INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY EDITION - frankfurter-hefte.de · depends on the global economic and...

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Christoph ZöpelIs it possible to feed a global populationof nine billion?Thomas MeyerA False Sense of Security:Conceptual ConfusionEun-Jeung LeeThe Enigma of North KoreaMatthias HeiseIslam meets Democracy:The Case of IndonesiaJürgen KockaThinking the Twentieth Century, a Dialoguebetween Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder

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1 Editorial

Christoph Zöpel2 Is it possible to feed a global population

of nine billion?

Thomas Meyer6 A False Sense of Security: Conceptual Confusion

Mario Telò7 The Case for Responsible German Hegemony in Europe

Thomas Heberer11 China in the wake of the latest Party Congress

Eun-Jeung Lee14 The Enigma of North Korea

Henning Effner19 Myanmar’s Reform Process: A Work in Progress

Matthias Heise23 Islam meets Democracy: The Case of Indonesia

Paul Pasch25 The Hard Road Ahead for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Jürgen Kocka29 Thinking the Twentieth Century,

a Dialogue between Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder

C O N T E N T S



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E D I T O R I A L

The »war on terror« is an ambiguous call to arms. It isevidently about to change the world at least as much –

albeit in a quite different way – as all-out terror itself hasdone. The apparently almost unrestricted internet eaves-dropping programs run by American and British secret ser-vices have drastically transformed global online communica-tions. Once the great hope for democratic civic participation,internet communications almost overnight have become atool that allows the state to exercise unprecedented controlover its citizens. Yet those who eavesdrop have themselves managed to evadepublic supervision. In future contacts between the United States and the E.U.,the latter will and must insist that the most obvious abuses be curbed and thatsurveillance rules be brought into line with the higher-order value of civicfreedom. The European understanding of liberty will not tolerate anything less.What is at stake here is the pursuit of security for the sake of freedom, notagainst it.

In the fifth year of a crisis that has jeopardized its very existence, Europeis tiptoeing along the edge of the abyss. As yet there is no sign of the requisitebold steps forward that might bring a resolution. Mario Telò, an Italian intellec-tual and renowned expert on European affairs, has given us a remarkable essayin which he urges Germans openly to assume a leadership role in the E.U. Inthat case Germany would also have to embrace the appropriate accountabilityto Europe as a whole for what it does and fails to do. His proposal meritsa renewed debate.

In addition, this volume will shine a spotlight on certain key countries inAsia, the rising star of the global arena. To be precise, the focus will be on Eastand Southeast Asia, where the dynamics of change are most impressive orwhere political events are most likely to baffle outside observers unless they areelucidated by experts. For various reasons the first circumstance best fits thecases of Myanmar and Indonesia, which have both undergone breathtakingtransformations toward greater democracy. The latter applies in quite differentways to the People’s Republic of China and North Korea. As one of our authorsshows, it is especially difficult to understand North Korea’s politics withoutsome insight into its recent history; yet, the global public is barely aware of eventhe most essential points of that history.

Thomas MeyerEditor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher



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Since the early years of the twentiethcentury, global society has targeted

world hunger or nutrition as one of its keyspheres of activity. The International Agri-cultural Institute was founded in Romeback in 1905 as an early warning system toidentify trends in the global market foragricultural products. Its mission was na-tionalistic: to anticipate and avoid devel-opments that might adversely affect domes-tic producers and consumers. The limitedcapacity of nation-states to make agricul-tural policy was clear enough, but nationalselfishness had still not been overcome.After the Second World War, U.S. PresidentRoosevelt upgraded global nutrition policyinto a matter of universal human rights.Hoping to apply »freedom from want« –one of his »four freedoms« – on a globalscale,he convened a United Nations confer-ence in May, 1943 to consider issues ofnutrition and agriculture. As a result, theFood and Agriculture Organization (FAO)was established in October, 1945, still tendays before the United Nations’ Charterwent into effect. The following October itsEconomic and Social Council establishedthe U.N. Population Commission. Simul-

taneously, the scientific community, sup-ported by private donors, began to look forways to augment agricultural productivity,which eventually led to a manifold increasein yields-per-hectare of corn, wheat, andrice. Because so many people had diedduring World War II, the increase in globalpopulation was still not regarded as aproblem. Up until the end of the 1950s, theworld’s population grew at a moderate rate.Between 1950 and 1960 it increased from2.5 billion to 3 billion, and then in the nextdecade it rose to 3.7 billion, an annual rateof growth of 2.1%. By the late 1960s, scien-tific discussions and global political effortswere underway to determine how theworld’s growing population could be fed.

Those discussions, as well as the prac-tical steps that actually have been taken upto the present day, can be summarized in afew points. Global nutrition or worldhunger is a function of the relationship be-tween increasing global population andthe Earth’s carrying capacity, which is affec-ted by water and climate. The strategiesbeing considered in the fight against worldhunger focus either on limiting populationgrowth or expanding the amount of arableland. However, one has to draw some dis-tinctions within these basic factors. Thefertility of the soil is a function of technicalprogress, while the overall nutrition of theworld’s population hinges on the distri-bution of food.Although we usually under-estimate the role of technical progress, thedistribution of food remains the crucialchallenge we face in preventing hunger. It

Christoph Zöpel

»Freedom from Want«Is it possible to feed a global population of nine billion?

How can we provide enough food for all the people across the globe? In seekingapproaches that might help answer this crucial question for the future, one quicklyencounters the underlying problem: distribution. We can only come to grips withthe latter through an integrated global social welfare state.

Christoph Zöpel

(*1943) is a retired Minister of State whoserved as Minister in North-Rhine Westphalia.

From 2003 until 2007 he was Chair of theGerman Society for the United Nations. He isthe author of several works, including Politik

mit 9 Milliarden Menschen in Einer Weltgesell-schaft (Politics with Nine Million People in

a Global Society)[email protected]



depends on the global economic and po-litical order. Competition among nation-states as well as among business enterprisescan lead to regional famines. Large coun-tries like China and India are in a betterposition to prevent hunger than are smal-ler, less developed countries.Looking aheadto the first half of the twenty-first century,one can predict that the Earth’s carryingcapacity, enhanced by scientific innova-tions, will suffice to feed today’s seven bil-lion people and the (perhaps) nine billionwho will inhabit the planet in the mid-twenty-first century. The responsibility forpreventing famines rests with the globalpolitical system, the U.N. and its affiliates,as well as with its member-states, whichzealously guard their sovereignty. Jointly,they have plenty of financial resources aswell as ample knowledge of what regula-tions are needed to keep private marketinterests in check.

Discussions and actual developmentsmay be reconstructed from a variety ofperspectives. In 1968 two highly impor-tant books appeared that exemplify diver-gent approaches: Paul Ehrlich’s The Popu-lation Bomb and – from the Association ofGerman Scientists – The Global Food Cri-sis, or: Is a Global Hunger Catastrophe In-evitable? Ehrlich’s argument was that thereare too many people; he predicted thatenormous famines would afflict humanityby the Seventies. His solutions followed atwo-track strategy: bring the world’s popu-lation under control quickly, and drasti-cally increase food production. Both strat-egies were pursued, and although globalpopulation did continue to rise as pre-dicted, hunger did not increase on a globalscale. The Association of German Scientistsidentified the global food problem then aswhat it still is: a problem of distribution.Having recognized the true origin of theproblem, they offered proposals that in-cluded both family planning and measuresto improve food security.Among the latterare industrialization, infrastructure ex-

pansion, educational policy, and nutritioncounseling. However, they believed thatsuch steps would have to be preceded bysignificant changes in the social structureof international cooperation as well as cut-backs in weapons expenditures, so thatthose programs could be adequately fi-nanced. The timeliness of both the scienceand the U.N. system was confirmed when,in 1969, the United Nations Fund for Popu-lation Activities (UNFPA) was founded asan adjunct to the UNDP (United NationsDevelopment Program).

