that the Senate would not ratify Kyoto, and in 2001 the incoming president, George W. Bush (Republican), formally renounced the protocol, stating that it would harm the economy and that the USA would never sign it. President Bush’s key objection was that developing states were not being asked to do enough to combat climate change.
Ultimately, the Kyoto Protocol never included the world’s major polluter, the USA being responsible for around 36% of global emissions at that point. This demonstrated that securing world leaders’ signatures on climate change treaties is one thing, but getting states to ratify those treaties into national law to ensure said treaties have legal effect is quite another.
When the world’s largest polluting state decided not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, it was dealt a significant blow. If the biggest polluter had not signed up, why should other, less-polluting states do so?
After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia was left politically and economically unstable. The sudden shift from a command economy to a free-market economy encouraged huge levels of corruption, mass unemployment and hyperinflation. Poverty and HIV/AIDS rates dramatically increased and Russia’s global influence sharply deteriorated. Large-scale ethnic division further exacerbated the problems. In Chechnya, for example, the government fought two bloody wars to defeat the separatist movement.
Boris Yeltsin, who served as Russian president from 1991 to 1999, was unable to provide the leadership necessary to restore stability and on 31 December 1999 he handed over the office to his prime minister, Vladimir Putin, admitting to the Russian people that he had failed as their leader:
I want to ask for your forgiveness, that many of our dreams didn’t come true. That what seemed to us to be simple turned out painfully difficult.
Since 2000, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have led Russia as president (Medvedev won the 2008 election, but did not run for a second term in 2012, leading to Putin’s re-election). Opposition to the government has been severely weakened and Russia is now, at most, a semi-democratic state. The government has been accused of tolerating corruption in high places, undermining a free media and encouraging nationalist hatred of the West. However, Putin has also succeeded in restoring Russian self-confidence in global affairs by his annexation of Crimea, which was hugely popular in Russia, as well as militarily intervening in Syria, while the West dithered. Under Putin, Russia’s military has also been reformed and the Eurasian Customs Union established as a counterweight to the EU in Russia’s ‘near abroad’.
Whether Russia can once again claim equal global influence with the USA is far from certain. Russia has almost no soft power global influence and, like a developing country, is hugely dependent on the export of raw materials. Indeed, Senator John McCain has ridiculed Russia for being ‘a gas station masquerading as a country’. Russia also has just ten military bases overseas (compared with the USA’s 800) and just one operational aircraft carrier (compared with the USA’s 13 (2017)). Suspended from the G8 in 2014 for its annexation of Crimea, Russia may be seen as primarily the ‘cheer leader’ for disaffected powers and a spoiler of US influence, rather than a proactive influence on the world stage.
The First Gulf War (in 1991) provides an excellent example of the benign hegemon theory in operation. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, President George H. W. Bush used the USA’s unrivalled global prestige to build a truly global coalition to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces under a UN mandate. Under President Clinton, the USA also provided leadership during the NATO bombing of the Bosnian Serbs in 1995 and Serbia in 1999 during the Kosovo War. In the middle east, President Clinton used US influence to encourage the acceptance of the Oslo Accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat and Israel’s prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. Significantly, the Accords, which provided the Palestinians with limited self-government, were endorsed by both men on the White House lawns under the benevolent gaze of Clinton in 1993. Clinton also played a key role in encouraging the Northern Ireland peace process in the late 1990s. In March 2017, Clinton attended the funeral of former Deputy First Minister of Ireland Martin McGuinness, using the occasion to further encourage both unionists and republicans to seek peace in the province.
Compare these extracts from the inaugural addresses of President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and President Donald Trump in 2017.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge — and more.
President John F. Kennedy, 20 January 1961
We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our life on anyone.
President Donald Trump, 20 January 2017
The United States no longer carries the same image of a vital society on the move with its brightest days ahead.
Political commentators have been keen to argue that the USA is now a declining hegemon and that the world is moving from unipolarity to multipolarity, with all the associated dangers associated with power transition. It is therefore interesting that the above quotation is from Senator John F. Kennedy during his presidential debate with Vice-President Richard Nixon on 21 October 1960.
We should therefore be careful about making too many assumptions regarding what may or may not happen in global politics. In the late 1950s, the Soviet Union was generally seen as being ahead of the USA in terms of missile and space technology. In 1968, as the USA became more closely embroiled in Vietnam and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy tore the country apart, Henry Kissinger commented that the rise of ‘political multipolarity … makes it impossible to impose an American design’. Then, in the 1970s, the resignation of President Nixon over the Watergate scandal in 1974 and the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975, which signalled the end of the Vietnam War, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, persuaded many critics that the USA was in terminal decline.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 is not, therefore, sufficient evidence alone to suggest that the USA is a declining superpower. In his inaugural speech on 20 January 2017, Trump’s language suggested that he was keen to abdicate the USA’s global leadership role:
We’ve defended other nations’ borders while refusing to defend our own and spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.
However, on 7 April 2017, Trump ordered the launch of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles against a Syrian chemical weapons store following the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun. According to Trump, the Syrian government had ‘launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians’. Disregarding Russian condemnation, he then called ‘on all civilised nations to join us in seeking to end this slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types’. On the same day, as Trump was meeting Chinese president Xi Jinping, the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, announced that regarding North Korea’s nuclear ambitions the USA would, ‘chart our own course if this is something China is just unable to coordinate with us’.
In 1992, when most pundits had written off his campaign, Bill Clinton came second in the New Hampshire primary. Calling himself ‘the Comeback Kid’, Clinton went on to win the Democrat nomination and beat George H. W. Bush to the presidency. Perhaps we should not make the same mistake about the USA? So often written off, it may, like Clinton, still prove to be ‘the Comeback Kid’.
