An Essay on the Necessity of Western Foreign Policy Transformation
by J Michael Heynen
This planet is part of the universe and therefore a space of free will. Cultural historicity and territorial classification have created conditions in the tension between anarchy and hierarchy under which at least a third of people live in autocracies/dictatorships. The international system is therefore still characterized by anarchy (also hierarchical) and the successful model of a 'free-democratic basic order' is not a normative imperative of a world order.
Democratic foreign policy involves the formation of
societal, domestic political (representative) will in order to
interact accordingly within the external framework of diplomacy
(bilateral and multilateral). The external sovereignty is therefore
based on the internal or on the respective legitimation process. This
recent development towards democratic foreign policy has led to
significantly higher levels of non-violent conflict ruling capacity,
transformative cooperation and welfare. The space for human
creativity and peaceful lifestyles to develop has also expanded
significantly (e.g. EU).
Of course, it should be self-critically stated that the so-called “Western model” is also exposed to the risk of decline and backsliding in attitudes, including long-term strategies of absolutist foreign policies and dominant hierarchies / hegemonies that also provoke risks of war due to the substantial decoupling of free democratic legitimation processes. Foreign policy then degenerates into purely formal, administrative “sovereignty”. In short: a lack of internal legitimacy leads to an external rejection of pluralism, transparency and integrity as well as trusting cooperation. Life-threatening interactions up to and including war form the remaining spectrum of foreign policy action, framed in geopolitical competitive interests as well as egomaniacal enemy images and messianistic power projections. Diplomacy is then marginalized, foreign policy is completely cannibalized by security policy (“defense policy”) - instead of de-escalation and conflict transformation: “inflation” of the warlike!
This development is man-made, but does not correspond to human capacity at all. In particular, technological progress – including military overkill capacity and AI – leads to the civilizational dimension of respective foreign policy behavior. History can, but does not have to, repeat itself, because it depends on the individual human Self. At least the civilizational normativity of Western societies and policy designs holds the essential potential of foreign policies relevant to globally relevant clearance if they transform the imperative of their determination:
The success and future potential of
democratically constituted societies - when the state is organized
with integrity - is fundamentally undeniable. Traditionally, this -
the functions of democracy - is related to the respective domestic
politics - also because of the necessary government-political
legitimacy. However, it is conceivable - and can also be achieved in
terms of system logic - to reflect domestic democracy in a foreign
affairs
as a foreign policy democracy: as an
analog international
process of decision-making, legitimation and action. Of course, the
possibility of “exporting” domestic democracy must be ruled out
in principal.
Because democracy arises from the internally generated freedom of
individual human(s) and
their societies and is therefore always hostile to mission and
fundamentally immune to even psychologically mediated violence and
so-called „world saving“.
The countless human and international rights violations worldwide are
intolerable, yet foreign human rights policy is largely unsuccessful
and must be limited to humanitarian intervention under strict
conditions.
As a result of liberal movements of the 18th and 20th centuries. In the 19th century, foreign policy democracies were first established, including the integration of federal systems: the USA, the German Reich, the EU, etc. The League of Nations and the UN can also be seen as the first supra-regional and global attempt to collectively coordinate foreign policies according to the principles of the Wilson Doctrine. Independent of institutional international procedures, successful foreign policy democracy strategies such as the détente policy from the beginning of the 1970s can also be classified. Antagonistic system competition between a seemingly intransigent conflict figure was resolved in a cooperative, dialogical and creative manner in such a way that societies that were oppressed at the time were able to initiate their self-determined and therefore emancipation process. In trust-building cooperation regimes, undemocratic power states and despotism were taken beyond their narrow limits and dissolved at their core.
The pessism of
Tocqueville – “democracy cannot survive in anarchic systems“ –
therefore was unfounded. Because freedom as the basic paradigm of
civility and “eternal peace” is convincing and developing, while
lack of freedom, on the other hand, is doomed to death and can only
survive based on violence. Nevertheless - Tocqeuille taken in another
way - the temptation is great, especially for Western states and
their foreign policies, to get involved in the anarchic game, perhaps
based on fear and enemy images, and then ultimately to allow
themselves to be driven against its democratic essentiality in
domestic politics. Extremism, nationalism, armament spirals, contempt
for humanity and destruction of resources on an unforeseeable scale
are the consequences. Societal autonomy and state sovereignty are
paralyzed despite the best defense capability. - A democratic foreign
policy with the aim of developing democracy in foreign policy is
therefore probably the only sustainable civilizational solution - in
essence there are i. a. the following determinants:
1.
Exemplary guarantee of domestic political implementation of a
free-democratic basic order and further development of cultures of
freedom as well as human rights and international law and its
application without double standards
2. Non-judgemental
and value-neutral communication with every societal and governmental
subject in the international arena capable of dialogue with the aim
of establishing substantial cooperation, or vice versa:
non-communication and peaceful coexistence
3. Fundamental
respect of different, even deviating, development paths and speeds of
'other' / alternative societies, cultural identities and domestic
political systems in order to strengthen self-responsibility and
innovative, self-developed solutions
4. Neutrality and
non-intervention in the case of symmetrical and asymmetrical regional
and/or domestic political and societal conflicts; a request for
assistance can only be responded to at the global (UN) level, based
on a clear, robust mandate
5. Strict avoidance of double
standards to strengthen transparency and integrity, use of
cooperatively integrated intelligence capacity to establish neutral
verification regimes
6. In particular, civil society relationship levels are for enlightenment-oriented, emancipatory dialogue processes such as rule of law dialogues, cooperation for the independent establishment of fdbo, etc. (without success parameterization, corruption or reward strategies from traditional or new “hidden agendas”)
7.
Relationship managament without egomaniacal projection, chosenness
mechanisms of self-righteousness, and mentally misguided superiority
or supremacy, but rather friendly recognition of pluralistic
performance and learning processes, bi-/ multilateral facilitation
towards respective self-leadership in inter-/social projects and
networks, etc.
8. Establishment of cooperation platforms
in the areas of art and culture, technology and science, etc. as
specific organizational forms of human-culturally open
interconnection processes in the sense of classic as well as
innovative, noumenal diplomacy
9. Foreign policy primacy
is the “categorical imperative” (Kant) as the development maxim
of international relations policy: the international system creates
the orchestration process of foreign policy democratization as well
as the structural basis
10. Rule-based generation of a
real (noo) world order of free subjects and their
participatory-synthetic relationships through inter-human /
inter-societal, heterarchic networks / clusters as an equal driving force (to
states) of international foreign policy / diplomacy
transformation.
[ A further
systematizing concept of “foreign policy democracy” and/or
„Internationalization of Democracy“ is being prepared by the IRCInternational Regimes Council in collaboration with the NOMOIInstitute ]
© J Michael Heynen I R C
