Rothschild What Is Security

What Is Security? Author(s): Emma Rothschild Source: Daedalus, Vol. 124, No. 3, The Quest for World Order (Summer, 1995), pp. 53-98 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027310 Accessed: 24/04/2009 12:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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Emma Rothschild

is Security?1

What

or

Principles

definitions

of international

institution

to

in particular,

tance,

of

are

security

They politics. the ceremonials

a well-established are of great impor of reconstruction

after large international wars. When Descartes died in Stockholm in the winter of 1650, he had recently completed the verse text for a ballet called "The Birth of Peace," which was performed at the the Swedish court in celebration of the Treaty of Westphalia, and the "golden peace" that was of Queen Christina, birthday follow the Thirty Years' War.2 All the great postwar settlements at Vienna in 1815, times have since been accompanied, modern

to of at

Versailles in 1919, and at San Francisco in 1945, by new principles of

international across

to the next,

security. One the turbulent

intervening

set out in 1919 for the Conference volume"

account

to

"the young Commissioners

later, British The

Cold War

was

wars

and

two world

it came

Wars,

configuration

to echo been thought times. Harold Nicolson

of Paris with

a "slim and

he ad the Congress about of Vienna; some of the Versailles years proceedings, men who will be in attendance the upon

little his own

authentic dressed

has

principle

to the Conference

to an end with of Europe,

and

momentous it, too, has

in 1965."3

of Montreal

also a large international the French Revolutionary

conflict.

Like

the

and Napoleonic in the political changes been followed by a new

political interest in principles of security. The principles of the incipient post-Cold War settlement have no Woodrow Wilson (or no Castlereagh) and no imposing Congress. But they already have

Emma

Rothschild

Cambridge, 53

England.

is Director

of the Centre

for History

and Economics,

King's

College,

54

Emma Rothschild

an epigram in the idea, much since 1989, of the security discussed an as of "common of individuals policy: object of international at the pro or look This will "human essay security." security" in a historical

posed new principles are not conspicuously troublesome questions

and

critical

perspective. They seen, and they suggest new, to have it means about what (or to act on) are statements a "principle concise of neither of security." They nor received wisdom (like Castlereagh's "just equilibrium"), inspi el national for "well-defined rational (like the self-determination ements"

as will

embodied

ment

of 1945).

in new But

Four

Wilson's

of Woodrow

been

be

international

this disorderliness

have

not

(like the settle organizations is also a strength; the inter

national politics of the post-Cold War world

is itself disorderly,

in this It is closer, intermittently inspirational. only to the politics than to Versailles of Vienna of the Congress as will be seen, to the it is particularly close, Francisco; and

verbose, respect, or San

politics pluralist order of 1815. The

they

Principles);

war

standard,

of

the generation

that

preceded

the new

world

taken as a has been Revolution the French against to Metternich at least since Henry Kissinger's encomium

and Castlereagh,

for the long Cold War. But it is the ideas of the

that Revolution itself, or at least of its early and liberal supporters, in the post-Cold War settlement. have become conspicuous newly disen liberalism of the 1990s?a internationalism" The "liberal from its nineteenth-century in Stanley Hoffmann's words, gaged, close to the liberal self-determination"?is of national "embrace to or Smith.4 So is the commitment Adam ism of Kant, Condorcet,

in such

of a revolutionary "The essence "civil society."5 is its self-consciousness," wrote; "principles," Kissinger talked a situation, "are so central that they are constantly

about."6

My

an

international

situation

objective

is to describe

the distinctively

self-conscious

principles of the 1990s, and their possible political consequences. These

principles ideas including

are evocative, of security?of

as will

be seen, of the liberal ideas? the end of the eighteenth century.

But they also hold out the promise of a different liberal theory; of so in particular, the dichotomies from that is freed, theory versus French of English of the 1815 characteristic settlement, versus or international domestic of politics. liberalisms,

a

EXTENDED

55

is Security?

What SECURITY

idea, in the new principles of the 1990s,

The ubiquitous in an

sense.

"extended"

security In the forms.

The

extension

takes

is of

four main

is extended of security from the first, the concept to the security of groups it is and individuals: of nations to individuals. In the second, it from nations downwards

security extended

to

of nations security a or of system, supranational from the nation upwards,

is extended

from

international it is extended

of the security environment: physical to the biosphere. The

the

the

in both cases, is in the sorts of entities whose is extension, security to be ensured. In the third operation, is the concept of security or are to sorts in extended the of that ques horizontally, security tion. Different entities and "sys nations, (such as individuals, cannot

tems")

the concept

to be

be expected of security

secure

or

insecure

in the

same

is extended,

from military way; therefore, or to political, secu "human" economic, social, environmental, the political for ensuring rity. In a fourth operation, responsibility

security (or for invigilating all these "concepts of security") is itself extended: it is diffused in all directions from national states, to international to downwards institutions, upwards or to local and government, regional sideways nongovernmental to public opinion and the press, and to the abstract organizations, including

forces

of nature

or of the market.

new principles of the proposed is in these terms of geometry to But close this scheme has be dizzying complexity. something come virtually a commonplace of international discus political on the security sions in the 1990s. The emphasis and sovereignty The

was of conspicuous of individuals, for example, Eastern and in particular revolutions, European

(following John Stuart Mill);

importance to Vaclav

in the Havel

"the sovereignty of the community,

sense only the region, the nation, the state," Havel wrote, "makes if it is derived from the one genuine is, from the sovereignty?that of the human The of sovereignty being."7 foreign policy speeches the Clinton administration contained in references 1993 repeated or "human" and 1994 to extended to "a new security, including nature of the and of national understanding meaning security and of

the

role

Commission

of

individuals

on Global

and

nation-states."8

Governance

was

The

the exponent,

international in 1995,

of

56

Emma Rothschild

extended vertically from its traditional

"Global be broadened security: security must focus on the security of states to the security of the planet."9 The United Nations Pro Development

and

people

gram took as the principal theme of its 1994 Human Development the transition

Report or to

"the

from

"such

"from

basic

concept chronic threats

from sudden "protection Nations Secretary-General through," institutions

security

as hunger, and hurtful

to human

security," as safety defined security," disease and repression," and

The United disruptions."10 in 1995 for a "conceptual break armed territorial (as in the security"

called

going "beyond of 1945) towards in their homes,

rity of people

enhancing jobs and

or protecting communities."11

"the

secu

ideas of extended security are hardly new in the 1990s.

These They

nuclear

of human

are

a development,

common

to

take

one

example,

of

the

idea

of

security put forward in the 1982 Report of the Palme

Commission.

Common

was

in the Report, in understood, sense. as a way to restricted for nations presented in their the of nuclear "states presence weapons: organize security can no longer at each other's seek security it can be expense; security It was

a quite

attained

But the Report only through cooperative undertakings." also pointed towards extensive several more One was conceptions. that security should be thought of in terms of economic and as as well is a that military objectives; political, security military means,

while

security

the

economic

or

the

social

"to

of

their

own

citizens

of

of individuals, security in a manner chart futures

or the political

that follows

when

"the

interna

security were of peaceful and orderly [is] capable change" was in themselves. ends Another that lasting should be security on an effective founded of order." As "international system Cyrus

choosing," tional system

arms are "the problems of nuclear and conventional wrote, in the international reflections of weaknesses It is a weak system. structure of laws and norms of it lacks a significant system because

Vance

behaviour conception and one "popular duction

are accepted

and observed by all states." A third a as as a condition, is much process security are individuals in which the participants and groups? wrote in his intro and political" Olof Palme opinion, which was

that

as governments to the Report?as well and states.12 in The new security ideas of the early 1980s were the reflection, or so a "Over earlier discussions. the past decade turn, of many

vast

interest have array of public organizations begun of national forward alternate conceptions security," Richard

to put Ullman

in 1983 of the debate in the United States over extended or

wrote

redefined feature

security.13 of the entire settlement.

postwar 1945, in which

in Nationalism "security it would

in which

the power which sovereignty 1919

The

to maintain

they as "the

settlement

shall not

alism"?"we of more

were indeed an intermittent proposals Cold War and even of the preceding period, Such

in E. H. Carr had thus argued historian for a "system of pooled and After, security" was a prime objective, and for the individual" secu to "divorce become international possible

rity and

it from

Commonwealth, "functional" internationalism

emphasis

rights

woman..

the previous nation fissiparous and

states'"?was

sovereign in the diminution

security of the 1990s: the rights

a world

hardly of national

of

to the sphere

of the national

the

or to to

group

man

individual

of international

the

is a "shift in

its premise

and well-being

and well-being

.transferred

of

states (the United States, But his "social" the Soviet Union). is strikingly close, nonetheless,

and

from

the national

and

"multinational"

British

the extended

view

represent." last triumph of the old of twenty, again see a Europe

sixty, 'independent nor was his confidence in existing

frontiers

Carr's

than

prescient; sentiment

the

57

is Security?

What

and

organization."14

PRINCIPLES OF SECURITY The

new

in the embark

with these old ideas corresponds, political preoccupation to new political to "It is not profitable interests. 1990s, on the fine analysis of a definition unless we have decided

on

the purpose for which the definition is wanted," John Hicks over said of the economists' the definition of capi dispute or definitions tal.15 One purpose of principles of security is thus to some sort of guidance to the policies made provide by govern once

ments. Principles of security may be derived or described by theo rists, but they are followed or held by officials. This iswhat could be described security,

as the

in that

"naive"

it assumes

view

of

the debate

that principles

are

over

principles

indeed

important

of in

the organization of policy. It is this view that was dismissed with condescension by Castlereagh in his famous State Paper of 1820 about

the "principles"

of

intervention

by one European

power

in

Emma Rothschild

58 the

internal

of

affairs

another

(in this

case,

the

constitutional

in Spain). Great Britain, said, Castlereagh can be expected, or can venture in Europe which on any Question character_This of an abstract

revolution Govt. Herself

and will cannot, of Precaution."16

not,

act upon

abstract

and

"is the

speculative

last

to commit country Principles

A second purpose of principles of security is to guide public opinion

about

policy,

to suggest

a way

of thinking

about

security,

or principles to be held by the people on behalf of whom policy is gave as the reason Castlereagh circumstances of British the peculiar and national Government strongly popular, to be made. ims"

one

"max for his prudent "a of System politics:

in its character," and Discussion in our Parlia

in which

"daily opinion," "public situation of the Government" Political and "the General ment," are of decisive for foreign policy.17 But public opinion importance or concepts. Some crises are "intel is itself influenced by principles ligible" scription, influenced epigrams of fairly statesmen,

or

to the public mind, in Castlereagh's de are not, and the process is of recognition or for The quest security. principles by ideas about been of foreign policy has for this reason (among others) to nineteenth and twentieth-century interest consistent was intellectual and to their adjuncts. Equilibrium recognizable while others

"Castlereagh's the idea Even popular Howard's

favourite of

to J. A. R. Marriott.18 as most compelling use to Michael "reassurance,"

word," according was nuclear deterrence

idea; an idea which term.19

provided

a

or definitions is of security of principles A third, related purpose is of policy to contest To dispute the foundations existing policies. in a strongly of one way?an often effective way system popular one to which for policies subvert public support government?to thus of security was in new concepts interest The is opposed.

encouraged, in the late 1970s and 1980s, by quite disparate groups. Critics of theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) nuclear current de whether for example, questioned policies, even threat the and doctrines against security, provided ployments and less confrontational different and supported of nuclear war, critics Other measures"). (such as "confidence-building policies Yet others, to all "offensive" were military deployments. opposed over interna domestic favored in the United States, particularly

weapons

is Security?