The book, The Limits to Growth byDennis Meadows, et al. came out in 1972.The authors used systems theory to ana-lyze the emergence of global society andthe issues of population growth and nutri-tion that accompanied its rise. They show-ed that there was a relationship of circularinterdependence at work among threefactors: human numbers, food production,and the impact of humanity on the en-vironment. The Meadows’ general findingwas that birth rates were declining slightly,but that death rates were falling even morequickly,a ratio that turned out to be crucialin accounting for population growth. Un-der such circumstances, regulation of thenumber of births, as was then being donein China, would not be necessary.

As early as the 1980s it was clear thatthe battle against hunger was achievingsome successes. Particularly in India andChina, one could observe an increase inthe ratio of food production to populationgrowth. However, the ratio was lagging inAfrica, the Middle East, the Soviet Union,and North America. After 1990 there wassome improvement in the capabilities ofthe U.N. system as evidenced by the WorldSummit in Rio de Janeiro in 1991 and theWorld Food Summit of 1996. On the otherhand, uncontrolled liberalization of agri-cultural and land markets intensified dis-tribution problems, while the WTO’s ne-gotiation rounds have failed to find anysolutions to the conflicts of interest in-

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herent in global agricultural trade.There is no question that fertility has

been in decline since the 1980s. The rise inglobal population thus evidently reflectsrising life expectancy. The Revision of theU.N.’s 2012 World Population Prospectsreport shows that the average fertility ratebetween 1975 and 1980 was around 3.85children per mother, but that, between2010 and 2015, this average will fall to 2.45children. Forecasts for the period 2095-2100 indicate a fertility rate of fewer thantwo children per mother. Between 2000and 2005, life expectancy reached 67.1years; it is forecast to hit 70.0 between 2010and 2015 and 81.8 by 2100. Based on thesefigures we can project a global populationof 8.08 billion people by 2025, 9.55 billionby 2050 and 10.85 billion by 2100. Varia-tions on those statistics that assume a fer-tility rate of 0.5 children more or fewerchange the 2050 projections by 1.3 billion,to a high of 10.9 or a low of 8.3 billionpeople. Jörgen Randers, in his report to theClub of Rome entitled »2052,« considersthe lower figure to be the most likely out-come. He assumes that the number of chil-dren per woman will approach 1.0; hence,global population will decrease. Randersexpects a maximum population of 8.1billion by the beginning of the 2040s.

Both projections entail two dramaticshifts in worldwide social developmentlinked to the aging of the world’s popu-lation and the growth in productivity ofthe agricultural sector: the end of the tradi-tional large family and rapid urbanization.

By 2050 the share of the global popula-tion over 60 will have increased from 13.4to 25.3 %,while the share of the populationunder age 14 will have dropped from 26.2to 21.3 %. Assuming that women will thenhave on average only 2.24 children, demo-graphic realities will continue to diminishthe number of large families in which chil-dren take care of their parents,primarily inthe informal economy. Thus, a trend thathas necessitated the establishment of state-

run social security systems in the morehighly developed countries since the endof the nineteenth century will have madesimilar arrangements necessary.

Advances in productivity, includingthose in the agricultural economy, lead to areduction in the number of workers need-ed in that sector. In the more advancedcountries the agricultural sector now ab-sorbs fewer than 5 % of the working-agepopulation, whereas in less developedcountries, especially India, up to 2/3 ofavailable workers are still in demand toperform agricultural labor. They populatethe rural areas, and most still live in abjectpoverty. Structural changes in the eco-nomy as well as the sheer destitution of therural population make migration to thecities their only way out. However, to lookat urbanization as an undesirable develop-ment is inhumane; besides, the urban con-centration of ecological problems poseschallenges we are capable of solving. Butthere is still the problem of how to feed thenewly arrived city-dwellers, two-thirds ofwhom work in the service sector. In thiscase, forms of urban agriculture can becounted on to contribute to their subsis-tence.

The development of agricultural production

Advances in the productivity of the agri-cultural sector have expanded the Earth’scarrying capacity, although not withoutsecondary ecological damage. In the future,increases in productivity will have to beaccompanied by efforts to minimize eco-logical harm. However, it will be difficultto achieve those increases without inno-vations in genetic engineering. Finally,changes in eating habits, especially in themore developed countries, would make anobvious contribution.

There is also a connection between ourfood preferences and overuse of fresh wa-

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ter resources. On a global scale, drinkingand sanitary water are not in short supply;nevertheless, we still must ensure that thesupplies we do possess are distributedequitably. Drinking water of a quality thatdoes not pose health risks must be madeavailable to everyone at an affordable price,a goal that still remains elusive. There areimmense problems of distribution in-volved, which may be aggravated by geo-graphical disparities. One technical solu-tion would be the desalination of sea wa-ter, although the high cost of that processremains a serious obstacle retarding itswider use. In the Middle East, both Israeland the Gulf States have managed to over-come that obstacle. Agriculture currentlyaccounts for 70 % of fresh water consump-tion, with half of that amount going toanimal husbandry. If we were willing toshift our diets toward greater reliance onvegetables, that alone would reduce globalwater consumption considerably.

Global nutrition policy andthe dilemmas of distribution

Hunger is first of all a consequence of pov-erty, and poverty is still rampant in ruralareas, particularly in Africa. There it hasbeen worsened by violent conflicts andwars, often instigated by global corpora-tions seeking to secure their interests inraw material sources. Then too, hungerresults when inadequate education standsin the way of a more rapid reduction inpopulation growth. When the transfer ofscientific knowledge – the engine of pro-ductivity gains – stagnates, that also be-comes an impediment in the way of re-lieving hunger. In addition, hunger is theoutcome of diverse climatic conditions.Nature has privileged the temperate zoneswhile discriminating against the subtrop-ical and tropical regions.One consequenceof this climatic disparity is that people inthe less-favored zones seek to escape their

hunger by emigrating. Their movementsdo not pose significant problems for coun-tries with vast territories such as Russia,China, Canada, the U.S.,Australia, and Bra-zil.But smaller countries must find ways tofacilitate and regulate the flow of migrantson a global level.

All of the necessary strategies for sol-ving the problems of distribution wouldwork optimally if there were a world socialwelfare state, i.e., if global society were in-tegrated. Such a step implies that all peoplecould claim a human right to adequatenutrition as the bedrock of their socialsecurity, and that the state must guaranteethat this right is respected. That is the onlyway possible to insure that no humanbeing goes hungry. The normative founda-tions of the right to food and the state’s rolein securing it can be found in several U.N.documents: the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights; the International Covenanton Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights(the »Social« Pact) of 1966; and the Con-ventions of the International Labor Orga-nization (ILO). The Social Pact is a part ofperemptory international law that guaran-tees »freedom from want.« It also takesinto account the fact that not all states arein a position to create and secure the socialarrangements that would provide such aguarantee. Therefore, Part II, Article 2provides that: »Each State Party to the pre-sent Covenant undertakes to take steps,individually and through internationalassistance and co-operation, especially eco-nomic and technical, to the maximum of itsavailable resources, with a view to achiev-ing progressively the full realization of therights recognized in the present Covenantby all appropriate means...« The relevantnorms of international law were made moreconcrete in the Social Protection Floor-Initiative of the ILO, which represents aneffort to attain global social integration. Itis intended to facilitate access to socialtransfers and social services, includingthose that affect water and food.

