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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 July 2010
This article examines the neo-conservative critique of global liberal governance. It provides a theoretically oriented assessment of the neo-conservative case against international law and human rights regimes, and draws out the main political and ethical implications for American democracy and American foreign policy. It is argued that the neo-conservative critique of global governance rests upon an interpretation of the normative order that weaves together democracy, individual rights and national autonomy through a volatile identity politics which is fundamentally at odds with both the pluralist character of ‘Westphalian diplomacy’ and the universal order of rights envisaged by advocates of global governance. More than just the policy autonomy of the US, what is really at stakes in those debates for neo-conservatives is the whole structure of cultural and socio-economic interests that is tied to the substantive interpretation of democracy upon which their domestic commitments to neo-liberal capitalism and liberal freedoms are predicated.
1 Mansfield, Harvey, ‘What Obama Isn't Saying’, Weekly Standard, 15:2 (2010)Google Scholar , {http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/what-obama-isnt-saying?page=3} accessed 20 February 2010.
2 Global Governance Watch, {http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org/about/} accessed 20 November 2008. I use the term neo-conservatism here in an essayistic style as an ideal typical device to designate the internationalist strain of conservative liberalism that emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s as a reaction to the cultural revolutions. I recognise that some of the authors included in the rational reconstruction of the sovereigntist project presented here may not necessarily agree with my classification.
3 American Enterprise Institute, ‘Keeping an Eye on National Sovereignty’, AEI Newsletter, (1 June 2008)Google Scholar , {http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.28080/pub_detail.asp} accessed 3 June 2008.
4 See, for instance, Dick Cheney, ‘Keeping America Safe’, Address at the American Enterprise Institute, Washington (21 May 2009), podcast available online at: {http://www.aei.org/video/101099} accessed 7 July 2009; Bolton, John, ‘The Coming War on Sovereignty’, Commentary (March 2009)Google Scholar , {http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-coming-war-on-sovereignty-15080} accessed 4 June 2009; Cohen, Eliot A., ‘What's Different About Obama's Foreign Policy?’, Wall Street Journal (2 August 2009)Google Scholar , {http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574300402608475582.html} accessed 7 August 2009; Posner, Eric, ‘Obama and international law’, Volokh (5 December 2008)Google Scholar , {http://volokh.com/posts/1228509500.shtml} accessed 8 December 2008; Andrew C. McCarthy, ‘Obama and Gitmo’, National Review Online (13 November 2008), {http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NTMxNWYzY2MxMGVkZmVkNTFkYTg0MzliMWRmNTU1M2I=} accessed 3 December 2008; Fonte, John, ‘The World is My Constituency’, National Review (2 November 2008)Google Scholar , available at: {http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=5852} 6 November 2008.
5 Fonte, John, ‘Global Governance vs the Liberal Democratic Nation-State: What is the Best Regime?’, in Encounter at 10: The Bradley Symposium, Hudson Institute (4 June 2008)Google Scholar , available at: {http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org/resources/global-governance-vs-the-liberal-democratic-nationstate-what-is-the-best-regime-2} accessed 3 November 2008, pp. 17–8.
6 For a critical discussion of the theory and political-sociology of neo-conservative internationalism see Drolet, Jean-François, ‘A Liberalism Betrayed? Neoconservatism and the Theory of International Relations’, Journal of Political ideologies, 15:2 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Neoconservatism: The Politics and Culture of a Militant Idealism (London and New York: Hurst and Columbia University Press, forthcoming 2010).
7 For an overview see American Enterprise Institute Conference, ‘Trends in Global Governance: Do They Threaten American Sovereignty?’, Chicago Journal of International Law (Fall 2000)Google Scholar ; Transcript of American Enterprise Institute Conference, ‘Outsourcing of American Law’, AEI, Washington (21 February 2006), {http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1256,filter.all/event_detail.asp}, November 2007; Kelly, James P., ‘The Matrix of Human Rights Governance Networks’, Engage, 9:1 (2008)Google Scholar , {http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/pubID.691/pub_detail.asp} accessed 2 November 2008; Groves, Steven, ‘The US Should Reject the U.N. “Responsibility to Protect” Doctrine’, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, 2130 (2008)Google Scholar , {http://www.heritage.org/research/InternationalOrganations/bg2130.cfm} accessed 3 December 2008.