What tional commitments; as more described and other,

expenditure civil (and

59

security were than objectives military security, on defense was to expenditure on compared ex often domestic) The politics of objectives. economic

and

environmental

fundamental

tended security is substantially different in the 1990s, in that it has as well as the critics of the theorists establish engaged military ments. If security is the objective of military and intelligence orga and if the sources of insecurity have changed in charac nizations,

ter (with the end of the Cold War), the role

of

the

forces"

"security new old policies and to promote The fourth and crudest purpose

then a condition for redefining is redefining ones. of principles

influence directly the distribution of money interest

organization

example,

might itwould

hope

concerned that

with

security: of

to contest

security

is to

and power. A public

environmental ideas

of

for programs, environmental

by promoting in government such bring about a change policy was on more on and spent military deployments, A change in the objectives of policy from programs. to economic a would in government security bring change

security, that less money environmental military

from ministries to ministries of defense of commerce expenditure or of foreign A in the definition relations. of military change of conflicts the of security to include the prevention by deployment an or forces would a de peacekeeping increase, prevent bring on military in expenditure forces. The keenest crease, of extended in the 1990s, include officials security, tions (such as the United Nations and its development humanitarian, from changes

nongovernmental in international

proponents of organiza

organizations)

or agencies, that would benefit

towards policy academics who

on civil expenditure have benefited from

also include They resilient foundations for support by US and European on extended the for which this projects security projects (including several of these foundations, in turn, have essay was prepared); had the objective or of influencing contesting existing security policies.20 concern The main of this essay is nonetheless with the first of as of security, described above: with the purpose principles objectives. the fairly

naive,

or naive

principles, in speaking

that principles, abstract idealist, position including to international do matter policy. himself, Castlereagh of the maxims of British prudence, was setting out the

60

Emma Rothschild of a policy Such principles

or systematic abstract repudiated prin are a to gov ciples. perhaps important especially ernment whose situation" (in Castlereagh's "general political depends on the "public mind." One of the presumptions of eigh words) principles

that

teenth-century liberal thought was that people tend to think in principles; Adam Smith suggested to statesmen that they "will be more

to persuade"

likely from

derive

beholding Gentz wrote

was

suited

an account

of

not

with

satisfied

evoke

the pleasure that people of public As police."21

"a great system in 1820 of Castlereagh's it memorandum, to a government, "owes such as England's, which

Friedrich well

if they

its conduct an order

to Parliament, and to a nation which is in the gazettes, which wants of business

to know the why and the wherefore of everything ('le pourquoi du pourquoi').'"22

"Politics would be led into frequent errors, were on

the presumption, confidently ment is a criterion of its conduct," One

earlier. matter

likewise

generally

WHAT

be confessed, sacrificed

are oftener

misleading ciples,

that

Gentz "the

true

himself interest

it to build too

of every govern a few years wrote of

a nation

is a

the conception of which and uncertainty; contem in is view it which the of upon point greatly course to one." the choose the of and upon proper ability was "it of the public and the private: the intertwining

depends

states

was

interest

the

extent

of much

plated, Another must

reason

that

imagined."23 as the naive including

that

even

the

immediate

interests

to private views and passions, is a naive that is at There realism

principles

idealism of

of

the unending

search

of

than

is

least

as

for prin

security.

IS SECURITY?

The idea of security has been at the heart of European political It is also an since the crises of the seventeenth century. thought senses "secu of the word like the idea whose significance, political or over time. The has permissive plural continually rity," changed as an objective of individuals and istic understanding of security, as that has been claimed of states?the groups as well understanding charac of extended security?was by the proponents from the mid-seventeenth of the in century teristic, period general, sense of the to the French Revolution. The principally military in the 1990s

What

61

is Security?

in which is an objective of states, to be security "security," an was or military achieved by contrast policies, by diplomatic of the in the of of much innovation, Revolutionary Europe, epoch seen throughout the pe Wars. But security was and Napoleonic

word

as a condition

riod

consistent

both

of

individuals

the sense

sense?and

and

states.

of

ismost

that

Its most

for modern

suggestive or an objective, indeed of a condition, politics?was a and states or between individuals constituted relationship

international that

societies.

"My definition of the State," Leibniz wrote in 1705, "or of what the Latins call Respublica is: that it is a great society of is common

which

the object For Montesquieu,

was

security

(ela seuret? commune')."24 in the definition of the state,

security a term

and also in the definition of freedom: "political freedom consists or

one has of one's which opinion an is It is some of individuals. here, Security, objective security."25 are to interest individuals give up other thing in whose prepared a on It is that individual sentiments?the good depends goods. in security,

at

in the

least

one has of one's security?and that opinion other the sentiments, including disposition risks, or to plan for the future.

in turn makes of

individuals

possible to take

The understanding of security as an individual good, which persisted throughout the liberal thought of the eighteenth century, re ideas. The Latin noun earlier political "securitas" a to in its classical condition of of use, ferred, individuals, primary a particularly inner sort. It denoted of composure, tranquillity from care, freedom the condition that Cicero the called spirit, or "the absence of anxiety upon which "object of supreme desire," reflected

the happy

life depends." One in the Lexicon

"securitas," of being

feeling

opposed spirit:

meaning, it denoted

secure.26 still not

of the principal

synonyms

is "Sicherheitsgef?hl": Taciteum, a different The word later assumed

in relation

freedom

from

to

the

inner

condition

care but carelessness

for the and

of

the

or negli

gence.

Adam Smith, in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, used the word "security"

in Cicero's

or

Seneca's

sense,

of

the

superiority

to

suffering that the wise man can find within himself. In theWealth of Nations, security is less of an inner condition, but it is still a condition of individuals. Smith indeed identifies "the liberty and

62

Emma Rothschild of individuals"

as the most

for the important prerequisites of is understood, here, as development security public opulence; from the prospect freedom of a sudden or violent attack on one's on It is in this sense the object of expenditure person or property.27 to itself.28 There is no reference justice, and of civil government security

on de in Smith's discussion of expenditure security, by contrast, fense first the of that of the ("the sovereign, duty protecting from the violence and invasion of other soci society independent or is The mentioned that of the eties").29 only security sovereign as an individual, or what would now be described as magistrate the internal Smith argues that if a sovereign security of the state: to has a standing himself army protect discontent, against popular

then he will feel himself to be in a condition of "security" such that he can permit his subjects considerable liberty of political "remonstrance."30

The from

of security the prospect,

been of decisive word

in this

individuals and

thus

the

fear,

of personal

importance to liberal political a new

in fact assumed

"security"

public

early, liberal period of the French Revolution. of man,

in Tom

sense

sense?the

Paine's

translation

of

to the public the Terror, during In Condorcet's for Public Safety.

thought.31 The

significance

tion

of Rights society accords

in 1793, to each

consists

"security

in the

The natural rights

the Declaration

safety outline

freedom

violation?has

of Liberty, of August consisted 1789, of Man Rights Resistance of and Security?or Security, Oppression. was a private it was of individuals: still a condition posed, mittee

of

of

the

Property, "s?ret?"?

right, op (salut) of the Com of a new Declara

which the protection of his person, conceived, still, in terms

of

for the conservation

citizen, his property, and his rights." Security was scholar Alengry of freedom from personal attack; the constitutional as "close in of Condorcet's 1904, security, conception explained was to be ensured, to the Anglo-Saxon It idea of habeas corpus."31 or the the "social "social guaran henceforth, pact" by by society: tee" of a universal

civil

society. in the reform of security was extended, guarantee to include protection sudden of the same period, against The

deterioration

proposals or violent

in the standard of living of individuals. Leibniz had

after urged the rulers of Germany turn, once the (military) "security"

in 1697 to of Ryswick of their countries was ensured,

the Peace

63

is Security?

What

an "Assecurations to a project of social insurance against accidents, or a was a civil he like a ship or a Casse"; said, society, republic Condorcet's directed towards "common welfare."33 company, project a wider a had of social almost century later, security, political to be provided The new for social schemes insurance, objective. or were to either by public intended establishments, by private "the number of families whose lot is prevent misery by increasing to bring about a different sort of society, or "something secured," never a rich, active, which before existed has anywhere, populous the existence of a poor and corrupted class."34 The nation, without

economic security of individuals was itself of political significance, as the condition

for an active

should

to take decisions

be able

favor."35

and

emies

politics. in his

of

Fear, of liberal

destitution,

decisions,

the

about

their

central

idea of

is that all individuals lives

"without

fear or

for Condorcet the en fear, were so insecure as to live in fear If people were not free to take then scheme, they were fear of

to be part

the decision

including

The

society.

political

liberalism, in Judith Shklar's description,

of a political

society.

Individual security, in the liberal thought of the Enlightenment, is thus both an individual and a collective good. It is a condition, an objective, in some achieved and

in this

of

But

sort of collective

from

sense,

individuals.

the

inner

and

it is one

that

can

It is quite

enterprise. introspective

security

be

only

different, of Roman

political thought. It is different, too, from the security with which individuals humanitarian

can

or charitable or endowed, by a benevolent It is something that individuals authority. get for or contractual in a collective The enterprise. enterprise be

themselves, is in turn something

to be endlessly

is not good in itself, without achieved.

The

state

(together as guilds or communities, the state) can be a source both

such

is itself

oppressive.36 for individuals:

revised

and

reviewed.

Security

regard to the process by which

it is

with

small collectivities powerful under the protection of operating of insecurity and of a security that

Its most

is to ensure function important "of all the words which console and reas wrote before the Revolution, is the "justice

justice sure men," Condorcet one which the oppressor does not dare to pronounce, while only on is the of all humanity lips tyrants."37 as a The new idea of security to be collective principally good, or ensured came means?the idea that into by military diplomatic

Emma Rothschild

64 European

Napoleonic had been earliest like

in the period of the Revolutionary and states different. Individuals and strikingly as similes at least since Grotius's for one another,

prominence Wars?was seen

on natural

writings

just as

states,

states

were to be individuals rights; thought states were like individuals.38 The of security

too?the external, attack, military of the M?nster deliberations pads

against the assecuratio

or

"Sicherheit" before

the Treaty

been a commonplace of political discussion in

ofWestphalia?had

the eighteenth indeed spoke throughout century.39 Herder in of the "Or with 1774, sarcastically, continuing preoccupation the security der and Security," with of Europe and the world

Germany

("Ordnung und Sicherheit der Welt"), and with "Uniformity, Peace und Sicherheit").40 But in Friede Security" ("Einf?rmigkeit, " as sense in the of collective the words "s?ret?, France, England, most and "security" was an innovation, "s?curit?," conspicuously, and

of the very

end of

the eighteenth

century.

Itwas in themilitary period of the French Revolution, was

of individuals security in the security of the nation. like Locke or Montesquieu, contract, much that

the

gram,

above all,

as a political subsumed, epi Rousseau described the social as the outcome

of the

desire of individuals for security of life and liberty: "this is the to which of the state provides the institution problem was But the ensuing itself like an indi collectivity a or will. with individual International order?like vidual, unique a in Rousseau's "relation between war, states, description?was not a relation For Kant, men."42 both and between individuals fundamental

the solution."41

states

seek

"calm

and

security"

in law:

in the case of states,

public security ("?ffentlichen Staatsicherheit") system.43 Rousseau's

was who himself, profoundly a as the will of conception general

Condorcet

in the

of a cosmopolitan to

opposed foundation

of

political choice (and to his idea of national education to inculcate patriotic security. collectivity:

ible with

virtues), too He

was

of military up in the new rhetoric caught of the by 1792 of the security or "s?ret?"

spoke France would

accept

peace,

of the state."44 security Paine's of translation

the Declaration

can be seen, indeed, as one of the uses in the old sense. The great public

1791

he said,

"the independence of national

if itwere

compat

sovereignty, with

the

in of the Rights of Man last great uses of the word in the new, of "security"

What sense

national

even more

can be dated

precisely.

is Security? Before

65

the Con

gress of Vienna assembled in 1814, the victorious Allies signed the First Peace words

of Paris with

government

"paternal

In the the newly restored King of France. was once again to become, under the a guarantee of its Kings," of "security and

France

of the Treaty,

stability" ("un gage de s?curit? et de stabilit?") for Europe. The of the coming the new French government negotiations, at the formal opening was to "ensure of the Congress, the was now one of in the the which the world"; tranquillity epoch

object stated

to restore, in the "mutual had joined together rela great powers tions of states," "the security of thrones" s?ret? "la des tr?nes").45 ( INTERNATIONAL