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The »War on Terror« has distorted thecrucial concepts surrounding the idea

of security so thoroughly that it is becom-ing more and more difficult even to de-scribe in plain language what the war im-plicitly threatens: human rights – which,paradoxically, the War on Terror was sup-posed to safeguard – and the dangers towhich they are exposed in the internet age.But how can there be a well-ordered state,if the concepts needed to establish it havebeen thrown into confusion? Germany’sMinister of the Interior, Hans-Peter Fried-rich, embarrassed himself by attributing toirrational anti-Americanism any and allcriticisms of the global U.S. infringementson the internet almost as soon as thosebecame publicly known. Upon returninghome from his pseudo-talks in Washing-ton, Friedrich declared »security« to be ahigher-order right that trumps all others,including freedom. He probably thoughtthat anyone who controlled this higher-order right could then decide which as-pects of freedom to retain and which onesto sacrifice-even though freedom belongsamong the fundamental, inalienable hu-man rights. Up until now such a sweepingnotion of security has been the exclusivestock-in-trade of avowed autocrats, whocynically believe that human rights arelittle more than a trick used by the West todominate the rest. But for a democraticcountry committed to the rule of law, that

kind of thinking is devastating, especiallywhen it is justified by people who concealtheir intentions behind the façade of thelaw-governed state. To resist the misuse ofconcepts, three clarifications are in order.First, when state authorities are allowed todefine (in secret, I might add) what secu-rity is, what must be done to protect it, andwhat fundamental human rights it leavesintact, then those rights lose not only theirspecific, intrinsic moral-legal worth, buttheir very meaning. The perversion of se-curity into a super-right shakes the foun-dations of a law-governed state, especiallyin cases where this is done under the pre-text of safeguarding the rule of law itself.

Second, Friedrich’s talk of a higher-order fundamental right of security is, atbottom, a return to the kind of thinkingthat characterized the old-fashioned Ger-man authoritarian state. It is based on amisunderstanding of the principles thatdetermine the rank-ordering of freedomand security. Moreover, it represents a stepbackward from John Locke, who origi-nated the idea of the modern law-governedstate, to Thomas Hobbes, the theorist ofthe absolutist state as a bulwark against thewar of all against all. However, in contrastto freedom and the true fundamental rightsderived from it, »security« is an instrumen-tal value, not an absolute one. It is designedto protect something that has intrinsicvalue, namely freedom. The relative valueof security gets perverted into a substantialthreat as soon as it is made to usurp oreven exceed the priority of the truly fun-damental rights. In that case there is nolonger any way to set effective limits to thestate’s discretion in doing whatever it seesfit to maintain security, the content ofwhich it defines by and for itself. Third,communicative freedom is the basis of all

Thomas Meyer

A False Sense of Security:Conceptual Confusion

Thomas Meyer

(*1943) is Professor emeritus of PoliticalScience at the University of Dortmund

and editor-in-chief of the journal Neue Gesell-schaft/Frankfurter Hefte. His most recent

books, published by VS Press, include:Social Democracy: an Introduction and

What is Fundamentalism?



freedom, because self-determination in lifeand citizenship is only possible when com-munication with others is »free of domi-nation.« When secret agencies covertlycompile complete files of our communi-cations data, conceal from us the fact thatthey have the information, use it against usto serve purposes to which we have notconsented, combine it in arbitrary wayswith their own and others’ data, all this

does not constitute merely a »certain risk«to freedom; it damages the latter’s veryfoundations. It is absurd to imagine thatthe preservation of our liberties requiresnothing less than their gradual liquidation.To make sure that the language of freedomis not sacrificed gradually to security inthis false sense of the term, the first thingthat must be done is to clarify the relevantconcepts.

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Hegemony has nothing to do with thenotion of a »German Empire« de-

picted by Ulrich Beck. Strictly speaking,such an empire cannot even exist within amultilateral system, which is based on thevalidity of generally recognized norms ofbehavior and on the principle of what J. G.Ruggie calls »diffuse reciprocity.« Multi-lateral systems thus function quite differ-ently from rigid bilateral hierarchies withtheir »ad hoc« rules. The E.U. is a systemfounded upon deepened multilateralism,since – besides its multilateral institutions(such as the Council of the EuropeanUnion and the European Council) – it alsoparticipates in supranational institutions.

The media’s use of the term »hege-mony« bears a remarkable resemblance toits use by Mao Zedong in 1965, when heapplied it to the Soviet Union. At the time,the concept was synonymous with mili-tary supremacy. But hegemony does notnecessarily imply either material or eco-nomic or even military predominance.

There are two schools of thought that havecontributed to the elucidation of the no-tion of hegemony, neither of which equatesit with supremacy. The first of these is theCanadian school of international relations,which has been influenced by the ideas ofAntonio Gramsci. Robert Cox and StevenGill maintain that a hegemonic power iscapable of dominating the spheres of ideas,culture, and collective conceptions of life,and persuading other countries and indi-viduals to accept them as well. The secondschool of thought is based on liberal insti-tutionalism. Apart from Charles Kindel-berger, who studied British hegemony, its

Mario Telò

The Case for ResponsibleGerman Hegemony in Europe

Can the current severe crisis in Europe evolve into a »useful« crisis that might pavethe way for a more efficient European Union endowed with greater legitimacy?Our author believes that such an outcome is indeed possible, but only under onecondition: the country that is demographically and economically the strongest alsoshould become the E.U.’s most politically powerful member.

Mario Telò

(*1950) is the Vice-President of theInstitut d’Etudes européennes atthe Université libre de Bruxelles anda professor at the LUISS Universityin Rome.

[email protected]



most prominent spokesman is Robert Keo-hane. This school holds that a hegemonicpower is supposed to produce collectiveor »common« goods for the entire com-munity of nations. In Keohane’s view,we have been living in a post-hegemonicworld for several decades now. However,that does not prevent countries from exer-cising a benevolent and constructive hege-mony at the regional level. And this isprecisely the setting within which there isan opportunity to establish responsibleGerman hegemony in Europe. But whatsorts of collective goods can Germanyprovide for its European neighbors? In thiscontext Peer Steinbrück pointed to theprospect of a »Marshall Plan for southernEurope.« Like the original Marshall Planof the post-WW II era, this is an excellentidea, both politically and economically.From an economic point of view, it hasbeen proven that rekindling growth onEurope’s southern flank would boost eco-nomic recovery in both Germany and therest of Europe (more than 60 % of all ex-ports from the E.U.’s – formerly – 27 mem-ber-states are destined for the Europeanmarket). So we should dare to do far morethan was promised in June at the BerlinConference on Youth Unemployment. Intandem with that plan, European institu-tions should be strengthened so as to rivalthose created at Bretton Woods in 1944.Innovations should include a bank for cur-rency reserves intended as a European in-stitution of last resort, a European versionof the IMF, and coordination of nationalmacroeconomic policies.The ultimate aimshould be to establish a political union ofa kind that has never existed before.

A dangerous divide

Is it realistic to expect progress in thatdirection? At this point, the external con-ditions affecting reform are being influ-enced more powerfully than in the past by

a French-Italian debate over the future ofthe European Union. This discussion isurgently needed, because, for a variety ofreasons, previous efforts to save the eurohave risked bringing about the paralysisand demise of Europe and the E.U. Thoseefforts are destroying the foundations oflegitimacy that the Union (still) enjoys inthe eyes of E.U. citizens in both northernand southern Europe. In the South, ram-pant Euro-skepticism is directed against»German-imposed austerity policies« and»the lack of solidarity« exhibited by Ger-many. By the same token, even in northernEurope a populist groundswell is building,the advocates of which have turned againstpeople they believe have encouraged »Fed-eral Chancellor Merkel’s excessive solidar-ity and generosity« (among others, thesepopulist groups include the »Alternativefor Germany,« the »True Finns,« and »TheDutch Right«).