8 See, for example, Bradley, Curtis and Goldsmith, Jack, ‘Customary International Law as Federal Common Law: A Critique of the Modern Position’, Harvard Law Review, 110:4 (1997), pp. 815–876CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; ‘U.N. Human Rights Standards and the US Law: The Current Illegitimacy of International Human Rights Litigations’, Fordham Law Review, 66 (November 1997), pp. 319–59; ‘International Delegations, the Structural Constitutions and Non-Self Executions’, Standford Law Review, 55 (May 2003), pp. 1557–96; Casey, Lee A. and Rivkin, David B., ‘The Rocky Shoals of International Law’, The National Interest, 62 (Winter 2000), pp. 35–45Google Scholar ; Possner, Eric, ‘Do States Have Moral Obligation to Obey International Law?’, Stanford Law Review, 55 (2003), pp. 1901–1919Google Scholar ; Yoo, John, The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006)Google Scholar ; Robert Delanty and John Yoo, ‘Against Foreign Law’, AEI Working Paper no. 158 (2009), {http://www.aei.org/docLib/20090820-Chapter8.pdf} accessed 12 October 2009; Justice Antonin Scalia, ‘Foreign Law in Constitutional Interpretation’, AEI Working Paper, no. 159, American Entreprise Institute (2009), {http://www.aei.org/docLib/20090820-Chapter2.pdf} accessed 12 October 2009; William, S. Dodge, ‘After Sosa: The Future of Customary International Law in the US’, AEI Working Paper no. 153 (2009), {http://www.aei.org/docLib/20090820-Chapter3.pdf} accessed 12 October 2009; Thomas C. Goldstein and Cody S. Harris, ‘Foreign Law and Constitutional Interpretation: The Debate Behind the Diatribes’, AEI Working Paper no. 157 (2009), {http://www.aei.org/docLib/20090820-Chapter7.pdf} accessed 14 October 2009; Julian G. Ku, ‘The President's Unexamined Power to Interpret Customary International Law’, AEI Working Paper 155, (2009), {http://www.aei.org/docLib/20090820-Chapter5.pdf} accessed 14 October 2009.
9 John Yoo, ‘Outsourcing American Law: Conclusion’, AEI Working Paper no. 159, American Enterprise Institute (2009), p. 1,{http://www.aei.org/docLib/20090820-Chapter9.pdf} accessed 12 October 2009.
10 Ruggie, John Gerard, ‘American Exceptionalism, Exemptionalism, and Global Governance’, in Ignatieff, Michael (ed.), American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005), p. 326Google Scholar .
11 See, in particular, Bradley and Goldsmith, ‘International Delegations’.
12 Bolton, John, ‘Global Governance and Shared Sovereignty’, On the Issues AEI (28 April 2008)Google Scholar , {http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27885/pub_detail.asp} accessed 2 September 2008.
13 Ruggie, ‘American Exceptionalism’, p. 326.
14 Bianchi, Andrea, ‘International Law and US Courts: The Myth of Lohengrin Revisited’, European Journal of International Law, 15:4 (2004), p. 777CrossRefGoogle Scholar .
15 Christian G. Vergonis, ‘The Federalism Implications of International Human Rights Law’, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (2002), p. 9. Available at: {http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/PubID.72/pub_detail.asp}.
16 Ruggie, ‘American Exceptionalism’, pp. 327–8; Spiro, Peter J., ‘The New Sovereignists: American Exceptionalism and Its False Prophets’, Foreign Affairs, 79:6 (November/December 2000), pp. 9–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar . See also Slaughter, Anne-Marie, ‘Building Global Democracy’, Chicago Journal of International Law, 1:2 (2000), pp. 249–276Google Scholar ; Moravcsik, Andrew, ‘Conservative Idealism and International Institutions’, Chicago Journal of International Law, 1:2 (2000), pp. 291–314Google Scholar ; Koh, Harold Hongju, ‘On American Exceptionalism’, Stanford Law Review, 55:5 (2003), pp. 1483–1494Google Scholar .