SECURITY

The new security principles of the end of the twentieth century a rediscovery,

constitute

of sorts, of this late eighteenth and early meta One of the celebrated politics. political

nineteenth-century phors of the post-Cold

War is Gunter of the un Grass's, period of the of conserved for half germs nationalism, freezing European a century in the ice of Cold War confrontation. But there is

another, less biotic metaphor, internationalism but

rather

(and military)

its constant tended

to

it is the politics of liberal

not after half a century, unfrozen: of confrontation, between militant revolution and militant conservatism. "It was the in itsMilitary power more particularly Character," that has been

after

Revolutionary

Castlereagh

inwhich

two

centuries

said in 1820, that was for the Alliance and

solicitude," take Precautions."46

against The

the "object of

"it in which, exclusively, identification of revolution

or with its military its prodigious and offensive character, success?the of Custine's and memory armies, military Napoleon's and the transposition of this memory into the identification of with

Revolutionary

preoccupation

France

and

Soviet

Russia?has

of subsequent politics. of Soviet

been

a continuing

It is only with or rather with

the final the disen

power, military in the early 1990s, of Russian from the gagement, power military Soviet rhetoric of revolution, that the long militarization of conti nental political to an at least temporary confrontation has come end. disintegration

66

Emma Rothschild It was

"the problem of peace and war," of the French Revolution

for Fran?ois

Furet, that in people's

course

in the

"prohibited, to the political crisis."47 any liberal solution are 1791 in the The political of prospects poignantly incongruous or militaristic of two centuries of militarized revolution: retrospect and

minds

in events,

the proposed to be Minister But

the liberal

solutions

more

convincing

now,

Affairs.48 perhaps

was in which for example, Condorcet and Talleyrand Minister of Foreign

governments, of Finance,

in the early envisaged at least in international

than they have been for much

1790s

are

relations,

of the intervening period. This

seems not

to be the opinion, in any case, of liberalism's if opponents, is the of its (characteristically) muted "Liberalism supporters.

the title of an article in 1992 by the English

real enemy" was critic

conservative the

Peregrine Worsthorne, in East Berlin reunion"

"regimental guard of Encounter": communism

about

red herring, a much was

gantic which

two

The mon

the conclusion,

in which of

he

recounted

"the

old remaining that "worrying a gi militarily?was

he said, was

intellectually?as against attention intellectual from liberalism, deflecting more of civilisation."49 enemy dangerous or "com constituents of "human security"

principal in the

insistence

on human

rights and with the "internationalization" of politics? preoccupation were For liberalism. of late Enlightenment also the preoccupations a as to of human describe question J?nos Kis, something rights is 1990s?the

security"

the

to the international "as it as of concern community: identify human under kind, minority rights belong rights of a particular "Our policies? of nations."50 of the community the protection to

out of Vaclav Havel says, "must grow domestic," out of the idea of human ideas, above all rights."51 The opponents or last hurrah, of a them as the outcome, of such policies present and

foreign

half

century

of Western

hegemony,

of

the epoch

that

began,

for

one leading political figure in Singapore, with the imposition on a temporarily

international

powerless

society

of the Universal

Decla

ration of Human Rights of 1948.52 But the human rights of 1948 are

also

what lution These which

the

of

rights

Condorcet, in Europe,

the American

and

of the influence speaking as "the natural described

rights begin the includes

with

"the

assurance

or Revolutions, Revo of the American

French

rights of humanity." a security one's of person, security one not that will be troubled by

61

is Security?

What

facul one's either within violence, family or in the use of one's and the free enjoyment "the security ties," and proceed, through to the right of political The of one's property," participation.53 new political in 1990s is the also the rhetoric of human security old

The

"internationalization," evocative of older oddly

the extension

with

to

rights. in the post-Cold discussions. political

War One

of liberal thought in the late Enlightenment

of the preoccupations was

international

of

politics is also

period,

or

of natural

rhetoric

of rights to individual security, not citizens who were of

or rights state

of

free

(as

in humanity, to to and which the rights were asserted: women, children, being to the propertyless within the territory of the state. and dependent or women, in Kant's could not account, Laborers, shop assistants, individuals

or

be citizens

they were

But

"co-lawmakers."

the

nonetheless

human beings) and equal (as subjects); they were entitled to the or partners in protection.54 of law as "co-beneficiaries," or at in extension of this least of the right stage, rights, was to to protection, its further enlargement individuals outside

protection The next

the state or political was phrase,

Kant's

If the public territory. security of the state, in to be achieved in a cosmopolitan (a only in one state must then individuals be system,

"weltb?rgerlichen") or co-partners, co-citizens

in some

sense,

with

individuals

else

where.

The international politics of individual security was indeed seen, much

as

it has

exorable

been

seen

in the

"internationalization"

as the consequence 1990s, of political, and economic,

of an social

life. If one thinks of the half century from the 1770s to the 1820s as a single example, two"?then

of Condorcet and Talleyrand, for epoch?the epoch in which "cut time in and not the epoch the Revolution itwas a period of intense interest in new international

relationships

It was

of different

sorts.55

increased

information

tremendously tries, and of quite

self-conscious

about

reflection

a time, for example, of events in other coun on

the political

conse

quences of this information.56 The dissatisfaction

of the English

cursory public with du pourquoi"?was

in "le pourquoi

as Gentz century affairs

wrote.

official

gazettes?their an essential element

In Germany,

interest

in Castlereagh's politics, the last too, quarter of the eighteenth with "the internal journals concerned

saw an explosion of of states and with international

relations."57

Condorcet

68

Emma Rothschild

himself

spent much

the

as a journalist,

of the Revolution

was excoriated by Robespierre:

for which

he

"hack writers hold in their hands

of

said, and Lafayette, sup Robespierre peoples," to power risen would have surrounded ported by Condorcet, "by an army of journalists," and lifted on "a pile of pamphlets."58 was with A second preoccupation the increase not only in inter destiny

information?the

national

of events

had

ence. The

actions

in other

country influ

events in one country caused actually in his denunciation of the international

of people

countries.

in one that people also in international

knowledge countries?but

in other

Herder,

culture of information (what he described as the "Papierkultur!"), of the "shadow"

spoke

"power one movement was

only but ordinary influence, "The prodigious well. in all parts

increase of

of

society."60 A third

can be convulsed."59 exercised

new,

as companies) and colonial

(or ordinary trading of the commercial

was Gentz the most the world," wrote, "in the political world since the Treaty of trans it and also transformed continents,

concern

a great

of

states,

It

distant

itself: "it has even been the groundwork

formed Europe interior

citizens

development It had

significant Westphalia."

the entire world, and of the "with one impulse, with

times:

of the finger, entire nations who and sovereigns princes

not

system

over

of Europe of modern

and machines"

was

revolution

the increased

with

in all

the

in the

relations

of

in interna

effectiveness,

tional relations, of official policy. Castlereagh concluded that the Spanish crisis of 1820 did not constitute "a practical and intelli gible Danger, capable of being brought home to the National Feeling,"

and was

not

sufficient,

therefore,

to justify military

inter

vention by the British. But he emphasized that Britain could indeed have undertaken such an effort if she had wished to do so. Britain had

equal

"perhaps

intelligible danger: this new power was the defeat of France. international

State" any other power with can effect."61 "she interfere with own military for other states,

Britain's But

interference

were

greatly

to oppose One source

an of

superiority, following of the possibilities

too, increased.

look

Condorcet,

ing ahead in 1792 to the formation of an independent federation of

small German

states,

pointed

possible the rapid movement new

federation)

of

"troops"

out

that new

canals

would

make

(if requested for the defense of the and

"munitions"

from

France.

He

also

a fearsome

foresaw

"There

world

be no more

would

69

is Security?

What

interventions:

of multiple military or peace on freedom

if each

earth,

government thought it had the right to employ force to establish in countries

foreign its own The

it considers

which

the principles

to

to be useful

interests."62

increased

concern was modern evocatively itself. Castlereagh international politics

and most

fourth

of

scope

with

the

insisted

on the intelligibility of international problems as a precondition that they should in his state paper To "the public mind."63

the requirement he describes repeatedly

for international

interference?on

mean

to what something as "public sentiment," "public some about have information

opinion,"

event

foreign

is a necessary

condi

tion, evidently, if an individual (or "the public") is to recognize that event as being of political importance. To have the possibility or

to

power

with

"interfere

is also

effect"

necessary;

political

obligations, like moral obligations, are bounded by the limits of the possible, or of what Castlereagh called the practical. To have that one

the sentiment the event is of

in question?the

further

Hume

in some

sort of causal

relationship We

importance. political "bears by that which

said, with associated way that of ourselves."64

The

stands

us";

"its

of influence, are inspired

a relation

idea must

societies for the abolition

relationship for example?

hang

to us"

or

to

to passion, is in "some

in a manner,

upon

of slavery in the 1780s and

in which des Noirs, for example, the saw to "the first step" revolution? Playfair

Amis

1790s?Condorcet's

William pamphleteer a even outside illustration.65 the colonial Slavery, good provide was as a and territory, political problem recognized by British in part because itwas so evidently French public opinion related to British

and

to British and French policy, to the tastes of British and French

French

laws

and

com

consumers and even merce, (the taste for sugar, which British abolitionists?or "Anti-Saccharites"? in one of the first political revolts of modern refused consumers).66 or at of This the least of the recognition political importance,

political intelligibility, of the destinies of distant individuals was indeed a principal indicator, in some of the greatest liberal thought, of political where the Condorcet

of a great people spectacle to all others," is useful respected on the influence of the Ameri in his observations

enlightenment rights of man wrote

itself.

are

"The

70

Emma Rothschild

can

us that these rights are in Europe: "It teaches the same."67 Kant used the same image of a spectacle, of the French Revolution. An "occur later, in speaking

Revolution

everywhere a few years rence in our

own

unbounded

future."

times," The

he wrote, occurrence

has

revealed

was

a view

a disposition;

"into

the

it was

the

in

sympathy of disinterested spectators for the French Revolution, which

"their

as a whole

mankind

EXTENDED The of

reaction

of

(because shares a certain

SECURITY AND EXTENDED

its universality) proves in common."68 character

that

POLICIES

of the new ideas or principles of security shortcoming as was is their inclusiveness: the 1990s, earlier, suggested

obvious the

dizzying complexity of a political geometry which

("tous azimuts")

in

states, and international groups, organizations for international states, groups, organizations, responsibilities was or also a This individuals. inclusiveness, incoherence, individuals,

have and

characteristic vidual) logical

the earlier

of

One

security. incoherence.

liberalism

much

discussed

If the

individual

of

international was

problem is expected

(and indi that of psycho to recognize the

then she may however remote, individuals, rights of all other or find herself so overbur less remote individuals, other, disregard of (political) that she does noth dened by the process recognition

ing about anything: this is the old charge against liberalism (Edmund or irresolution, or both. of coldness, for example), charge, more is of political incoher serious and The second problem ence. The principal in connotation of individual modern security as has been seen, is as a relation between the thought, political

Burke's

individual and the state: security is an objective of individuals, but or political can only be achieved in a collective process. or state security, in the sense that became the idea of national in which the refers to a collective after 1815, process widespread or are themselves states: the Westphalian settlement, participants one

that

Even

or the equilibrium But of Europe. federation, cosmopolitan seems new to international of the "human the security" principles The security of that are only tenuously relations political. impose an individual in one country is to be achieved the agency through

Kant's

of

group, (or a substate The individual country.

a state

another

or a suprastate in organization) is thereby very much less than a

in the political that en sense, procedure a is less, even, than a co-beneficiary (like wife or a even not in is she partner being protected. evident of the new principles character poses

in Kant's

co-lawmaker, sures security.

She

a shop assistant); The nonpolitical To have problems. theory with

which

a right means have been

very

we

or original

contract

for

in the

little,

if one

concerned,

of the right. Adam Smith, like Hume, tacit

71

is Security?