If one considers the statistical evidenceon its merits, it is hard to dismiss the argu-ments made by either faction out of hand.However, the perceptions, suspicions, im-ages, and discourses expressed by bothsides have implications that go beyondstatistical data alone. The danger is thatthese subjective factors might have conse-quences out of all proportion to any real-istic assessment of the situation. It is there-fore urgently necessary to respond to thisominous split between the North and theSouth in Europe and the catastrophic out-come it might precipitate.

On May 16, French President FrançoisHollande proposed the creation of a Euro-pean Political Union, to be effected withintwo years. The plan is centered on two goals:stimulating job-creation for young peopleand instituting a European economic gov-ernment. Hollande’s proposal was greetedenthusiastically in Germany, Belgium, andItaly. In line with Italy’s Euro-federalisttradition, the new Italian foreign minister,Emma Bonino, gave the plan a warm re-ception. She represents one of the most

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pro-European governments in the historyof Italy’s Second Republic (the govern-ment of Enrico Letta). It is quite a paradoxthat this government was formed in thewake of one of the most Euro-skepticalelections ever held in Italy (Beppo Grilloand Silvio Berlusconi, on the left and right,respectively, had campaigned against theeuro and the »German« E.U.). Spurningthe policy of small steps, Bonino reiteratedthe federalists’ traditional call for the cre-ation of a United States of Europe,a federalUnion, and a European budget equivalentto 5 % of GDP! However, her government’splan does not match up point for pointwith the project that Hollande has in mind,so there is room for continuing discus-sions, which could be enlivened by inputfrom Germany, Belgium, and other coun-tries. Thus, for example, the Belgian PrimeMinister, Elio Di Rupo, has proposed thatthe hard core of the Euro-group should bestrengthened politically, but that the Unit-ed Kingdom should be left out.

In this way Italy has breathed new lifeinto the initiative for European federalismand won over some important allies in theEuropean Parliament: the faction aroundGuy Verhofstadt, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, andSylvie Goulard. In addition, the engage-ment of a member-state with Europe’sthird largest economy was naturally boundto revive the initiative in the EuropeanCouncil. But is this a trustworthy initia-tive? How can it be defended credibly bya government that is also supported bySilvio Berlusconi in the Italian parliament?Research suggests two explanations. Forone thing, we must bear in mind the his-toric weight of the consensus on issuesof European policy that emerged duringthe entire First Italian Republic. That con-sensus was symbolized by the meetingbetween Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlin-guer, as well as by the pro-European ref-erendum held in 1989. For another, onecan simply underscore the »self-evidentneed for a Europe-friendly attitude« and

the fact that there is simply no nationalisticalternative at all (Great Britain being theonly country that clings to the illusionthat it could go it alone and still prevail inglobalized economic competition).

A scheme of coordination

Be that as it may, the balance of power isshifting within the European Council inany case, and that gives the German ini-tiative a unique opportunity. Germany andItaly, North and South, could give a realboost to Hollande’s project and enhanceits credibility. By so doing, they would helpachieve long-awaited progress toward fur-ther integration. But what should the mo-del be and what kind of legitimacy wouldit have?

Martin Schulz, President of the Euro-pean Parliament,has called for progress ontwo fronts: efficiency and legitimacy. Inthe case of the latter, we must distinguishtwo distinct forms of legitimacy. One typeis acquired by the benefits that are con-ferred on the citizens; the other arisesthrough their active participation inevents that shape their lives. But the Euro-pean Union needs an innovative modelfor its institutions. The E.U. is neitheran unfinished version of the United Sta-tes of America, nor a nascent state. It israther a regional construct composed ofneighboring states and transnational net-works.

Two other regional alliances of neigh-boring countries took advantage of excep-tionally harsh economic crises in 1997 and1999 to make real progress toward eco-nomic and political integration: the Com-mon Market of South America (Mercosud)and the Association of Southeast AsianStates (ASEAN). For example, in 2000 anASEAN-plus-three meeting took place(which included China, Japan, and SouthKorea in addition to the regular members)that instituted a regional monetary fund.

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Crises are always accompanied by op-portunities; hence the right approach isnot to demonize intergovernmental co-operation, but to reform it.

Of course, Europe’s situation is diffe-rent, because its supranational institutionsexert a crucial influence on cooperationamong governments. No one should ruleout the possibility that progress will emergefrom new forms of governance that linkthe advantages of cooperation among sta-tes in the Council to contributions fromthe Commission. The goal here is to strikeout along a third way that avoids ideo-logical trench warfare. One aspect of thatapproach, for example, involves the »UnionMethod,« which is being applied alreadyin the context of the »European Semesterfor the Coordination of Economic Policy.«This new method of economic steeringprovides that the member states shouldsubmit their annual draft budget plansfirst to the Commission and then to theCouncil for debate, before they send themon to their national parliaments for review.The point is to correct a flaw in the Maas-tricht Treaty: namely, the asymmetry be-tween the currency union and the eco-nomic union. There can be no functionaleconomic and currency union withouta stronger convergence among nationalbudgetary policies and without multi-lateral oversight of all economic policy de-cisions that have impacts on other mem-ber-states as well as on the E.U.’s internalmarket. That is a step in the direction ofeconomic government.The position of HighRepresentative of the Economic Unionshould be created at some later time. Itwould be entrusted with the task of in-suring the smooth operation of this pro-cess over the long term and ensuring thatit worked efficiently. The scheme of »co-ordinating« national economic policy-making is thus distinct not only fromsimple intergovernmental cooperation,but also from the traditional communitymethod.

Involving the electorates

But the only way all this is going to succeedis if we find a way to engage voters in theindividual countries in this dynamic, path-breaking process. For that reason we mustbuild a prominent political dimension intothe European system as it undergoes re-form. In other words, it is essential to »po-liticize« the European elections coming upin 2014. The Treaty of Lisbon authorizesthe European Parliament to elect the Pre-sident of the Commission. This poweroffers European parties, especially theEuropean People’s Party and the dele-gations of the Socialists and Democrats inthe European Parliament, a unique oppor-tunity to name their respective candidatesfor the Chair of the Commission, at thelatest after their January Party Congresses(for example, Martin Schulz versus JoséManuel Barroso?). In this way there wouldthen be two candidates and two economicpolicy programs for the new and strength-ened economic government.

The election campaign should be abattle between two camps that makes itpossible to mobilize adherents from boththe bourgeois-conservative and leftist sidesof the political spectrum. The idea here isto mobilize the electorate and thus in-crease voter participation rates, which weredistressingly low in 2009, with fewer than50 % of eligible voters casting a ballot.Nevertheless, it would be a mistake tobelieve that, in the aftermath of the par-liamentary elections, Europe could be ledby a homogeneous government from eitherof the two camps. It is hard to take seri-ously any mechanism of governance forEurope that would be identical with thedomestic arrangements in the member-states, i.e., one in which the party or partiesthat held a majority in parliament wouldthen name a »homogeneous« governmentcomposed only of members of the victori-ous party or coalition. In light of thoseconsiderations, the Commission will have

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to be composed of a transnational coalitionthat bridges political differences. Never-theless, the electoral campaign precedingthe 2014 elections can elucidate the eco-nomic policy goals of the new Commis-sion President, while infusing new move-ment into ossified structures and helping tolegitimize the development of a politicalunion.