Democratic Republic of the Congo: a failed state
A good example of a failed state is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
• The country is characterised by civil war, which bought about the end of President Mobutu Sese Seko’s brutal dictatorship in 1996.
• It suffers from significant ethnic and provincial divides (see Figure 7.2), which were arguably exacerbated by particularly oppressive Belgian colonial rule, the legacy of which perpetuates to this day.
• It has had a tumultuous relationship with some of its neighbours in what has historically been an unstable region (the DRC borders both Rwanda and Uganda, both of which also have recent histories of appalling human rights abuses).
• There is deep-seated corruption, both at the highest levels of authority and in the lower echelons, with militias being prominent in the country’s history.
• Rape has been used as a widespread weapon of war and there is massive recruitment of child soldiers.
• It has suffered from the ‘resource curse’, whereby its being very rich in many natural resources has actually left the country in a dire position. Colonial powers first exploited these resources, followed by brutal dictatorships. The country is also rife with civil war, corruption and militia groups using the black market for their own gains. Given the DRC’s lack of infrastructure and development, it has lacked the amenities it needs to benefit from harnessing these resources itself.
• It has arguably been a victim of the West in terms of colonialism, the exploitation of its resources through black markets and Western interference (or lack thereof) in this part of Africa.
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: a rogue state
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea, is a good example of a rogue state.
North Korea’s significant nuclear arsenal is a key feature of its ‘rogue’ status. Its readiness to both test and threaten the use of nuclear weapons poses a threat to international stability and directly threatens other nation-states.
North Korea and its neighbour, South Korea, have had a long-standing, hostile history (see Figure 7.3). This was perpetuated by the Cold War, during which Korea was drawn into a lengthy and costly peripheral war, in which the USA supported the more liberal South and the Soviet Union the Communist North.
The USA continues to have a tense relationship with North Korea. North Korea does not cooperate in the international system and has frequently flouted international laws. It has one of the worst human rights records, directly contravening the UN Charter, and has failed to uphold international agreements even when it has signed them, for example the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
North Korea’s population is deliberately isolated from the rest of world and its government pursues a deeply isolationist foreign policy.
The Arab Spring began in Tunisia in 2010, when the populace mounted protests against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s oppressive regime. This sparked a revolutionary wave of support for the installation of democracy across the Arab world, with varying degrees of violence and success. The revolution resulted in extended violence in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
A key feature of these protests was the use of technology. Globalisation has allowed technology to spread the idea of liberal values and freedoms across the world. People are therefore much more aware than ever before of the freedoms experienced in other nations. Arguably, this was one of the major triggers for the Arab Uprisings. In particular, Facebook and Twitter played a key role in mobilising populations against their governments, so challenging the repressive governments that had often been in power for decades.
Liberals initially saw the Arab Uprisings as a ‘re-run’ of the fall of communism in eastern Europe in 1988–89. Repressive dictatorships would be replaced with people power, so establishing a surge of liberal democracy throughout the Arab world. History, however, does not always progress the way we may want it to. It was not only pro-Western liberals who wanted to see the back of repressive dictators, such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Muammar Gaddafi. Radical Muslims, who fear and resent Western liberalism, also often led the protests against these dictators and so when tyrannies were challenged, the results were much more bloody and anarchic than anticipated. In Libya, for example, anarchy reigns, and the Syrian civil war has led to the deaths of as many as 400,000 (2017). In Egypt, the military has re-imposed a semblance of order with the tacit acknowledgement of the West and in Yemen a brutal civil war has involved both Saudi Arabia and Islamist militants in a struggle for control.
Therefore, the consequence of the Arab Uprisings has not been the rise of new democracies. Instead, there is a greater threat than ever before of failed, rogue and authoritarian states defining the future of the region. According to the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, the liberal revolutions in Germany in 1848 ended up simply reinforcing authoritarianism: ‘German history reached its turning point and failed to turn.’ The same may, unfortunately, be true of the Arab Uprisings today.
The rule of law refers to the principle that the legal system should provide impartial justice for everyone within a nation-state. This means that no individual can claim to be above the law and that the government is itself bound to obey the rule of law. The government (executive) is separate from the judiciary, ensuring that the judiciary is not simply a tool of the government as it is in totalitarian states. The powers of the government are therefore limited, so protecting the civil liberties of the public from arbitrary interference.
A liberal democracy, like the UK, is governed according to the rule of law, in contrast to an authoritarian government in which there are no constraints on how the government acts.
Following the 2008 global financial crisis, there were fears of a debt crisis among Eurozone members, particularly those dubbed the ‘PIIGS’ (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain). Each of these countries fell into a significant economic recession, which had a knock-on effect that created an overall crisis of confidence. There was particular concern for Greece’s future — it was experiencing severe financial trouble due to flouting EU rules on fiscal responsibility, after which it hid the extent of its budgetary issues in an attempt to cover them up.
Therefore, Greece was forced to implement significant spending cuts, as well as to rely on Eurozone bailouts, which became part of the structural adjustment programme (SAP) that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and EU imposed on the country.
There were further concerns that if Greece defaulted on its loans, it would exacerbate the financial crises in other PIIGS. Germany was especially concerned about Greece’s level of debt and the implications this would have for the EU as a whole. It eventually persuaded the EU to call in the IMF in 2011. The EU and the IMF created a loan package, which came with the conditions laid out in the previous SAP. This essentially followed a Washington Consensus approach to boosting economic growth.