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18 See Spiro, Peter, ‘Treaties, International Law and Constitutional Rights’, Stanford Law Review, 55 (2003), pp. 1618–1649Google Scholar .
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20 Fonte, ‘Global Governance’, p. 3.
21 Fonte's work is particularly instructive in this respect. See his ‘The Enablers of Transnational Progressivism: Is the Nation-State Threatened?’, The Hudson Institute (4 October 2006), {http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=4232}, accessed 3 December 2008.
22 Fonte, ‘Global Governance’, p. 457.
23 John Bolton, ‘“Legitimacy” in International Affairs: The American Perspective. Theory and Operation’, remarks to the Federalist Society, Washington, DC (13 November 2003), {www.state.gov} accessed 6 May 2004; Plattner, Marc F., Democracy Without Borders? Global Challenges to Liberal Democracy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008)Google Scholar .
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26 Rabkin, Jeremy, ‘Is EU Policy Eroding the Sovereignty of Non-Members States?’, Chicago Journal of International Law, 1:2 (2000), p. 273–290Google Scholar .
27 Peter Berkowitz, ‘Liberalism and Power’, in Lindberg, Beyond Paradise and Power, pp. 203–8; Fukuyama, ‘Does the West Still Exists?’, p. 145.
28 Habermas, Jürgen, The Postnational Constellation (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), p. 110Google Scholar .
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41 Interalia, Kagan, Of Paradise and Power, p. 76; ‘Multilateralism, American Style’, Washington Post (14 September 2002).
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58 Ibid., p. 296.
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65 Rabkin, cited in Moravcsik, ‘Conservative Idealism’, p. 304. See also, Fonte, ‘Global Governance’, p. 3; Sharansky and Wolosky, Defending Identity.
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76 James Ceasar, ‘Multiculturalism and American Democracy’, and MarcPlattner, , ‘Liberalism, Universalism, and Multiculturalism’, in Melzer, A. M., Weinberger, J. and Zinman, R. (eds), Multiculturalism and American Democracy (Kansas City: University of Kansas Press, 1998)Google Scholar ; Wattenberg, Ben, ‘Melt, Melting, Melted’, Washington Post (15 March 2001)Google Scholar , available at: {http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.12609/pub_detail.asp} accessed 3 December 2007; John Fonte, ‘Dual Allegiance: A Challenge to Immigration Reform and Patriotic Assimilation’, Centre for Immigration Studies, Washington (2005), {http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/back1205.html} accessed 3 May 2007; MacDonald, Heather, Hanson, Victor Davis and Malanga, Steven, The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan Than Today's, with introduction by Myron Magnet (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2007)Google Scholar .
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83 Ibid.
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90 Kagan, Of Paradise and Power, pp. 130–1.
91 Kagan, Robert, ‘Inside the Limo’, The New Republic (10 April 2000)Google Scholar . See also Wolfowitz, Paul, ‘Think Again – Realism’, Foreign Policy (September 2009)Google Scholar , {http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/17/think_again_realism} accessed 6 October 2009; Charles Krauthammer, Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World, American Enterprise Institute's Irving Kristol Lecture, Washington (12 February 2004), {http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19912,filter.all/pub_detail.asp} accessed 8 February 2006; Williams, Michael C., ‘What is the National Interest? The Neoconservative Challenge in IR Theory’, European Journal of International Relations, 11/3 (2005), pp. 307–335CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Drolet, ‘A Liberalism Betrayed?’.
92 For a good example see Emery, Noemie, ‘Evil Under the Sun: Barack Obama and American Exceptionalism’, Weekly Standard, 14:8 (11 March 2008)Google Scholar , {http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/745kqxmy.asp} accessed 14 March 2008.
93 Kant, Immanuel, ‘Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch’, in Kant, I., Political Writings, (ed.), Reiss, H.S. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 93–125Google Scholar .
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95 Balibar, L'Europe, L'Amérique, p. 118. Author's translation.
96 Cohen, Jean L., ‘Whose Sovereignty? Empire Versus International Law’, Ethics and International Affairs, 18:3 (2004), p. 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar .
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98 Owens, ‘Beyond Strauss’, p. 274. Emphasis added.