Thus, a benevolent German hegemonywould be founded upon two pillars: first, a»Marshall Plan« especially designed to aidunemployed young people; and, second, anew kind of political union that could over-come the traditional chasm between thefederalists on one hand, and the advocates

of a true union of European states, on theother.

Should the world fear hegemony of thiskind? In all probability it would be a powerthat would be used to promote peace andinternational cooperation, that is, civil pow-er of the kind that Willy Brandt once spoke.An E.U. on this model not only would beable to negotiate compromises betweenthe North and the South, but also wouldbe a proving ground for democratic re-newal, a common energy and environ-mental policy, and the politics of a newworld order.

(Translated from French by Pascal Hein-sohn).

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In November, 2012, the Party Congressof the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

elected new leadership. In February ofthis year the National People’s Congressfollowed suit, choosing new leaders for theChinese state as well. It had been commonknowledge for some time that Xi Jinping,the son of a Party veteran who died in 2002,would become General Secretary of theCCP, Chair of the Military Affairs Com-mission, and President of the People’s Re-public, and that Li Keqiang would becomePrime Minister. Both men had been ele-vated into the Standing Committee of thePolitburo at the previous Party Congress

so that they could prepare to assume theirnew leadership responsibilities.

The year 2012 was overshadowed bynumerous scandals. In February, the PartySecretary of Chongqing and Politburomember, Bo Xilai, was removed from pow-

Thomas Heberer

Don’t Expect Political Reforms in ChinaChina in the wake of the latest Party Congress

It is vitally important for China’s new party and state leadership to addressthe country’s daunting social and ecological problems and to rein in corruption.The selection procedures for filling the highest offices in China are arranged insuch a way that radical reformers are excluded from the very outset, while time-tested »problem solvers« who will work within the system are promoted. Never-theless, a political liberalization of the country for the sake of social progress isindispensable in the long run.

Thomas Heberer

(*1947) is a professor of political scienceand East Asian studies at the University ofDuisburg-Essen.

[email protected]



er. After his police chief took refuge in theU.S. consulate in the provincial capital ofChengdu, it emerged that Bo’s wife hadpoisoned a foreign businessman in thewake of an altercation about transfers ofprivate funds into accounts overseas. Shewas eventually convicted and sentencedto life in prison. Bo was stripped of all hisoffices on charges of corruption and mis-use of power and expelled from the Com-munist Party. He is still awaiting trial.

The »Bo Xilai Affair« can also be inter-preted as an internal Communist Party po-wer struggle. Bo devised his »Chongqingmodel« almost as a populist alternative tothe policies of the leadership in Beijing.While the orthodox policies had success-fully combatted mafia-like organizationsand introduced new kinds of social secu-rity systems, Bo’s counter-model favoredthe state sector of the economy over theprivate, urged a more nationalist orien-tation in policymaking, glorified Mao’s »redculture,« and sought to annul almost everylegal regulation. One might characterize itas an expression of neo-traditional author-itarianism. Thus, Bo’s model, on which theChinese »new left« had pinned its hopes,really stood for a conservative change ofdirection in the country’s politics.

The old guard producedmixed results

Ling Jihua,a close confidant of former par-ty chief Hu Jintao and a man being groom-ed for a post on the Standing Committeeof the Politburo, had to resign from hisposition once it came to light that his sonhad been killed in a traffic accident in hismillion-dollar Ferrari. In the car were twohalf-naked female escorts, who were bothseverely injured but survived the crash.State security authorities had tried formonths to cover up the incident.

And in October, 2012, the New YorkTimes reported that the family of Prime

Minister Wen Jiabao had amassed a for-tune of US $ 2.7 billion during his tenurein office.

The old leadership circle, which had tobe replaced by a new generation of leadersat the end of its ten-year term of office,failed to initiate any substantial politicalreforms. Nevertheless, their decade at thehelm had produced quite a few successes.China rose to become the world’s secondlargest industrial power, gained interna-tional stature, introduced social securitysystems for peasants, and achieved greaterintegration between urban and rural landuse. They worked to reduce poverty stillmore, improved the country’s infrastruc-ture through an extensive program whichhelped China to overcome the effects ofthe global financial crisis relatively quickly,and successfully combatted the authori-tarian populism of the »new left.«

Nevertheless, they have bequeathedto the new leadership a daunting set ofproblems: huge income disparities in thecountry’s population, especially betweenurban and rural China; a high level of sys-tematic corruption as well as environmen-tal devastation; the imperative of struc-tural political reform; a discrepancy be-tween, on one hand, the existence of lawscovering many fields and, on the other,the lack of any serious effort to enforcethem.

It would be a mistake to expect thenew leadership to enact any major reformschemes such as the establishment of therule of law independent of party meddling,a separation of powers, or constitutionalgovernment. New personalities are selec-ted for leadership positions on the basis ofa certain experiential background, such assuccess in previous posts and in handlingtasks in different regions and policy areas.But they are also chosen because they areexpected to maintain continuity in policy-making and accept the fundamental con-sensus concerning China’s transformationalproject. Charismatic leaders are not de-

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sired, because the previous leaders want toprevent from the outset any slide towardauthoritarian structures as well as the do-minance of individual figures or attemptsat systemic change, which could have un-foreseeable consequences for the country.The goal is to maintain collective ratherthan individualized leadership. Enormoussocial and economic dislocations are boundto occur in the wake of the ongoing pro-cess of transformation in China. Conse-quently, political renovations on a grandscale are seen as a danger to the country’sstability. Those are the parameters withinwhich the new generation of leaders willhave to attempt to tackle core social andstructural problems. Among other things,they will be called upon to reorient thecountry’s growth model away from ex-ports and toward the domestic market andespecially greater domestic consumption.Furthermore, they will want to promoteindustries that produce higher-value goodsas well as to expand the service sector.They will endeavor to achieve paralleladvances in both economic growth andsocial justice. The latter objective shouldbe attained by instituting various pro-grams for the socially vulnerable and bydismantling income disparities through afairer tax system. Besides these desiderata,the new leadership will confront a rangeof other issues: the abolition of privilegesfor state-owned enterprises; the free con-vertibility of China’s currency; and theopening of capital markets to foreignand/or private financial institutions. Theseare just a few of the challenges that awaitthem.

In terms of foreign policy, especiallyin the economic sphere, it is importantthat the new leadership should possessgreater international experience than itspredecessor did, a qualification that couldbe vital in inducing China to become moredeeply involved in international processes.The new leaders have also promised tomaintain continuity in running a mode-

rate foreign policy and to liberalize foreigntrade policies.

To sum up, the new Chinese leader-ship is likely to assign a higher priority tosolving outstanding economic and socialproblems than to political reforms. Inaddition, it will try to improve governance,mainly through enhanced political regula-tion. Some issues now being discussed inthis context include: greater transparencyin the state and party apparatuses, deeperengagement of the populace in oversightof the bureaucracy, public disclosure of theincomes of top officials, and enforcementof laws already on the books.

In March of 2012, a program to »reducesocial injustice« went into effect after eightyears of debate.Among other things it pro-vides for an increase in the minimumwage, the expansion of social security sys-tems, various measures to improve ruralland use, and tax reforms aimed at redis-tributing income.