What

individual

that it ignored the consciousness

liberal is not

political conscious

criticized the theory of a security

on

the grounds

of individual political subjects:

cannot be bound of it, and therefore by "they are not conscious were not conscious of their if individuals it."69 For Condorcet, not or did not understand then their rights were them, rights, arguments "real"; this was one of his principal of the new But the beneficiaries instruction.70 are not sense.

likely to be conscious especially is "troubled individual who The

to ask for protection

know who

for universal

public

international

policies in this subjects political not does violence" by

(which agency of the United

lan and in what organization, nongovernmental no political recourse not is if the she has protection guage?), of poorly and only incipi The interposition understood provided. even more some in is circumstances, insidious, rights ently political which

Nations,

and

if the

assertion

of

a new

international more

right resilient

has

the

effect

of

a local and potentially process. political subverting of the the humanitarian One of the charges made against policies is indeed 1990s that by depoliticizing of emergency procedures the local politics in which individual relief, they tend to subvert and which constitutes participants, subjects are conscious source of continuing consistent security.71 is that the new policies nonetheless, My suggestion, vidual feature sense

and

international

are

to be

the only of

indi

a continuing effort to make

security likely in the post-Cold War period. The of politics to make of them, and in particular them less

inclusive,

is

thereby of continuing importance. The changes that led in the late

dence,

century increase

to a new

preoccupation in news, in economic in the effectiveness of international

eighteenth tion?the

with and

internationaliza

cultural

intervention, events?are distant

interdepen and in the

of also the recognition political is very of the end of the twentieth There century. preoccupations an to in that international which little, still, corresponds politics consequent

72

Emma Rothschild

distant an

are co-citizens,

individuals

or co-participants. But there is some it and sorts, imposes of international justice.

international

form

of

society, political on the principles for the prevention of violent

of reflection

Policies tration.

idea of the prevention the deterrence of nuclear offense, can

vention

now

be made and

the

one provide as distinct war,

conflict

of nuclear was

between or

frightening

illus from

to the importance A similar distinc

of central

idea of common

Commission's

Palme tion

The

security. the cooperative of pre enterprise forceful of deterrence: enterprise

or insecurity, or the enforcement of injustice of new of for discussion collective has rights. security policies to a considerable been concerned since 1991, with extent, prin "intervention": circumstances of with the under which (in ciples to Condorcet's should force establish terms) governments employ the deterrence The

in foreign If there are well-trained countries. interna principles to intervene at the early stages it is argued, prepared tional forces,

of crises, then military conflicts will be less likely to begin; if conflicts do begin, they will end earlier and with less violence.72 is deterrence, of a new, enlightened, not the same enterprise But it is complexion.

and

This

the effort to ensure, whether with that there will be no need ments, One

of

the

place one knows with

or nonmilitary military to intervene.

characteristics

distinctive

under

takes

conditions

internationalist

as prevention,

of

of

imperfect that a particular health) will public

certainty

prevention

or as instru is that

it

or before

information, conflict (or a particular occur. This makes it a

in preventive disease, It is easier, for international difficult cooperation. objective a to is intoler that international agree often, problem particular to must it?than able?that be done about agree either something as to the probability or on on predictions of future problems,

very

are different ex There of international policy. principles one in in interest of for the country "doing people planations or insecurity in countries: other that about injustice something" general

for example; that it is is something about, they know or care that there themselves about with; identify they something or can it. But these explanations, is something do about they are difficult to describe in a circumstanceless, universal criteria, the problem

idiom.

One

reflect

on what

does

not one

know

has

that

it in one's

one

cares

power

about to do,

or something, one until knows

What about

some

particular

injustice

or crisis:

until

73

is Security?

is to

that

the crisis,

say, has already been described, or until (asCastlereagh said) it is an

on

to commit oneself of venturing longer a question and there is something stract" question, "intelligible to be done. cable"

no

and

"ab

practi

to agree

for countries It is particularly therefore, difficult, on the "resort to force" by the international

in

advance

community. and sup of "unanimity As Castlereagh also said, of the prospect concurrence the allies of among upon all political subjects" posed

1820, "if this Identity is to be sought for, it can only be obtained in all the States."73 There is degree of inaction by a proportionate the extent of consensus about between thus no evident relationship a particular inter of the intervention and the efficiency military easier to intervene It is indeed often much in question. or when at a very early stage in a conflict, there is efficiently more it is its much future about considerable course; uncertainty

vention

at that stage, to agree that intervention is needed. The difficult, or use instruments of nonmilitary these circum choice is, under to It is conceive of difficult of considerable stances, importance. to have military in advance, force used against one. This agreeing, was one of the (several) unconvincing features of early post-World II schemes in which War for international recalcitrant government, were

to be

use

of force, to It is less difficult, nuclear weapons. agree on perhaps, including states do not, after all, rely only or less coercive policies. National on the use of force to ensure even principally for their security citizens. should have re The international too, society, incipient

participants

course

to civil policies

Nonmilitary They

include, new

recognize)

sanctioned

by

the punitive

conflict. for preventing as well can be constructive

as

policies for example,

coercive.

to for recognizing (or refusing policies can be made condi sovereignties. Recognition

tional on guarantees for individual rights, including the rights of can agree of minorities and other groups; countries in a space for reflection, to give themselves of the sort that was missing in the early stages of the current Balkan crisis, at the to recognize time of the European countries' decision Community can also agree on policies to support in 1991. They Croatia indi

members advance

vidual These

from punishing violations rights, as distinct are policies in which in the countries people

of these where

rights. rights are

74

Emma Rothschild

at risk are co-participants with people It is expensive, elsewhere. in to to in build schools which cases, many guarantee minority rights, can be educated or to provide in their first language, children

trilingual education for all children. Such policies could also pose familiar problems of "moral hazard" (in that they would tend to reward

in which

countries

the rights

be at risk). But international less an important component

would

are thought to is nonethe

of minorities

on education

expenditure of policies

for

security.

It

be in the spirit of the plans of the 1780s and 1790s:

of

of public instruction, project in their own be instructed would

in which for example, an in interna language,

Condorcet's children

individual

and in a third language of local importance.74 The language, eventu international should be in a position, society of the 1990s for these old liberal projects. support ally, to provide material tional

Policies for demilitarization new security principles as especially Cold War,

have suited

provide a related illustration. The since the end of the presented, to a period reconstruc of postwar

been

in the 1990s are indeed

tion. The problems of demobilization in some

to, and

similar earlier

even more respects The period of

settlements.

peace

for about

years

before

years,

twenty-three

than, those of economic (and

lasted for about four years inWorld War

political) mobilization seven

serious intense

and

I,

War II, and for during World the and Revolutionary during

intermittently, the Cold War mobilization lasted for more than Wars; to is in it difficult undo. But and other forty years, correspondingly is strikingly the present different. The postwar respects period

Napoleonic

a long international but it was not conflict, in the exhaustion, and revulsion celebration, was of 1815, force that characteristic of military

Cold War

was

a conflict

that ended

from

the use

indeed

1919, and 1945. The God ofWar

is defeated inDescartes' ballet of 1649, and the

limbs have been torn apart in an whose personification The Cold War has and renewed. restored early scene, reappears a in contrast, of been followed, rediscovery military force?by by of Earth,

a demobilization of

remilitarization military

of certain

forces

of

international the two

(principally nuclear) forces, and by relations.

superpowers

On

are more

the one

the hand, "usable" (in the

Gulf, or inChechnya). On the other hand, military conflicts within or between

other,

lesser powers

are uninhibited

by the prospect

of

is Security?

What an eventual the Cold War

superpower has been

for nuclear

disarmament,

The

confrontation.

since

of the end of promise the earliest negotiations of peaceful of a world

understood, as the promise It is the demilitarization

competition.75 political a proto-revolutionary flict between that has made ary "Right" But the post-Cold tionalism.

"Left"

75

and

the revival possible War conflicts have

of the long con a proto-reaction of liberal interna turned

out

to be

as the many small wars of the previous genera at least in to (Western) public opinion, tion. They are newly visible a new in Croatia and Bosnia; the case of the wars they constitute

at least as violent

to the incipient challenge have demonstrated they united

international

competition. The process

institutions

of

international

the powerlessness undivided community,

of demilitarization

is, under

of by these

order

even the

in that

a relatively superpower

circumstances, or common

of secu

of human, for policies individual, priority at states that are themselves in It is of importance rity. particular source are means of of violent but that the destruction peace, or the in Russia, the United elsewhere. Individuals States, France, high

to distant wars "bear a relation" (in Hume's Kingdom are or states in residents of that that license encourage they phrase) arms exports. to make One way conflicts less very large-scale is thus to sell and produce less military Both violent equipment.

United

have been important and the former Yugoslavia locations, transactions. Yet the effort for many of years, military-industrial arms to reduce is of strikingly transfers of conventional little

Somalia

in the post-Cold interest War world. "The right inherent political to ward in society off crimes against itself by antecedent precau a right to impose precau for John Stuart Mill, included tions," tions on the sale of articles, such as poisons, of which both proper use could be made are "adapted to be and improper (or which to instruments of crime"). The seller, he says "might be required in a register the exact time of the transaction, the name and address of the buyer, the precise quantity and quality sold; to ask it was wanted, the purpose for which and record the answer he enter

received."76 There are similar precautions in respect to articles that are adapted war: to be instruments of they should be an impor tant component of government and other for groups' policies international security.

76

Emma Rothschild

CIVIL SOCIETY STRATEGIES The

most

illustration

troublesome

with

nongovernmental scribed rather grandly of government power

or with

organizations, as the "civil has been

the new

of

society strategy."77 The dislike at the center of all liberal thought.

in L. T. Hobhouse's beginning," even in "destructive in protest, and State."78 Condorcet's the "modern

Its "historic found

against his revolutionary ence" the

in 1792, was or of "laws and institutions

quantity

dislike has been accompanied, that which voluntary

is not

government, for the associations, and "callings"

munities,"

the

action

and

electiveness, the nonidentity and

Condorcet,

which

to

reduce

of government."79

This

liberals, by a liking for

for many

in particular

"professions," that the not notably

described in his Essay on the History at

is to be

description,

protest, revolutionary" of idyll, at the height non-exist of the "virtual

career

of government, smallest possible

has to do policies what has been de

for

elective

or

"com

"divisions," liberal Adam Ferguson

of Civil Society}0

(The

more than liberals, important as For Adam for Turgot with government. Smith, of the coercive organizations nongovernmental least

was

for early

and corporations, guilds century?apprenticeship even more than government insidious for example?were itself.81) between Relations (and non organizations nongovernmental to the have been of central individuals) importance governmental the

eighteenth

of political internationalization as in the late Enlightenment. The is the work of nongovernment,

life

in the

increase of very

late twentieth in news

and

large private

individual

very powerful professional proprietors, relations their codes of conduct, companies, public in economic is the increase So also, to a great extent,

century, information

companies, societies with and and

so forth. cultural

to cause eco in one country of individuals power is the work of private in other countries social change that export military the companies equip (including companies as at more it much of than far was, indeed, governments: ment) The

influence.

nomic

and

the time of Grotius's defense of the (Dutch and English) view "that private

men,

or

private increased

companies, effectiveness

uncultivated occupy is itself a charac of policy

could

The territory."82 of nongovernmental teristic of the policies organizations There as of governments and international organizations.

as much are pri

What vate organizations charities private ian relief,

and

who (and compete

aspect

deliver

large airlines) with government to do

funding

government) The novel

emergency agencies

77

exchanges: humanitar

for public

(or

so. in the 1990s organizations or self-importance?the

of nongovernmental

new

is their

and hostage

cease-fires

negotiate

is Security?

self-consciousness, political The nongovern of a political theory of the "NGO." beginning in such a theory, as the uncorrupt, is identified, mental organization or the unbureacratic. individuals Relations between the uncynical, in different ents

and

between recipi relationship to be con assistance?are supposed the

societies?including of foreign donors

than through rather through NGOs possible, are NGOs licensed when the (even governments by governments, and organized funded by governments, by past and future govern ment officials). in this setting, consists The "civil society strategy," ducted,

wherever

of

effort

the

exchanges racy is not

on the basis of to organize relations international It "assumes that formal democ between organizations.

