by Kennedy Graham
Following the Greens’ new caucus retreat this week, the list of MP portfolios was announced. I have relinquished the Musterer’s role and the Justice and Energy portfolios and taken on, inter alia, the new Global Affairs portfolio.
This is a new development that builds upon, and refines, the previous foreign affairs portfolio. It focuses on the same reality, but from a different, updated, worldview.
From the mid-17th to mid-20th centuries, the nation-state emerged, waxed, and waned as the principal political unit in what theorists call the Westphalian age.
With the United Nations, however, the sovereign state has been joined by the individual as an entity under international law – initially through the universalisation of human rights, more recently through international criminal law. From Göring and Hess to Milosevic and Karadzic.
Also since the mid-20th century, we have been confronting problems that are truly global in character and impact – weapons of mass destruction, ozone depletion and climate change.
And since the late 20th century, we have acquired a global consciousness, through deep-space exploration and moon-shots of Earth, along with a planetary interconnectedness through the ITC revolution.
We are today in the post-Westphalian age – a fast and dynamic transformation towards a global society of some form. Ours is a transitional age, in which the international community of states is now joined by a global community of peoples. The global civil society ranges alongside the global corporate sector, acting as the not-so-still voice of conscience in our changing world.
In this unfolding scenario, nations have become integrated in myriad ways into the global scene. A country’s attitude towards the world and its actions are now less a matter of foreign policy – ‘us’ v. ‘them’; more a matter of ‘us’ as part of the broader ‘us’.
We are now an integral part of the global community. What we do and say – our policies towards, not ‘the world’, but ‘the rest of the world of which we are a part’, is the subject of global affairs.
Within this new paradigm we do not seek to maximise a competitive national advantage to excess, indifferent to the consequences elsewhere. We collaborate in identifying the global challenges before humanity. We agree on the global solutions, and then we agree on our legitimate national interests, and then we carry them out.
It is a matter of global responsibility. This is not moral handwringing – it is an imperative of collective survival. Our global responsibilities and our national interests become one and the same.
Thus, a country’s portfolio for dealing with the rest of the world is most appropriately described now, not as foreign policy, but as ‘global affairs’.
The Green Party will henceforth pursue this approach in the Parliament, in the country, and around the world.
Published in Featured | Justice & Democracy | Society & Culture by Kennedy Graham on Thu, December 15th, 2011
Tags: climate change, foreign affairs, Westphalian age
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Beautifully put – this approach is the only way we can all survive well. It’s a fundamental shift for the majority, so it will take a while – we may not have enough time unfortunately.
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This is laudable – but is it consistent with the Greens’ broadly protectionist approach towards New Zealand trade policy? Surely the basis for doing so is to “maximise national advantage”?
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I think that is the Winston Peters approach, but Greens’ position has to be wider, as Kennedy says. No more time to be greedy or selfish – we have to consider global consequences. A new paradigm.
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No mention of the New Zealand Greens’ vision on disarmament and arms control? The government has disbanded New Zealand’s Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control, just as the Greens have scrapped their spokesperson on disarmament. Shame. Take the Action Alert: http://on.fb.me/sWsqQ4
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Very general and vague! Specifically, do we approve of fighting Other Peoples Wars (Nicky Hager’s book is a must read) or not? Do we turn a blind eye to the oppression of Palestinians or not?
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Moving production to lower wage economy often isn’t a case of the lower waged benefitting at the expense of the higher waged, as the neo-liberals would have it, but causes the wages of the world’s workers to be reduced overall. The rapid movement of capital and production simply globalises workers’ vulnerability.
On another point, I think whether we are in a post-Westphalian age is not yet clear. For all the talk of breaking down borders, selfishness on a national scale still dominates the thinking of governments, as was seen in Durban recently. In many ways the nation-state has never been more powerful, or more loyal to the interests of its own constituency (though it tends to see its corporates as the consituents who must be protected, rather than all its population).
And on the other hand, the nation-state project is by no means complete. Large numbers of people around the world still don’t identify with any nation-state, and many governments treat large chunks of their population – particularly indigenous groups – with hostility and suspicion.
I’d recommend James C Scott’s ‘The Art of Not Being Governed – An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia’ (see http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/12/06/the_mystery_of_zomia/ for a review) for a fascinating (if rather wordy) account of people who are still not integrated into the nation-state. It focuses on minority groups in SE Asia, but points to other groups taking a similar path. There’s also some fascinating stuff in there on the fluidity of ethnic identity and political structures, and the rejection of social characteristics that make a group easy for a state to administer, such as literacy, permanent settlements and grain production.
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Joe the purpose of a fair free trade policy is not selfish nationalism let alone protectionism, but principled policy for the protection of the global environment and the rights of (all – local and foreign) workers.
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Surely the basis for doing so is to “maximise national advantage”?
The basis for it is to minimize the power of multinational corporations to arbitrage workers rights and environmental regulations to the detriment of workers and the planet.
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Kennedy says “Within this new paradigm we do not seek to maximise a competitive national advantage to excess, indifferent to the consequences elsewhere.”
I agree with others that your comments are a little vague.
Are you saying the Green Party has reversed it’s policy on protectionism?
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Still running with a meme designed to distort the Greens fair free trade position?
Or are you claiming that enabling corporates to disregard environment protection and labour rights is a pre-requisite for free trade status?
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Mary, Lois – establishing a spokesperson on Global Affairs title does not change Green Party positions on disarmament, advocacy for peace and justice as positions for New Zealand to take in areas of international concern.
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@ SPC – that’s pretty much what National is saying too … no longer having a specific disarmament spokesperson / portfolio certainly looks like disarmament is now a lower priority, especially at the time the government has disestablished the position of Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control and the portfolio. If the Labour Party keeps a disarmament spokesperson / portfolio, will the Green Party reconsider this?
BTW, surely disarmament and advocacy for peace are areas of national, as well as international, concern?
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PMA, I would have to leave it to a Party spokesperson to say why they decided to stop having a designated spokesperson on this when they moved to having a “Global Affairs” spokesperson.
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@ SPC A Party statement on what the Greens think of the government’s decision to scrap the dedicated New Zealand’s Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control portfolio would be welcome, as well an explanation of why the Greens have decided to stop having a designated spokesperson for disarmament. We know the Greens are committed to disarmament policy objectives, but why no portfolio? Thanks.
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Looks like the feedback has been noted and responded to. Kennedy has a new post up saying the decision has now been made to retain disarmament as a separate Green portfolio.
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Great news, we published an update as soon as we saw the statement, http://www.facebook.com/notes/peace-movement-aotearoa/green-party-re-establishes-disarmament-portfolio/278686075512102
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Should we be associated with supporting a government as corrupt as the one in Afghanistan just because the Taleban would be worse? When the corruption cannot even be reported in the UK “because of the risk to the safety of the the victims of government injustice” a threshold has been breached.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15678935
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Kennedy makes a great point: The old Westphalian notions of state sovereignty and diplomacy happening between nation-states for nation-states is proving itself insufficient to meet the requirements of a globalised world.
Oddly enough, the closest historical analogy we have for understanding diplomacy as it is becoming is pre-30 years war Germany (which for those of you who didnt study Political Science or History was ended by the treaty of Westphalia); A frothing mix of quasi-states and principalities bound together by a nominal allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor.
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