A new slogan:the »Chinese Dream«

Since Imperial times every new ruler ofChina has chosen a motto for his tenure inoffice.This tradition has continued even inthe People’s Republic of China down tothis day. For example, in 2002 the slogancoined by the previous party boss, JiangZemin, known as »The Three Represents,«was incorporated into Party statutes. Thebasic argument implicit in the slogan wasthat the CCP no longer represents classes,but instead the entire Chinese nation;hence, it has transformed itself from a classparty into a party of the entire people. HuJintao then developed the paradigm of a»scientific concept of development,« whichcalled for a more sustainable process ofmodernization. Toward the end of 2012China’s party chief, Xi Jinping, chose the»Chinese Dream« as a new slogan im-plying that national renewal would hap-

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pen in tandem with greater happiness andprosperity for the people.

There is no doubt that the process oftransformation has caused enormous so-cial dislocations. That is the reason whythe new leadership must also confront thetasks of cushioning its impacts upon thesocially vulnerable while seeking to redis-tribute income. These measures are ur-gently needed, because otherwise the gulfbetween rich and poor, the true source ofsocial tensions, will probably increase stillmore. Nevertheless, gradual political re-forms are still indispensable in the longrun for the sake of further social and polit-ical progress. The reform project would

make sure that existing laws were properlyenforced and civil rights protected, that anew social consensus was reached, andthat new forms of social and general con-flict management were adopted, all to pre-vent China’s social strata from driftingeven further apart. The entire populationis waiting and hoping for further struc-tural reforms. China’s development overthe coming decades will be decisively in-fluenced by the leadership’s efforts to strikea balance between gradual structural andinstitutional renovation, on one hand,and the maintenance of social stability, onthe other.

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The Korean issue cannot be viewed inisolation from the Cold War and the

collapse of the Eastern Bloc.As a part of thelatter, North Korea had a secure positionon the international stage. That sense ofsecurity benefited the country, because it

had been completely destroyed and trau-matized by the American bombing cam-paign during the Korean War (1950-1953).The war had a variety of psychologicalconsequences on the peninsula. In SouthKorea, anticommunism was adopted as astate ideology and from that time forwardhas shaped the country’s political and so-cial life. Meanwhile, the North turned Ame-rica into the image of a bogeyman,one thathas become the most crucial element inits ideological struggles and propaganda.North Korea only managed to survive thewar on account of the support it receivedfrom the Soviet Union and the People’s

Eun Jeung Lee

The Enigma of North Korea

Since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the early nineties, the Korean peninsulahas repeatedly undergone a crisis cycle marked by »increasing tension – compro-mise – sanctions – increasing tension.« The most recent repetition of this cyclehappened earlier this year. What is driving North Korea to stage these ritual con-frontations again and again, even though they win no friends and tend to isolatethe country even more? To understand the inner logic of North Korea’s behavior,one first must come to grips with the causes of the Korean problem. The per-petually recurring crises actually arise from structural problems that have a longpre-history.

Eun-Jeung Lee

(*1963) is a professor at the Free Universityof Berlin where she has directed the Korean

studies program since 2008. Her researchinterests include the history of intercultural

political thought, political theory, and politics,society, and culture in Korea and East Asia.

[email protected]



Republic of China, and indeed remaineddependent on those powers for its sub-sequent rapid reconstruction.

The shield of the Cold War and theaccompanying ideological and militaryconfrontation that allowed North Korea todevelop its economy fairly successfullyover the next three decades or so startedto disintegrate, beginning in 1972 whenNixon’s trip to Beijing inaugurated a nor-malization of relations between the USAand China. It became even more tatteredwhen, a few years later, the Soviet Unionembarked upon a process of economic andpolitical reform.

In China reform policies began as earlyas 1978 under Deng Xiaoping. The resump-tion of diplomatic relations with the Unit-ed States followed one year later. Then in1985 Michael Gorbachev started to reformthe Soviet Union through his policies ofperestroika and glasnost. Those shifts inthe economic and geopolitical environ-ment of North Korea changed its situationfundamentally. However, Kim Il Sung,North Korea’s founder, was unwilling toinitiate political and economic reforms inhis own country. Instead he criticized themand announced that North Korea wouldbring about the »final victory of social-ism,« albeit a socialism »with Korean char-acteristics.« North Korea had already madesimilar intentions known once before, atthe end of the 1950s when relations be-tween the People’s Republic of China andthe Soviet Union began to sour. At thattime North Korea refused to take sides andannounced that it would choose an »inde-pendent« path. The North was in a posi-tion to make that choice, because – unlikethe German Democratic Republic – it hadneither Soviet nor Chinese troops stationedon its territory.

On the other hand Kim Il Sung didhave to respond to these geostrategic shifts.Accordingly he proposed negotiations in1984 that would eventually lead North andSouth Korea as well as the United States

simultaneously to sign a non-aggressionpact and a peace treaty between the Northand the U.S. To underscore his willingnessto negotiate, he announced disarmamentmeasures in 1987 and again in 1990. Paral-leling the North’s initiatives, the SouthKorean government under President RohTae Woo proclaimed its intention to pur-sue a »Northern policy« of detente. Theseinitiatives resulted in the signing of twoagreements between North and South Ko-rea: the »Foundational Treaty« of 1991 andthe »Declaration on the Denuclearizationof the Korean Peninsula« in 1992.

However, the South’s interest in itsNorthern policy took second place be-hind its desire to normalize relations withthe People’s Republic of China and theSoviet Union. Toward that end, South Ko-rea granted the USSR credits in the amountof US $ 3 billion. Then, in 1990, the twocountries agreed to establish diplomaticrelations. A similar treaty between SouthKorea and the People’s Republic of Chinawas concluded in 1992.

Two sides of thesame coin

Faced with these developments North Ko-rea did not have many options left. One ofthese would be to seek to establish diplo-matic relations with the United States andJapan. That would enable it to create a newbalance of power due to the intersectingmutual recognitions, and thus protect it-self from unwanted interventions and en-croachments by the great powers active inthe region. Another option would be forthe North to strengthen its position by ac-quiring nuclear weapons. Initially, Kim IlSung pursued the first option. Early in 1992,during interviews with the Asahi Shimbunand (twice) the Washington Times, he ex-pressed the wish to establish diplomaticrelations with the U.S. However, once Chi-na and the Soviet Union had granted dip-

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lomatic recognition to South Korea, he lostimportant leverage in his negotiations withthe United States and Japan.

The United States no longer could seeany need to grant North Korea diplomaticrecognition after the Soviet Union’s col-lapse and the establishment of diplomaticrecognition between China and South Ko-rea. Instead, the U.S. became more andmore preoccupied with the issue of NorthKorea’s nuclear weapons. This was the issuethat also torpedoed negotiations betweenthe North and Japan in 1992 concerningthe establishment of diplomatic relations,since Japan linked the latter to concessionson security matters, i.e., the atomic weap-ons program.

Since that time, the nuclear programhas become the linchpin of the »NorthKorea problem,« and as such it is now theNorth’s most important negotiating tool.In this way the nuclear program and thepeace treaty (or the security guarantee forthe North Korean regime that goes alongwith it) have become two sides of the samecoin. The pattern of negotiations over thelast twenty years obeys this logic: WhileNorth Korea attempts to compel the UnitedStates to negotiate about the peace treatyby using the nuclear program as leverage,Washington insists that it will only talk tothe North once it has abandoned its nucle-ar program.

North Korea has enjoyed a great dealof success using this strategy to force theU.S. and other countries to the negotiatingtable. Thus, for example, the first nuclearcrisis in 1994 led to the Geneva Agree-ment, in which the U.S. and its allies prom-ised to supply the North with a light-waterreactor as well as crude oil. But they didnot adhere to the deal, and as a result theGeneva Agreement became little more thanwaste paper. Since then numerous nego-tiations have taken place, which have ledto the signing of various agreements anddeclarations. North and South Korea evenheld summit meetings in 2000 and 2007.

