I post stuff here because find it easier to work on a text if I can access it in full view, not least for language reasons: I am blind to my own mistakes until I see them in a public domain, or as others would see it. Don't ask me why this would be the case.
This post is very much alive - I will be writing this essay online rather than retorting to Word, so although it seems like I haven't posted for a while I'm actually just working on this one.
I've previously tried writing essays both on Word AND my blog, and I've simply ended up with two very differing versions of the same essay, which I have then had to marry in a hurry.
The apprehensive participant – How does liberalism explain North Korea’s participation in ... the Six-Party Talks?
*FRUSTRATED* Can't think of a goddamn title!!! Back tomorrow ie Monday 2.4
1. Introduction
2. What is a region, and what is regionalism? (will change) ie characteristics of a region and different purposes thereof.
2. The DPRK - the apprehensive regionalist (not sure about this one, either)
3. Liberalism as an explanatory and prescriptive (proscrictive?) IR theory
4. Conclusion
(Own notes: What is a region?
What is regionalism?
Does regionalism (as a strand of liberalism) assume the willingness of countries to actually participate?)
Introduction:
This essay has three themes: North Korea’s (DPRK) motives for engaging in regional cooperation; the definition of ‘region’, especially in relation to so-called ‘open regionalism’; and the theoretical analysis of the successes and failures in engaging DPRK in regional cooperation using liberalism as my main theoretical lense.
This is not an historical overview of DPRK’s regional relations, nor is it a portrait on the country’s internal politics. Neither will I give a timeline or report on the successes and failures of the six-party talks, as the ups and downs have been widely reported and analysed in the media all over the world.
I will rather try to paint a picture of the changing attitudes in the region towards regionalism itself, and for this purpose, the concept of ‘region’ should be clarified. A region is not necessarily a geographical definition, nor simply a political one. It requires motives beyond the economic, cultural, or even racial ones. It can be modelled around a hub-and-spokes –system (the Soviet Union, APEC), or it can be highly institutionalised and multilateral (the EU). The emergence and consequent success of the six-party talks is an agreement on the existence of a specific region of its own, comprising the U.S, Japan, the Russian Federation, South Korea, North Korea, and China.
Regionalism implies abandoning – or at least momentarily suspending - the pursuance of direct national interest for the benefit of the interests of a wider group of communities, thinking that this will indirectly benefit one’s own nation in the long run.
The last section will focus on liberalism. The current willingness of all parties in the six-party talks and the recent ‘breakthrough’ (Laney and Shaplen in Foreign Affairs, 21.3.2007) in the Beijing negotiations strengthen my view that liberalism as a strand of IR theory is the most appropriate theoretical tool to explain current events. There are sufficient motives for all participants to reach a new, pacific status quo in the region despite the tensions in bilateral relations between them.
I would like to narrow down my analysis on international participants to include states only. I will therefore discard the impact that NGO’s and MNC’s might have had in the cooperation process. The involvement of NGO’s and MNC’s seems to be more part of the general process of globalisation and has less to do with the pacification or, indeed, the democratisation process of the region. There is little evidence of the presence of NGO’s and MNC’c contributing to democratisation processes in states, so for the purpose and scope of this essay they are best left out, international actors though they are.
I would also like to question some of the basic premises of liberalism through analysing the regional engagement of North Korea. Doyle, for example, states on the pacifying effects of liberal democracy that “when the citizens who bear the burdens of war elect their governments, wars become impossible” (Doyle, 1986:1151, quoted in Burchill et al., p.59). This is manifestly not true: the U.K and the U.S, arguably some of the most liberal and democratic countries in the world, do not live up to this theoretical tenet, unless we begin to toy with the idea that the aforementioned countries are not democracies. DPRK, a dictatorship, has not partaken in a hot war since the end of the Korean war in the 1950's.
Kant himself, unlike neo-Kantian liberalism does, never put forth liberal democracy as a safeguard against wars.
2. Regionalism and the 'Six-Party -region'
Because there is little evidence that the region of the six parties would in any way have formed from a sense of community, solidarity, or mutual trust, the liberal body of thought falls a little flat in explaining the developments and negotiations surrounding DPRK's nuclear program. The English School and its adherents (Barry Buzan, etc, check) ------
Regionalism
3. Liberalism
(Note) in liberalism there is generally at work a false optimism (theoretical reliance) on the inherent pacifism of democratically elected governments (Doyle, 1996).
----Rawls has to some extent tried to bridge the now all too evident gap between liberal theory and reality (Rawls, 1999)
Note: Former Swedish Premier Göran Persson's opinions on the motives and personality of Kim il-Sung, May 2001: http://svt.se/svt/road/Classic/shared/mediacenter/index.jsp?&d=65297&a=784070&lid=puff_787073&lpos=extra_5 . Persson visited DPRK as the 'President of the EU' in 2001 (ie as the leader of a country who then held the presidency of the EU) together with Javier Solana. In Persson's words, they visited a 'Necrocracy', led not by a "porn-crazy, drugged-out weirdo" some people think Kim is, but by a politically savvy man who is clearly both interested and fluent in current affairs.
The negotiations were nevertheless difficult. Persson and Solana made it clear that there was only one person who could reform the economy of the DPRK: Kim himself. Kim retorted that the economic cornerstone of the DPRK economy was extraction industry; minerals. The EU, speaking through Persson, was of the opinion that to rely on extraction industry was 'to jump over several stages in economic development', and that it wouldn't be a viable road to take. According to Persson, Kim then replied that 'we simply don't know how to do stuff like this: it's just wishful thinking from our part. I don't have people who would know how to act'. (all translations are mine).
Leading a 'necrocracy' causes unprecedented constraints on Kim's action as a leader of a state?
(to be continued)
Bibliography:
Burchill, Scott, Linklater, Andrew, Devetak, Richard, Donnelly, Jack, Paterson, Matthew, Reus-Smit, Christian and True, Jacqui (2005, 3rd edition), Theories of International relations, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan
Katzenstein, P.J., Regionalism and Asia New Political Economy - Vol.5, No.3 (November 2000), pp.353-368
Breslin, S., and Higgott, R., Studying Regions: Learning from the Old, Constructing the New New Political Economy - Vol.5, No.3 (November 2000), pp.333-352
Laney, James T., Shaplen, Jason T. (2003), “How to Deal With North Korea”, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2003, available at
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030301faessay10336/james-t-laney-jason-t-shaplen/how-to-deal-with-north-korea.html (accessed on 15.3.2007)
Laney, James T., Shaplen, Jason T. (2007), “Disarming North Korea”, Foreign Affairs, 21.2.2007, available at http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070221faupdate86176/james-t-laney-jason-t-shaplen/disarming-north-korea.html (15.3.2007)
Smith, Hazel (2000), “Bad, mad, sad or rational actor? Why the ‘securitization’ paradigm makes for poor policy analysis of north Korea”, International Affairs 76, 3: 593-617