Its objectives include "funding independent enough." as "judiciary as well charitable and police," "developing and "developing and voluntary associations," nongovernmental it in At its most for government assistance.83 channels" specific,

media"

in the United from private foundations support to voluntary in societies and organizations professional it involves "to provide the effort At its most Russia.84 imposing, more in global for people and their organiza governance space volves

material

States

tions?for

civil

society

as distinct

from

governments."85

The new international politics of civil society, like the politics of individual security, is founded on old and important political of these ideas, and one that has been profound cen in of the twentieth all the great peace processes conspicuous is of identities. The the idea engage tury, multiple, overlapping ment in organizations, of individuals clubs, and soci professions, ideas.

The

eties has

most

been

seen,

at least

since Montesquieu,

of civilized and peaceable political

as a principal

sign

life. For Turgot the character

was to be found, "of being citizens" above all, in the "free or "societies" associations" of which Scotland and Ire "England, was to land are full."86 This peaceable citizenship thought provide istic

some

sort of security,

in turn,

against

international

Carr spoke before the end of World War

conflict.

E. H.

II of "a system of

78

Emma Rothschild

and overlapping the sole alternative tional"

is in the interlocking loyalties which to sheer totalitarianism." His "social" was

internationalism

to be

founded

(and later) described as civil society:

on what

last resort or "func

was

earlier

"local loyalties, as well as

to institutions, and groups must find their loyalties professions in if it is to any healthy place society. The international community flourish must admit something of the same multiplicity of authori ties and diversity of loyalties."87 World

a period of I, too, was civil society. Leonard Woolf,

War of

anxious

on

reflection

the

in a report

in prepared in the and novel Society, "extraordinary of international associations the prospect of spectacle" voluntary "true International Government." The increase in such organiza Internationale tions, some of which (like the "Association pour la

politics 1916 for the Fabian

contre

Lutte

le Ch?mage")

authorities,

municipal of national

group, international newly wrote turies. Woolf determined

saw

as

included

their members

"states, and every sort and kind individuals, private to the and association," society, corresponded cen life of the nineteenth and early twentieth "A man's

that

by the place

he

chief

interests

longer instead of in, and group interests, follow those of capital, labor, profes

lives

lines, geographical a century etc." Like Gentz, he sions, earlier, at coolness the assertion of national interest: following

when

we

are no

are called

what

looked

some

with

"Over

national

and

over

we

find interests, again, analyze that they are really the interests, not of the national, but of a much as smaller group." The geometry of the new international security, was to in the 1990s, In the association be distinctively variable. for example, Woolf found "both unemployment, or the vertical national and representation, geographical or international, horizontal for."88 provided against

Woolf

describes

himself

rible precipice of Utopianism" as the identified world war, which "would nationalism," from the

the outset delineation

of

and

the

as trying to edge away from the "ter the next (or from what Carr, during a view of "idealistic inter functional

be Utopian if it failed to take account issue of power"). He concedes that is a matter "international" of practical

of the unsolved of

the

as an "actual the situations of "the example" in Ireland: to and of "the Englishman" "it is impossible when the Balkans and when Ireland will became, exactly

politics, Bosnian" say

forms

and he takes

What

is Security?

19

an international But his own political ideas, become, question."89 of international conferences of the "system" of the reinforcement to protect and of international the security of national minorities, to protect of individuals and the economic security cooperation a sort in into of the themselves groups, were postwar put practice One settlement. of the principal themes of reconstruction after was to in the Peace World War the words of I, prevent Treaty, to large numbers and privation "such injustice, hardship of people so great that the peace and harmony as to produce unrest of the

world are imperilled"; the decision of the Great Powers to begin their Versailles deliberations by considering international labor a degree

legislation "produced to bewilderment."90

of

surprise

that

almost

amounted

The idyll of multiple, minimal identities is of poignant impor tance to European political thought. It is described elegiacally in Robert Musil's

of the "negative

description

of "Kakania," "the inhabitant

freedom"

or of

of 1913: the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy a country a professional, a na has at least nine characters: a a a a a an civic, tional, class, conscious, sexual, geographic, even a to and character boot. He unconscious, possibly private of

permits a

unites them in himself, but they dissolve him_This all but one

person other characters ousness Freud

thing: do and what

of the unserious

of civilized Death"

to take

wrote that

life. Musil's in 1915

what

seriously to them."91

happens

is too slight, prewar world in "Thoughts

its loss was

painful disillusionment." said, must now "stand

the source

of

"The citizen

at least nine

his But

the innocu

in the end, as the foundation is also the world of which for

the Times

on War

of the civilized

in a world

and

and our

"our mortification world," that has grown

Freud

strange helpless his great European fatherland and "his disintegrated "We had hoped, divided and debased." certainly, that the extensive of interests established community by commerce

to him," with fellow-citizens

.a compulsion" would constitute the germ of.. production towards morality, Freud said of the civil society of the prewar he found, that "nations still obey their passions far world; instead, more serve than their interests. Their interests them, at readily and

as rationalizations most, The elective institutions 1910s,

to prevent

for their passions."92 of civil society were

the violent

enmity

of war,

not and

enough, they

in the are not

80

Emma Rothschild

to ensure the security of individuals. in any liberal theory, enough, The new political of self-identification theory of the NGO?the as source or the of human indi groups nongovernment privileged in this respect particularly vidual odd. The organiza security?is tions

constitute

that

important political information

that

local)

rity; they nizations

can play many civil society can the international (and They provide is at the heart of the new politics of secu

international roles.

can cooperate that contribute

in the schools, museums, to policies for preventing on governments to reduce

and

rights orga violent conflict; arms production

they can put pressure and exports; the process of international they can make possible a is which for international discussion, poli political precondition tics. But one of the things they cannot do is provide security. The is as a political is of security essential characteristic relation, which not

between

voluntary,

nity.

the

individual

(or the opinion

Security

of

and

security,

commu the political ac in Montesquieu's

count) is the condition for political freedom. But it is the political to live under

choice

the rule of

law that

is in turn the condition

for

security.

The doubting mood one

are pre of the presumption that NGOs or uncorrupt. Adam Smith reserved other-regarding most demonstrations of hidden his and cheerful dislike, for

self-interest, seers,

tends to make

in general,

skeptical,

ternaturally his coolest

of the late Enlightenment

university

the ostentatiously or Quaker teachers,

public-spirited: slave-owners.

parish The new

over prin

ciples of security of the 1980s and 1990s have been put forward and they are consonant enthusiasm by NGOs, special of these organizations. self-interest hidden the not particularly can be seen as the outcome "civil too, society strategy,"

with

with The of

a

to disengage from for that wish between governments of substantial the assistance minority opinion) opposition eign (despite other people's with an interest both in improving and organizations a are also, of course, NGOs lives and in their own advancement.93 me form. "Independent political heterogeneous kaleidoscopically as a suitable object of support in a civil society dia" are identified to the and the presumption (in the case of assistance strategy, of the is that they are to be independent Soviet Union) former coalition

state.

But

oligopolies?

are

of large international they also to be independent "War between Or of large and powerful proprietors?

What two nations a

large Leonard

is impossible nation excited

conditions

under modern

number

in each

of

people wrote in 1916.94

81

is Security? unless and

you

get

afraid,"

and media, dependent are and as (as Condorcet thought, thought rightly independent, to constitute the core of a free civil society. denied) Robespierre a in the prevention of famine. role central (for example) They play But they play a central role, too, in the frightening process whereby become excited and afraid. of people very large numbers The more

Woolf

as a source of security to NGOs is even main objection to assume It may be reasonable that individu foundational.

in NGOs

als

News

are more

in general,

public-spirited,

individuals

than

in the public or the private for-profit sector (if only because of the relentless vilification of public service in the 1980s and 1990s, and of the pursuit, within the similarly relentless glorification But the serious problem sector, of individual profit).

vate

the pri the

with

new political theory of NGOs has very little to do with the psycho It is a political of individuals. and logical circumstances problem, as a volun it follows of the NGO from the defining characteristic a in is There stark of tary organization. voluntariness, inequality the "donors" and the "recipients" of security. between particular, zone An international in the relief charity operating of a civil war or a distant is made for example, volun up of individual famine, teers

(including

who

people

have

volunteered

to be employed

low salaries) and funded by voluntary contributions

at

(including

of tax revenues). The governments, relief are in circumstances of the most extreme lack of voluntariness; they are as far as one can be from the self-sufficiency that is at the heart of, for of the individual will Kant's example, theory. political

voluntary individuals

The

oscillation

between

ing and prized quality late twentieth-century a doctor, a mother,

from

contributions, who receive

the public

of civil

society.

and The

political thought let us say, as well as a Belgian, a member of an international

the private is a continu woman of new, multiple new mulier is (the civilis) a Protestant,

a volunteer, aWalloon,

organization, in private Her above all, is to be practice. theory, Hirschman's with its evo Involvements, Shifting cation of public and action, overcommitment, private disappoint But the richness ment.95 of her public life is juxtaposed, under a professional in Albert found

certain

circumstances,

to the

impoverishment

of politics

in very

82

Emma Rothschild

countries in very poor poor (or even parts of rich countries). in African its harsh criticism of international "humanitari Rights, in contrasts anism" the public of official Somalia, accountability with the of voluntariness NGOs: "while such as agencies agencies

UNICEF vide one

have a duty to be present, the presence of

and WHO

is a privilege." and people who

NGOs

of

The use rather

"goodwill"

they

Individuals

are

thereby of the relationship that

become even

made results

can

of

the programme."96 contract of the political

of the metaphor

resilience

"contract."

and

insecurity the effectiveness

undermine

The

of

than

of charity,

recipients" "passive more insecure: "the also

between pro relationship people who services "social and health care" is thus

is asso

ciated, in eighteenth-century liberal thought, with the implied equality to of the contracting the circumstance that the parties parties, with or agreement are all more or less the same sort of the contract can be "intentions" and "reasonable men, whose expectations" The earlier world of "status" the subject of reasoned discussion.97 one as to is of which entitled (or security by virtue of something men were was a in which one's world status) unequal by their

birth. In the imagined world men

of Condorcet and women

and other late eigh

are

liberals, teenth-century equal at birth, and as is made their subsequent reasoning parties equality possible by most in is instruction. This the literal sense, enlightenment public one cannot see through or freedom in which from the darkness or of But the world intentions. of "goodwill," other people's as something and that people status, enjoy not through security not through offices of civil rather the but contract, good through to this politics The is inimical of enlightenment. insidious society, was were that of guilds, for Adam characteristic pro Smith, they were to tected by "public law," yet scrutiny. impervious public

to depend chiefly upon

a beggar, he said, "chooses

Only

of his

benevolence The a source

international

the

fellow-citizens."98 civil

society,

of enlightenment, that might

in a liberal

theory of this sort, is or of the investment in schools

civility, but not of tend to prevent conflict, extent and the politics To that the civil individual society security. or as are opposed to each other, as strategies of states (or empires) then security, both individual models of postwar reconstruction, and museums

and

collective,

belongs

to the domain

of the political.

"Civil

soci

83

is Security?

What

of Western alone did not assure the stabilization ety and markets as has said, and societies after 1945," Charles Maier democratic so are seem to do after 1989."99 increasingly unlikely They "they even

to assure

less likely

common

of

security

the invention

of democratic

or the

society,

individuals.

FREE AND EQUAL DISCUSSION

is a political theory, not an idiom of political discus

Liberalism

sion. The word

"liberalism,"

according

to Judith

Shklar,

a political doctrine, not a philosophy of life_Liberalism

has only

secure

one

to aim: overriding exercise for the necessary

the political conditions of personal The freedom."100

to

"refers

are

that new

poli Boutros security (of "personal security" is in this sense a perfectly It is most liberal enterprise. new, Ghali) in its international in its insistence and most that the extent, odd, freedom is to be secured include very remote per persons whose tics of individual

for Boutros

or political conditions political

to secure certain The liberal wishes foreigners. for himself, and for persons whom he recog in a political nizes to be co-participants be the same (to enterprise same sort of men). The international liberal has the but objective, sons,

he

recognizes

sort

the oddest

of people?here,

there,

and

every

where.

It has

been that suggested source of individual insufficient political.