However, the promises made at those meet-ings hardly ever were kept. For that reason,North Korea continues to make threatsconcerning its nuclear program, and theUnited States continues to count on theeffects of economic sanctions. In fact,China undermines the latter, because itwants to avoid at any price chaotic con-ditions with unforeseeable consequencesin a neighboring country and the possiblepresence of American troops on its border.In light of these circumstances, the crisisrituals may be repeated in the future – atany rate as long as the chess board onwhich they are played out does not getdestroyed.

Nuclear weapons on the Koreanpeninsula: not a new problem

The nuclear program is evidently the keyto the Korean issue. Yet that conclusiondoes not hold true merely for the 1990s;it was also the case during the Korean Warera from 1950-1953. Right after the warbroke out on June 25, 1950, the use of atom-ic bombs was being weighed in Washing-ton. The decision was made to avoid theiruse, but only because decision-makers be-lieved that victory was assured even with-out them. Early in 1951, when Chinesevolunteers and regular soldiers began todrive back U.S.-led forces, which had ad-vanced to the Chinese border without aU.N. mandate, American policymakersagain considered using nuclear weapons.On November 30, 1950, President HarryS. Truman declared at a press conferencethat the United States would use all neces-sary weapons in the Korean War, includingatomic bombs. It proved to be a stroke ofgood fortune for the Korean peninsula andChina that, in the wake of the firing ofGeneral Douglas MacArthur, Truman’sdecision was never carried out. The latterintended to use some 30-50 atomic bombsto draw a »cobalt belt« across the Korean

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peninsula. Truman is alleged to have sign-ed the order to bomb targets in North Ko-rea and northern China on April 6, 1951,shortly before MacArthur was relieved ofduty. Even after the armistice agreement ofJuly 27, 1953, was signed, the United Statescontinued to play its »nuclear card« when-ever it seemed strategically useful to do so.

Kim Il Sung is supposed to have ex-pressed his concern over American atomicbombs stockpiled in South Korea to EastGerman Communist Party chief Erich Ho-necker,when the latter visited North Koreain October, 1986. There were some 100nuclear weapons stationed in South Korea,he alleged, and if the United States usedjust two of them against North Korea, itcould devastate the entire country.

North Korea had started to develop itsown nuclear program as early as the 1950s.The training of nuclear technicians in theSoviet Union began in 1956. A treaty ofcooperation in the field of nuclear tech-nology was signed with the Soviet Unionin 1959, and the research reactor in Yong-byon was operational by the mid-1960s.The Soviet Union also backed North Ko-rea’s continuing development of its nuclearprogram as well as the construction of theYongbyon reactor complex during the Sev-enties and Eighties. The plutonium neededto make North Korea’s atomic bombs wasproduced from spent fuel rods taken froma second reactor that was brought onlinein 1980.

North Korea signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1985; how-ever it has repeatedly refused to permitinspections of its facilities by the Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEO) asprovided in the treaty, because it fearsWashington would exploit the inspectionsto gain unfair advantages. Early in 1994tensions between the United States andNorth Korea had increased to the pointthat they almost led to war. At the timeNorth Korea found itself in an especiallydifficult situation, since the country now

lacked a protective ally due to the collapseof the Soviet Union. Moreover, trade withthe Comecon (the socialist countries’ trad-ing bloc) had ended, which threatenedNorth Korea’s food and energy imports.Asif that were not enough, Kim Il Sung died.In spite of all these setbacks, North Koreacontinued to expand its nuclear program,which its leadership regarded as the onlytrump card the North possessed in its gamewith the United States.

The 2013 Crisisand its Resolution

One important difference between thenuclear crises of 1994 and 2013 lies in thefact that all parties now acknowledge theexistence of North Korean nuclear weaponsas more than a mere possibility, eventhough few are willing to recognize theNorth as a nuclear-armed nation. In lightof all the pre-history and the renunciationby the North of the NPT in 2003, this iscertainly not an unproblematic issue. Atany rate it is clear enough that North Koreawill not under any circumstances give upits nuclear program as long as the coun-try’s existential security has not been guar-anteed through a peace treaty with theUnited States. In the last analysis that isone reason why some people are askingwhether there is any serious alternative tothe peace treaty demanded by North Koreaif one hopes to insure peace and stabilityboth on the Korean peninsula and through-out East Asia. Is it really justifiable for theU.S. and South Korea to reject North Ko-rea’s demands for reasons that ultimatelyseem to involve considerations of domesticpolicy?

The new president of South Korea, ParkGeun-Hye, clarified her position when shevisited the U.S. in May, 2013. She based iton the premise of »guilt and expiation«(»crime and punishment« would be a closerapproximation to the Korean expression):

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North Korea must pay a price for everykind of provocation. She asks all neigh-boring countries that feel allegiance toSouth Korea to use every means in theirpower to compel North Korea to open upand change, leaving no latitude for anykind of alternative. At the same time shehopes to inaugurate a »confidence-build-ing process« on the Korean peninsula,which would insure that the North wouldreceive humanitarian aid regardless of thepolitical tensions that might exist at anygiven time. She would also like to transformthe line of demarcation between the twocountries (the DMZ) into a symbol of peaceand mutual trust on the Korean peninsula.It remains unclear how far wishes like thisone can be reconciled with the logic of»guilt and expiation.« It is hardly to beexpected that this path that will lead toprogress en route to a solution of the Ko-rean question.

The former South Korean foreign min-ister Yoon Young-Gwan recently wrote thatit is no simple task for the world to con-front North Korea’s saber rattling, eventhough it is coming from an extremely im-poverished and effectively defeated coun-try. What is needed is a figure like PrinceMetternich, who succeeded after the Na-poleonic Wars in establishing a new Euro-pean order, or the far-sightedness of a JohnF. Kennedy, who transformed the Cubancrisis into status quo politics, thereby de-fusing the East-West conflict. Metternichdid not humiliate defeated France or forceit into a corner where it would sulk. Ken-nedy too refused to humiliate the SovietUnion or to vanquish it once and for all.He also was prepared secretly to withdrawAmerican missiles from Turkey and Italyin exchange for the withdrawal of Sovietmissiles from Cuba. By virtue of his prag-matism Kennedy managed to prevent aThird World War, which seemed all toolikely. By contrast, the victorious alliedpowers after the First World War did hu-miliate a defeated Germany and sought to

weaken it permanently through harsh peaceterms. The outcome is well known.

Where North Korea is concerned,equivalent political wisdom is evidentlylacking.What would have happened, won-ders Yoon Young-Gwan, if the North Ko-rea problem had been approached with theprudence of a Metternich or a Kennedy?Little is to be expected from a policy that iscalibrated for the short term and based onad hoc reactions. It is high time to come upwith sound and lasting solutions, espe-cially since the perceived value of NorthKorea’s »nuclear card« is likely to increasein the wake of more nuclear testing, whichcan be expected, and improved missiletechnology. It would be desirable if theUnited States, South Korea, and Japanwould look beyond their interest in exploi-ting the Korean situation to score domesticpolitical points, and give some thought tothe long-term goals of their policies to-ward North Korea.

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The shift began with the parliamentaryelections of November, 2010, which

were certainly neither free nor fair, but didusher in the end of the country’s fifty-yearmilitary dictatorship and the beginningof the reform process. Shortly after hetook office in early 2011, Myanmar’s newpresident surprised the international com-munity by announcing a series of reformmeasures. Political prisoners were releasedand the dialogue with opposition leaderAung San Suu Kyi was resumed.The NobelPeace Prize recipient was released fromhouse arrest, and her party – the NationalLeague for Democracy (NLD) – was legal-ized. Moreover, in 2011 the governmentlaunched a renewed peace initiative de-signed to end decades-long conflicts witharmed resistance groups from ethnic mi-nority communities.