The

civil

the

"civil

society because

security is (by self-definition)

society

is an strategy" it is insufficiently nongovernmental;

individual security is (by the definition of liberal political theory) both

of

the objective

and

the

justification

for

government.

The

civil society is the domain of the voluntary; individual security is the

justification

for coercion.

But

the nongovernmental

society

is

itself of notably increased political importance in the post-Cold War world. The new political theory of the NGO is indeed the assertion society,

of a new

the assertion that the "we" of civil politics: the nongovernmental and the noncoercive, is a con and even a defining constituent of political life.

or

stituent, The presumption international politics able

in a general

that the idea of an essay has been not at least recogniz if is, straightforward, sense. But the connotation of the political?and of

this

thereby of the "political conditions" that Judith Shklar refers to as

84

Emma Rothschild

aim of liberalism?is the overriding the subject of familiar, persis tent disagreement. In one sense, the political is indeed the domain

of organizations, individuals, and their political discussions. This is the sense asserted in the new theories of civil society; it is Cicero's

(or one of Cicero's

too

sense,

of society and discussing,

senses),

of

as a place

communicating, teaching, learning, reasoning, as a matter of citizenship of public streets, places, temples, In a and business contracts.101 laws, voting rights, friendships,

and

different sense, however, the political is the domain of formal (and of the "formal democracy," which coercive) arrangements, political more state in the civil society is "not and of the strategy enough," a In its laws, treaties, with and declarations. further generally, or the extent

is the domain of political sense, the political power, to have done. states can do, or can arrange of what

A great deal of modern political thought is concerned, as itwas between the 1770s and the 1820s, with the relations between these domains:

three

of politics fundamental

coextensive, of characteristic

culture.102

blood,

that

the different over

in extent

but change the state is as the

location

the nation is defined by homogeneity

cal homogeneity; race,

the circumstance

with

are not

domains time. The of politi

of birth,

is a matter of homogeneity as well as of formal reasoning,

But

political of discussing and extent is very much The of political power arrangements. political for some of formal less than the extent arrangements, political (political)

culture,

for others. and very much greater that impose governments principles by states,

was

made

by the new

possible

political

of prospect in other countries

Condorcet's force

power

of several

European

governments. This power had rather little to do with formal politi engagements. (such as canals),

tions

(such

Castlereagh her policies

instead

economic

of

technologies to the power and military condi

or borrow

taxes

raise

a consequence circumstances (such

It was

cal

as

and political money), as the absence, at the time, of powerful opponents). to intervention? limit Britain's of policies proposed

beyond

the domain

of formal

political

arrangements?

to the "intelligible and practicable." The intelligible corresponds to the political within

concern the

sense

in Cicero's a political

of present

of

sense, society. or of

power,

the subject

of discussion

and

in is the political practicable to the that which corresponds

The

What

time and as under

at the present of political power, the stood by powerful. presently liberal theory of the nineteenth The great

circumstances

more

relation

orderly

between

a assumed century three domains of the political.

these

argued, in support of "free and popular local and

John StuartMill

that

institutions,"

municipal

85

is Security?

"the management

of

local

purely

business by the localities" should be subject only to the most by "general government," and the residual power

superintendence of information

general provision

the

including of

"compelling

the local officers to obey the laws laid down for their guidance"; the result

should

tent with

be

of power consis "the greatest dissemination were to be Formal arrangements political

efficiency." in an orderly

of

hierarchy was arrangements

organized domain of these

The

interests

coextensive

and

and duties, the domain

with

the of

too, was

wider

both influ power. culture, political political on formal political enced by and an influence Mill arrangements. was uncompromisingly in this he followed opposed?and closely on instruction?to Condorcet's the idea of po arguments public

litical education. But he saw in the practice of local politics the source "free

of

the

"habits

and

that

powers"

are

the

of a

foundation

constitution."103

Mill's tance

conception of political order has been of profound impor to

liberal

subsequent

It is even

thought.

reflected,

in the

European law of the 1980s and 1990s, in the idea of "subsidiarity." is an orderly are different

There there and

each

and

levels function

political least general) level that

core

to this turgidly obscure notion: of government, of differing generality,

liberal

is to be undertaken

is compatible

with

at the

efficiency

ity.104 It is this hierarchy of political processes down reasons,

in the new in English

international political

to respect

thought,

(or

that has broken

of the 1990s.

politics

lowest

or practicabil There

some

version

are two of the

principle of subsidiarity. One is the Burkean or historicist respect for convention; certain functions certain of levels government, by

have and

change are likely to be prohibitively closer

to Mill's,

is founded

on

reason:

in the past been performed the costs of constitutional

high. The other, which the functions

is

of govern

ment should be subject to continuing review in the light of chang and they should be assigned ing circumstances, level that is efficient in these conditions. The

to the least general rationalist view of

86

Emma Rothschild

one. But it imposes an unend compelling on constitutional as much Leonard Woolf's principles, an on the de reflection system of conferences imposed unending a It also lineation of the international. great deal of imposes

subsidiarity ing reflection

is the more

on changing

reflection

international

on the circum

circumstances;

stances that have changed so prodigiously in the 1980s and 1990s. The politics of individual security, inside and outside Europe, is a case

in point. On the international information,

one

because

hand,

of

in the

interest

the general

in

increase

the

security

of

distant individuals is great; people know about distant horrors while they are still happening, or while there is still time to prevent from

them

information, again, inhibited by longer flict, the power to these horrors.

much

may

freedom,

the other

The

power

of

is also

be more

to use Mill's

term,

are no

is very

local conflicts. The distant in protecting

"efficient" than

increased

con military in relation great

relatively states, meanwhile,

local

of

of

interventions

intercontinental

in many modern

therefore

because

hand, international

and because

the prospect states of distant

diminished

states

On

happening.

the

local,

formally

personal constituted

political authorities. The counterpart of the mulier civilis (the new political woman of civil society) provides a dismal illustration. If is a Bosnian

one

Muslim

woman,

then

one's

is not

pro a virtue one's of local of identity by political or as a as a citizen of the the citizen of old community, Yugoslavia, a European, as a member new Bosnia. identities?as One's other security as a resident

tected

as an individual with community, religious or as a woman But weak with protection. rights?provide rights, Committee of the the International the European Union, NATO, actu or for Commission UN the Red Cross, may Refugees High of

an

international

to ensure one's personal than any power security ally have more institutions. local or municipal political in very general between is of a divergence The difficulty, terms, The extent of international of the political. domains the different political mal)

and power institutions?the

discussion

has

But (for enormously. of international, national, increased only minimally,

increased

hierarchy political and local government?have regional, as in Bosnia, cases have become, and in many Rwanda, Somalia, is One less efficient. and Chechnya, therefore, prospect, drastically an institutions in of the formal extension and improvement of

is the point for the of policies of conflict, and it is of particular or common secu to policies in relation for individual to commitments international programs (contractual) on restrictions and educational formal investment,

This government. and demilitarization

international prevention importance rity. Formal of political

in respect of the recogni agreements formal procedures for the protection of the germ (to use Freud's rights constitute to international I am not government.

formal

transactions,

military tion of

and

sovereignty,

internationally recognized a of word) compulsion to Leonard Woolf's referring made

1916, more

to obey

officers The

"true

state,

International

Government"

Imean associations; something in the form of international

up of voluntary

currently international

and

87

is Security?

What

unfashionable, authorities

with

the power

of even laws

of compelling

other

laws.

those

the

including

incipient

international

has

state,

been

the object of criticism in the 1980s and 1990s by an imposing political coalition of the Right and the Left. Its commitments are than scraps of paper; there is "overwhelming very often no more cannot evidence that modern national and will not governments or observe international treaties rules of international law when these of

become

or dangerous Carr wrote

burdensome

own

their

to the welfare

E. H.

in 1945.105

or security there is

But

nation," at least in policies or common for individual alternative, to the reconstruction of state authority. The single most security, in element state this for international reconstruction, important to tax or at would raise the be least revenues, institutions, power to receive, some revenues share of the raised by "automatically," little

or local governments. The most form national, regional, important in the historical of coercion, was of national states, development the coercive power

of

of power international

it would be fiscality; as well. institutions

In The Man without Qualities, Musil mat

Tuzzi

the state

"regarded

discuss with women," the state ous

is quite

society.106 in the post-Cold War international political

new

disrespect

for

important

says that the timid diplo

as a masculine

subject

one

did not

and the political objective of rediscovering

remote

civil

the most

But

from

the objectives of the new, multifari itself is distinctively multifarious

the state

world.

One

of the extension of consequence or of political is thus a society, discussion, the prior wisdom of states and their officers.

88

Emma Rothschild

When

Castlereagh

or as "practicable" policies of the "efficient" dissemi speaks is of privileged insight into government

of different

speaks when

Mill

"impracticable"?or tone nation of power?the finances and opportunities. has

been

repressed,

This

perhaps

tone

beyond

of effortless recovery,

self-confidence

in the past

decades

of criticism of all the nonmilitary activities of the state (at least in England, the United States, and the former Soviet Union). The state

is also of

end tions ously local

the

a largely twentieth

at the institution feminine increasingly The masculine func century. traditionally wars have been conspicu taxes and organizing

of collecting in retreat.

and

state functions feminine of traditionally are most and social that education, security in the be reproduced too, that would functions,

It is the

government,

it is these resilient; new institutions of

international

government.

The international politics of individual security would be more orderly, in some respects, if the institutions of formal political commitment

were will

society political disorder. for political

in this way. But the international a new and tolerance impose prodigious

extended still

There

is some

of civil society in the 1990s, as an array

interest,

the theorists

among

in the Stoic metaphor

of concentric

in which

of political

the

individual circles, identity more to her progressively less committed feels progressively gen a local commu of a family, identities eral political (as a member an international and so forth). community, nity, a region, a nation, in this metaphor, Adam Smith took some interest too, at least as a way

benevo the Stoic idea of universal of questioning political we have been con identities with which lence.107 But the modern

is very much less that the array of commitments suggest a set of ellipses, It is would indicate. the than metaphor orderly or an Epicurean in which the location of the "I" universe, perhaps, swerves and lurches over time. It leads to a politics, in turn, that is to a to chance. in whim and novel respect quite subject cerned

"Men their

are vain

of of their county, of the beauty of their country, between of the relation Hume says in his account

parish," and passions;

distant

of food, "of the they are also vain of climate, or force of their language," of their friends, of the qualities countries of distant and utility (based on "their beauty to a foreign is formed which relation country, by their

having

seen

objects softness of

the

it and

lived

in it"). But

the modern

politics

of related

What

89

is Security?

than in even Hume's accidental, an animal "a beautiful fish in the ocean, imagination. nor is related that neither belongs, in a desert, and indeed anything on our vanity."108 In the modern to us, has no manner of influence even the beauti (environmental) security, theory of international is more

ness

disordered, For Hume,

or more

ful fish is related to international politics. It is quite plausible, for that the example, should feel related, distant

oceans.

should

come

individual

participants and even passionately It is plausible, too, that

in the new related

civil

to far-off

society fish in

these voluntary passions One of information. the accidents and go with joins one happens to have of fish because for the protection the society for a party that the zoo. Or one votes lived, as a child, near saw a one assistance television because environmental supports

fish the night about program of The accidental politics

before the

the election. 1990s

poses

new

and

serious

difficulties for political theory and practice. Some of these difficul ties were

in earlier anticipated devoted for example,

periods

turbulence: political con to devising ingenuity could be drawn out, de of

great Condorcet, decisions schemes whereby stitutional are very largely new: difficulties they are layed, or reversed. Other as to set of broadcasting and of the such the impartial regulation new

at the and newspaper communications, television, oligopolies new most center But of the of the very present politics. disturbing a new to in is discover tolerance for the accidental requirements is a very Humean and Hume indeed ob This politics, politics. from the point of view of the of accidents (in his account a dependence custom of imagining of that "the theory knowledge) it would of observing have."109 has the same effect as the custom a else in life, is of emotions like everything and Politics, kingdom served

A politics of the aesthetic and the accidental. of this sort customs, even terms most in is profoundly the of the minimal disconcerting

liberal thought. For liberalism, like the new politics of the 1990s, is about erty. that

And are

the conditions for personal lib ensuring the and security requires predictability repetitiveness the endless of the state. That is why the propensities

security:

about

rediscovery of the (international) state is at the heart of the politics of

individual different

very an unpredictable

But the security. sort of state?more political

state

society.

to be rediscovered

Humean

and more

will complicit

be a in

90

Emma Rothschild "All

the Gods

Descartes'

are deliberating on peace" of Westphalia about the Treaty

who

ballet

or wisdom,

is their

recourse:

only

"Our

in the last part of decide that Pallas,

interests

are

so diverse/

That we are not to be believed/In anything to do with glory/And the good

of

the

entire and

universe." she

is the personification of with "valour," "prudence"

Pallas

combines

Christina, Queen or "too and is thereby free of the risk of "too much assurance" are virtues much warmth."110 These also quite minimal political It is the disengage the useful virtues of the present postwar world. ment

of politics

or from military

from militarism,

that

assurance,

has disengaged the old liberalism of the late Enlightenment. There is a "crisis

in the 1990s, and there is an in of conservatism, which revered nothing its power. military only

of liberal

even more

serious

the state,

excepting

internationalism"

crisis

The disorderly world of the new international politics?of in the

tics

sense

of

an

international

political

danger for this sort of conservatism. liberals. als

Fran?ois

Guizot,

(and conservatives),

of

But it is full of hope for

one of the great nineteenth-century wrote of transition" of the "epoch

"is habitually dominated

1850s that democracy and

society?is

poli full

liber of the

by its interests

the and is, of all social powers, of the moment" passions concern to its present without for the obedient fantasies, or the future."111 But this disorder is also the condition for the

"most past

In Mill's fa of political liberalism. subversive entire, enterprise no as a to mous has any words, "liberty, principle, application to the time when mankind state of things anterior have become We of being by free and equal discussion."112 improved capable amounts free and equal discussion have very little idea, still, of what as between as well individuals. and societies to, between groups But we

are

in the process

of

finding

out.

ENDNOTES versions of this paper were presented at the initial meeting of the Common Security Forum in 1992, and at the 1993 Oslo meeting of the Commission on

earlier

Global

Governance.

I am grateful

for comments

from

James

Cornford,

Amartya

Sen, and Gareth Stedman Jones, and for discussions with Lincoln Chen, Marianne Heiberg, Mary Kaldor, and the late Johan J?rgen Holst. Iwould also like to thank the John D. and Catherine T. Mac Arthur Foundation for support to the Centre

for History

and

Economics

and

to the Common

Security

Forum.

is Security?

What 2Charles

"Vie

Adam,

in Charles

de Descartes,"

Adam,

ed., Oeuvres

91

de Descartes,

vol. xii (Paris: Leopold Cerf, 1910), 542-44. 3Harold Nicolson,

1919 (London: Constable,

Peacemaking

1933), 32.

4Stanley Hoffmann, "The Crisis of Liberal Internationalism," Foreign Policy (Spring 1995): 163.

(98)

5Michael Ignatieff, "On Civil Society," Foreign Affairs 74 (2) (March/April 1995): 135-36.

6Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored

(New York: Grosset and Dunlap,

1964), 3.

Vaclav Havel, Summer Meditations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 33. Mill talks of "the sovereignty of the individual over himself," and of the condition that "over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." See John StuartMill, On Liberty (London: Penguin, 1974), 69,141. 8See, for example, the speech by President Clinton at theUnited Nations on 27 Sep tember 1993, and speeches by Under Secretary of State Timothy E.Wirth at the United Nations on 30March 1994, and at theNational Press Club inWashing ton, D.C. on 12 July 1994. 9The Commission on Global Governance, Oxford University Press, 1995), 78.

Our Global Neighbourhood

(Oxford:

10UnitedNations Development Program, Human Development 1994 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 3, 22-23. 11 "The United Nations was founded 50 years ago to ensure the territorial security states...

of member sonal

.What

is now

under

siege

Boutros-Ghali,

security"?Boutros

or

is something different," to "Let's get together

halt

"per the

unravelling of society." International Herald Tribune, 10 February 1995. 12The

Commission

Independent

on Disarmament

and

Security

Common

Issues,

Security: A Blueprint for Survival (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), ix, xvi,

4,

139.

The

word

"survival"

was

evidently

thought

to have

ap

particular

peal in the United States, since the edition published in England had a different title: Common

Security:

A Programme

for Disarmament

(London:

Pan

Books,

1982). 13Richard

H.

Ullman,

"Redefining

Security,"

in Sean M.

Miller, eds., Global Dangers: Changing Dimensions (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), 38. 14E.H. Carr, Nationalism

and After (London:Macmillan,

Lynn-Jones

and

Steven

E.

of International Security 1945), 36,58,51,67-71.

15JohnHicks, "Maintaining Capital Intact: a Further Suggestion," Econ?mica IX (New Series) (34) (May 1942): 175; a Begriffsgeschichte, or a history of con cepts, is also a history of who it iswho has the concepts. 16"LordCastlereagh's Confidential State Paper of May 5th, 1820," in Sir A. W. Ward and G. P. Gooch, eds., The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy vol. II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923), app. A, 1783-1919, 632. 17Ibid., 627-29,

632.

92

Emma Rothschild

18SirJ. A. R. Marriott, Castlereagh: The Political Life of Robert, Second Marquess of Londonderry (London:Methuen, 1936), 299. "Reassurance and Deterrence," Foreign Affairs 61 (2) (Winter

19MichaelHoward,

as a a "way of too, was security, presented "slogan," or as a source of "the words that convince and reas security," Emma "Common in and Deterrence," Rothschild, Security Common

1982-1983).

about

thinking

see

sure";

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Policies for Common Security (London: Taylor and Francis, 1985), 92,101. 20See Stephen J. Del Rosso Jr., "The Insecure State: Reflections on 'the State' and 'Security' in a Changing World," Dcedalus 124 (2) (Spring 1995): 187-93. 21Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Macfie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 184.

ed. D. D. Raphael

in?dites du Chevalier 22Letter of 15 June 1820, in D?p?ches Hospodars de Valachie, vol. II (Paris: E. Plon, 1877), 62-63.

and A. L.

de Gentz

aux

23FriedrichGentz, On the State of Europe before and after the French Revolution, trans. John Charles Herries (London: J.Hatchard, 1804), 386. 24Letter of 1705 in Die Werke von Leibniz, vol. IX, ed. Onno Klopp 143. Klindworth, 1864-1873),

(Hannover:

25Montesquieu, De Vesprit des lois (1748), bk. XII, chap. II (Paris:Gamier,

1973),

I, 202.

vol.

261(securitatem

autem

nunc

appello

"Tusculan

estn?Cicero,

vacuitatem V.

Disputations,"

aegritudinis, 42; Lexicon

in qua

vita

beata

posita ed. Gerber

Taciteum,

and Greef (Leipzig: 1903). Tacitus does also use "securitas" in something closer to the modern,

sense when

collective

("salutem

Italy

he

Italiae"):

securitatemque

of giving speaks Hist.III.liii.

and

"safety

to

security"

27Smith,The Theory ofMoral Sentiments, 156, 290; Adam Smith, An Inquiry into theNature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, ed. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 412. so far as it is instituted is in reality of property, for the security government, some or of those who have the poor, of the rich against for the defence instituted none at all." Smith, Wealth 715. It have those who Nations, of property against

28"Civil

is interesting that Condorcet, writing in the same year, had a different view: "It is not only to defend those who have something against those who do not that the laws of property are made; it is above all to defend those who have a little, against those who have a lot." Condorcet, R?flexions sur le commerce des bl?s (1776), inOeuvres de Condorcet, vol. XI, ed. A. C. O'Connor andM. F. Arago 189. (Paris:Didot, 1847-1849), 689. Smith does say later, in discussing expenditure on

29Smith,Wealth of Nations, justice,

that when

should, costs. sovereign's

people

30"The

security

some est

jealousy,

actions,

which

becomes

defense for

their

Ibid.,

own

very security,"

it becomes "that necessary costly, taxes to contribute through

718.

to the sovereign renders it gives unnecessary seems to watch in some modern republics,

which, and to be

the the

at all

times

ready

to disturb

the peace

that over of

every

trouble

the minut citizen."

is Security?

What

is again of the sovereign security in De dementia, Nero the Emperor

individual Ibid., 707. The tion: Seneca, addressing

93

a Roman

preoccupa commiserates with

Nero for his misfortune in not being able to walk in the city unarmed, but as sures him that he would be better protected by the love of his fellow citizens than by mountains

and or

a

turrets;

the

security mutua securitate

security," ("securitas I.xix.5-6.

of policy comes that

"more provide contract in

would

clemency from

a mutual

De

est")?Seneca,

paciscenda

Clem.,

certain security

I.viii.2-6,

31 As Stephen Holmes says, "security was the id?ema?tresse of the liberal tradition." See Stephen Holmes, Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal De mocracy (Chicago, 111.:The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 245. 32"Projet de D?claration des droits naturels, civils et politiques des hommes" (1793), inOeuvres de Condorcet, vol. XII, 418-19; Franck Alengry, Condorcet Guide de la R?volution Fran?aise (Paris:Giard and Bri?re, 1904), 405. ^"Patriotische Aufs?tze in Folge des Ryswycker Friedens?Assecuranzen" in Leibniz, Werke, vol. VI, 231-33. 34"Sur

les caisses

see Emma

d'accumulation"

in Oeuvres

(1790),

"Economic

Rothschild,

security

and

de Condorcet, social

security,"

for theUNRISD Conference on Rethinking Social Development, tory and Economics, Cambridge, March 1995.

(1697),

vol. XI, paper

402;

prepared

Centre forHis

35Judith Shklar, "The Liberalism of Fear," inNancy L. Rosenblum, ed., Liberalism and theMoral Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), 21. 36ForCondorcet or Smith, as for Hayek in The Road to Serfdom, there is a good and a bad variety of individual security, associated respectively with "the com mercial and themilitary type of society." The good security, forHayek, includes "the

of a given

certainty

of sustenance

minimum

for all";

the bad

is "the

security

security of the barracks." See Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chi cago, 111.: University of Chicago Press, 1944), 120,126-27. *7" R?flexions 167.

sur

le commerce

des

bl?s"

in Oeuvres

(1776),

de Condorcet,

vol. XI,

38RichardTuck, "The State System as aMirror of the State of Nature," Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge, 1989. 39FritzDickmann, Der Westf?lische

Frieden (M?nster: Aschendorff,

1972).

40J.G. Herder, "Philosophie der Geschichte" (177'4), in J. G. Herder, S?mmtliche Werke, vol. V, ed. B. Suphan (Berlin: 1891), 521, 548; see also 498, 556. "Du

Rousseau,

41Jean-Jacques

Contract

Social"

(first

version)

in Jean-Jacques

Rousseau, Oeuvres Compl?tes, vol. Ill (Paris:Gallimard, 1964), 290. See also Rousseau's descripion of the social pact: "The first object which men have pro posed to one another in the civil confederation has been their mutual security, that is to say the guarantee of the life and liberty of each by the entire commu nity."

Jean-Jacques

Rousseau,

"Fragments

in Rousseau,

Politiques"

Oeuvres

Compl?tes, 486. 42"War

is thus

in which

in no

individuals

respect are

a relation only

enemies

between

men,

by accident,

but

a relation

in no

respect

between as men

States, or even

Emma Rothschild

94

as citizens,

as

but

doubt,

pressed

soldiers."

"Du

Rousseau, about

earlier,

considerably

Contract

Social"

the respects

in which

357.

ex

Hume

nations

could

be

considered to be like individuals: "Political writers tell us, that in every kind of intercourse, a body politic is to be considered as one person; and indeed this assertion mutual petual

as well as is so far just, that different nations, persons, private at the same time that their selfishness and ambition assistance; sources in this particular But though nations of war and discord. yet..

individuals,

.they

are

43Immanuel

zu

"Idee

Kant,

in other

different

very

Treatise of Human Nature 567.

einer

David

respects."

(Oxford: Oxford University

(1739)

A

Hume,

Press, 1965),

in weltb?rgerlicher

Geschichte

allgemeinen

require are per resemble

Absicht" (1784), in Immanuel Kant, Werkausgabe, vol. XI, ed.W. Weischedel (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968), 42-44; Rant's Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 47-49. (1792), in Oeuvres de Condorcet,

44"Projet d'une exposition des motifs" 454.

vol. X,

45ParisPeace Treaty of 30 May 1814, Statement of 18 October 1814, inAden des Wiener Congresses, vol. I, ed. Kluber (Erlangen: 1819), 9, 36. 46"Experiments" Principles" not thus

in constitutional and even the extension reform, but too generally ("then as now, spread throughout a sufficient reason in themselves for international "State

Castlereagh,

Paper,"

and

Robert

in which

1791,

the

"Democratic

were Europe") intervention.

626-27.

47Fran?ois Furet, Penser la R?volution 48Elisabeth

of

Badinter

a

quote of

composition

1978), 253.

fran?aise (Paris:Gallimard, two

note

manuscript different

of Condorcet's

cabinets

is considered,

from with

reshuffling of Sieves, Rochefoucauld, and Roederer, but with "Talleyrand and Condorcet keeping the same portfolios." Elisabeth Badinter and Robert Badinter, Condorcet: un intellectual en politique (Paris: Fayard, 1988), 347. October 50J?nos

Kis,

is the

"Liberalism

Worsthorne,

49Peregrine

real

enemy,"

"Program

in Favour

of Action

of Hungarian

J?nos Kis, Politics inHungary: For a Democratic lumbia University Press, 1989), 213. 51Havel,

Sunday

Telegraph,

18

1992.

Summer

Meditations,

Minorities

Alternative

Abroad,"

in

(New York: Co

98.

52William Safire, "Singapoverty," The New York Times, 2 February 1995. 53"De l'influence de la r?volution d'Am?rique sur l'Europe" (1786), inOeuvres de Condorcet, vol. VIII, 5-6, 14. The language of 1948 is similar: "all human be ings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and

conscience_Everyone

has

the right

to recognition

before the law." Universal Declaration of Human (New York: United Nations, 1986), art. 1 and 6. 54They were Kant,

"Schutzgenossen": vol. XI, Werkausgabe,

Immanuel 150-51;

Kant, Reiss,

"Theorie ed., Kant's

everywhere

Rights und Political

as a person

(December 1948) in (1793), 77-78. Writings,

Praxis"

What of the French of the leaders object was two their destiny," to "cut in phrase, once were to become from what they

55The

Revolution, or to separate had

been.

A.

95

is Security? in Tocqueville's "by an abyss"

famous what

they L'ancien

de Tocqueville,

r?gime et la r?volution (1856), ed. J.-P.Mayer (Paris:Gallimard, 1967), 43. 56 Adam Smith wrote scathingly in theWealth of Nations of the citizens of prosper ous

in wartime

empires who the newspapers 920. Nations,

"enjoy, of their

the exploits

at their own

of reading ease, the amusement fleets and armies." Smith, Wealth

in of

57HenriBrunschwig, La crise de l'?tat Prussien ? la fin du XVIIIe si?cle et lagen?se de lamentalit? romantique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1947), 36 42; see also Richard van Diilmen, The Society of the Enlightenment: The Rise of theMiddle Class and Enlightenment Culture inGermany, trans. Anthony Will iams (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), 83-92, 165-72. 58Speech of 28 October 1792, in Oeuvres de Maximilien Robespierre, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), 48-49, 53. 59Herder, "Philosophie der Geschichte" the State

On

60Gentz,

"State

6Castlereagh,

545-46.

38-39.

of Europe, 632.

Paper,"

62"AuxGermains" (1792), inOeuvres de Condorcet, vol. XII, 155-56; fran?aise ? tous les peuples" (1793), in Ibid., vol. XII, 510. "State

?3Castlereagh, Treatise,

64Hume,

"LaNation

627-29.

Paper,"

303,

vol. IX

307.

65William Playfair, A letter to the Right Honourable and Honourable Commons of Great Britain, on the advantages of apprenticeships Lewis, 1814), 31.

the Lords and (London: T. C.

66SeeJ. R. Oldfield, Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery: The mobilisation opinion

public

against

the

slave

University Press, 1995), 57-58, 67 "De

68Immanuel

Kant,

Writings, 69Adam

de

l'influence

Smith,

la r?volution "The

trade

139-41,

d'Am?rique"

Contest

of Faculties"

1787-1807

(Manchester:

Manchester

de Condorcet,

vol. VIII,

of

177-78. in Oeuvres (1798),

in Reiss,

ed., Kant's

13.

Political

182,184-85. Lectures

on Jurisprudence,

ed. R. L. Meek,

D. D. Raphael,

and P. G.

Stein (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 403, 318-21. 70"Sur les Assembl?es Provinciales" (1788), in Oeuvres de Condorcet, vol. VIII, 471-75; "Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Progr?s de l'Esprit Humain" (1793-1794), in Ibid., vol. VI, 244. 71See Jennifer

Montana,

"Human

Security,"

Common

Security

Forum,

Harvard

Center for Population and Development Studies, June 1995; African Rights, Hu manitarianism Unbound*, African Rights Discussion 5, 11 Paper No. Marshalsea Road, London SEI 1EP,November 1994. 72SeeBrian Urquhart, "AUN Volunteer Military Books, 10 June 1993.

Force," The New York Review of

96

Emma Rothschild "State

'Castlereagh,

631.

629,

Paper,"

74"Sur l'instruction publique"

in Oeuvres

(1791-1792),

de Condorcet,

vol. VII,

534-41.

75Thiswas Olof Palme's position, for example, at the signing of the first Helsinki accords in 1975: when Giscard D'Estaing said that the countries of Europe could

now

each

other,

Palme

stop quarrelling, we can really

we

"now

that

argued to quarrel."

begin

have

not

agreed

to kill

76Mill,On Liberty, 167. 77See Ignatieff, "On Civil Society," 135-36. 78L.T. Hobhouse,

Liberalism

79"De la Nature

des Pouvoirs

Oeuvres

(London:Williams

1919), 18-19.

dans une Nation

Politiques

vol. X,

de Condorcet,

and Norgate,

Libre"

in

(1792),

607.

80Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966), 217-20. See also Sunil Khilnani, "The De velopment of Civil Society," World Institute for Development Economics Re search

and Centre

for History

and

1994.

Economics,

81See Emma Rothschild, "Adam Smith, Apprenticeship Centre for and Economics, 1994). History bridge: "The

82Tuck,

State

"On

83Ignatieff, 84See Kennette

(Cam

in a New

The

8.

System,"

Civil

and Insecurity"

Society." "A Cold

Benedict,

Peace:

US-Russian

Relations

Era,"

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, February 1995. 85Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighbourhood, 256. 86A. R.

Oeuvres

J. Turgot,

et Documents

de Turgot

87Carr, Nationalism 88L. S.Woolf,

357.

352-53,

and After,

International

15

scientific

vol.

I, ed. G.

59.

Government

association

The

its members":

among provinces,

49,

le Concernant,

587, 592.

Schelle (Paris:Alean, 1913-1923),

(New

against

York:

Brentano, 1916), for example, 12 unemployment

unemployment, 59 towns,

8 governments, 6 employers' societies,

federations,

30

labor

152, 170, "numbers 8

funds, federations,

and individuals from 23 countries. 89Woolf's

"practical

thus

standpoint"

of the year of our Lord 2000, Russia

entering

an

international

leads

him

to ask

there

"whether

is, this

side

the slightest possibility of the British Empire and system

in which

the future

position

of

Indians,

Irishmen, and Finns in the respective Empires is to be decided at some sort of international Carr,

conference."

Nationalism

and After,

Woolf, 50-51.

International

Government,

34-38,

357;

90Quoted inDouglas Galbi, "International Aspects of Social Reform in the Interwar Period"

Common Forum, Security (Cambridge: to peace and harmony the reference

nomics, 1993); of the Treaty.

Centre

for History is in the preamble

and

Eco

to part

13

97

is Security?

What

91RobertMusil, The Man without Qualities, vol. I (1952), trans. Sophie Wilkins (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), 30-31. 92Sigmund Freud, "Thoughts for the Times onWar and Death" (1915), in Sigmund Freud, The Standard Edition, vol. XIV, ed. James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press, 1957), 280, 285, 288. War

in its critique of "Post-Cold Rights, "Western donors' and commercial strategic

93African

says that is declin

Humanitarianism," in poor interest countries

ing; their chief concern is increasingly to avoid bad publicity at home from hu manitarian

once

crises

have

they

hit

the

television..

.relief

are

agencies

expand

ing into a void left by the contracting power of host governments and the declin of western

interest

ing political 6. bound?,

International

94Woolf,

the view

Press,

University

96African Rights, Humanitarianism quotes

Un

Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action

Princeton

N.J.:

Humanitarianism

Rights,

133.

Government,

95AlbertO. Hirschman, (Princeton,

African

powers."

of Sir Charles

1982).

18, 23. Gareth

Unbound?, "the

Trevelyan,

of

doyen

relief

Stedman Jones

experts

and

a vet

eran of the Irish famine," on charity to the London poor in 1870: "By passing through official hands.. .the gift loses the redeeming influence of personal kind ness

and

the recipient

regards

it, not

as

but

charity

as a

largesse

to which

a right." This is also the relationship described byMarcel Mauss: one's

show face

superiority-To to become

subordination,

he has

"to give is to

or

is to more, repaying Gareth Stedman Jones,

accept without returning a client and subservient":

Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between Classes inVictorian Soci ety (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1984), 244, 252-53. 97See,

for example,

98Smith,Wealth of Nations, "Charles

Maier,

parison" pared

on Jurisprudence,

Lectures

Smith,

87-102,

318-21.

11.

1918-1945-1989: Three Post-war Eras inCom Europe, "Stabilizing Mass.: Center Harvard for European Studies, paper pre at the University of Keele, March 34. 1995),

(Cambridge, for a conference

100Shklar,

"The

101"docendo,

discendo,

Officiis,

1.50,1.53.

102Istvan Hont,

"State

21.

of Fear,"

Liberalism

communicando,

in the French

and Nation

iudicando"?Cicero,

disceptando,

Revolution"

(Cambridge:

De

Centre

for History and Economics, 1995); "The Permanent Crisis of a Divided Man kind: 'Contemporary Crisis of the Nation State' inHistorical Perspective," in Contemporary Crisis of theNation State?, ed. John Dunn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995). 103Mill,On Liberty, 181, 185-86; on Mill and Condorcet, see Emma Rothschild, "Condorcet and the Conflict of Values," Historical Journal (forthcoming). 104"Community

institutions

form those tasks which Member

States...

should

only

be given

the powers

they

require

to per

they can carry out more effectively than the individual

subsidiarity

is a principle

aimed at organizing Community

based

on

political

pragmatism

and

activity effectively by bringing it closer to the

Emma Rothschild

98

concerns

and

aspirations

of

citizens."

European

Parliament,

Committee

on Le

gal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, "Report on the Commission report to the Euro pean Council on the adaptation of Community legislation to the subsidiarity principle," 29 March 1994.1 am grateful to Eleanor Sharpston for discussion on this point. 105Carr, Nationalism

and After,

30-31.

106Musil,The Man without Qualities, 211; the chapter, which of "the idea of a Global Austria," is called "Antagonism Old and theNew Diplomacy." 107Smith,The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 227-37; 108Hume,

Treatise,

303,

is about a discussion sprouts between the

Cicero, De Officiis,

1.54-59.

306-307.

109Ibid,222. 110Descartes,La Naissance de laPaix, Ballet Dans? au chateau Royal de Stockholm le jour de laNaissance de saMajest? (Stockholm: Jean Janssonius, 1649), 4,11. 11 Fran?ois Guizot, Sir Robert Peel: ?tude d'histoire contemporaine (Paris:Didier, 1856), 353. 112Mill,On Liberty, 69.