In 2012 the government maintaineda steady reform course: a new law waspassed guaranteeing the right of assembly,and thus allowing peaceful demonstrationsfor the first time. Rigid prior censorship ofthe press was relaxed, while internet web-sites operated by exiles abroad, off limits tocitizens of Myanmar for years, were un-blocked. In April, 2012 a new labor lawwent into effect that allowed the formationof unions for the first time since the mili-tary seized power in 1962. Another mile-stone in the reform process was reached inthe by-elections for parliament in whichthe NLD, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won anoverwhelming electoral victory, capturing43 of 45 contested seats.Although the par-liament is still dominated by retired mili-

tary officers, it is evolving more and moreinto a counterweight to the executive and aforum for open, often contentious debates.Important economic reforms were alsoinitiated during 2012: foreign trade wasliberalized; the system of foreign currencyexchange was standardized; a new law oninvestment was passed; and the reform ofthe financial sector was undertaken. Thefirst fruits of the economic opening arealready evident: foreign investment is onthe rise and the tourism sector is experi-encing a rapid upsurge.

Thein Sein’s policy of opening upMyanmar has met with universal approvalaround the globe. In response, the EU de-cided in April, 2012 to suspend sanctionsagainst the country for one year. Then, inApril of this year, EU sanctions were liftedcompletely, except for a continuing weap-ons embargo. Meanwhile, the United Stateshas also largely relaxed its sanctions re-gime and deepened its diplomatic ties withMyanmar. In November of 2012, BarackObama became the first sitting U.S. presi-dent to visit the country. President TheinSein reciprocated with a trip to Washingtonin May of this year, the first visit by aBurmese head of state to the U.S. in nearly

Henning Effner

Myanmar‘s Reform Process: A Work in Progress

Myanmar is currently going through a rapid process of political and economictransformation that scarcely anyone would have thought possible even a few yearsago. The reforms, which the government under Thein Sein, has pushed forwardat an accelerated pace, deserve high marks if one considers them as a whole. Yetmany stumbling blocks remain on the road to a democratic society.

Henning Effner

(* 1973) coordinates the Friedrich EbertFoundation’s work in Myanmar.

[email protected]



zures, inhumane working conditions, andthe devastating consequences of majorenergy and infrastructure projects. Theseprotests suggest that people are no longerwilling to acquiesce in injustices withouta murmur of dissent. So the questionbecomes all the more urgent: How caneconomic development be pursued in thefuture in more socially just and inclusiveways?

Settling the decades-long conflicts be-tween the central government and theethnic minorities (who constitute around40 % of the country’s population) will beby far the biggest challenge for Myanmar’sreformist leadership. The peace initiativelaunched by the government back in 2011already has a series of accomplishmentsto its credit. During 2012, cease-fire ag-reements were signed with nearly all theresistance groups.Yet there were also somebitter setbacks, especially in the Kachinstate, located in the north of Myanmar,where fighting between the Kachin Inde-pendence Organization (KIO) and themilitary escalated during 2012. As part ofa large-scale offensive, the air force bomb-ed positions held by the rebel organiza-tion. Consequently, more than 100,000people had to flee the conflict zones. It wasnot until early this year that some progresswas made in negotiations between the go-vernment and the KIO. Last June thosetalks finally produced a concrete result:a temporary cease-fire.

There is still a long way to go before acomprehensive peace treaty and a lastingpolitical solution to these conflicts can beachieved. In the final analysis, the ethnicminorities are demanding constitutionalamendments that would create federalstructures granting them greater regionalautonomy and a larger role in political de-cision-making. Moreover, they are also ask-ing for their fair share of the profits fromraw materials extracted in the territorieswhere they live. To be sure, the govern-ment has declared its willingness in prin-

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fifty years. Thus, in just two years PresidentThein Sein has succeeded in ending theisolation of his once-ostracized country.

Myanmar is still in the early stagesof a long process

In spite of the successes achieved and theremarkably quick tempo of the reformprocess, enormous challenges still lie aheadfor Myanmar, and the road toward a demo-cratic society will be long. The country’spolitical institutions still lack legitimacy,because they have not emerged from freeand fair elections. The parliament is dom-inated by the USDP (Union Solidarity andDevelopment Party), whose members aremostly representatives of the previous mili-tary government. There are no signs yetof an independent judiciary, nor have anyattempts been made to reform the corruptpublic administration. The political legacyof five decades of military rule still weighsheavily on the country.Authoritarian struc-tures are so deeply entrenched in Myan-mar’s society that it will take time to es-tablish democratic values and decision-making procedures.

The thorny path to apermanent peace

The economic reforms introduced in thepast few years certainly have unleashed aneconomic boom, but so far it has beenconfined mostly to metropolitan Yangon.By contrast, in the rural areas where morethan 75 % of the population still lives,little has changed. Furthermore, as libe-ralization proceeds, it lays bare the deepwounds left by the authoritarian past.Many unresolved social conflicts that weresuppressed forcibly during the militarydictatorship are now emerging into thelight of day. There have been numerousdemonstrations against illegal land sei-



These intra-state conflicts will have tobe settled if there is going to be furtherprogress toward democratization. This isparticularly so because the military’s do-minant role in the political system is clo-sely connected to the persistence of ethnicconflict. Traditionally, the military has be-lieved that its chief task is to prevent thebreakup of this multi-ethnic state. As longas the ethnic conflicts remain unresolved,it is hardly likely that the military will re-linquish its pre-eminence.

The military remains the country’s most powerful institution

As before, the military retains a veto pow-er, and its political influence is assured bycertain provisions of constitutional law.A quarter of the seats in parliament arereserved for representatives of the mili-tary. Constitutional amendments require asupermajority of 75 %, which means theyare impossible without the military’s con-currence. Furthermore, the supreme com-mander of the armed forces names severalministers, including those for defense andinterior. The military does support the re-form policies of President Thein Sein, yetit is not fully committed to them. And itis subject to civilian control only to acertain extent. Human rights violationsperpetrated by members of the armedforces continue, especially in the terri-tories of ethnic minorities. Clearly, then, itis urgently necessary to revise the internalstructures of the armed forces and engagethe military more deeply in the processof reform.

Until recently the reform process inMyanmar was a »revolution from above,«initiated by the military, which selectedThein Sein as president in 2011 – a manwho himself had served as a general underthe military government. But once the newgovernment took office, the reform pro-cess began to develop a dynamic of its own

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ciple to negotiate about these issues. Butit is still not clear what a political solutionmight look like.

Religious conflicts havebeen reignited

In addition to the long-simmering ethnicconflicts, the processes of liberalizationand the opening of economy and societyhave also rekindled long-suppressed reli-gious conflicts. Thus, in 2012 there wererepeated violent clashes between the Mus-lim Rohingyas and the Buddhist Rakhine(Arakanese) people, an ethnic group livingin western Myanmar near the border withBangladesh. More than 150 died duringthe fighting, while tens of thousands, mostof them Rohingyas, were forced to fleeand have been living in temporary refugeecamps ever since.

The government’s treatment of theMuslim minority has provoked inter-national criticism. Human rights organ-izations charged the government with ha-ving done too little to stop the violenceagainst the Rohingyas.

The Myanmar government does notrecognize the Rohingyas as an indigenousnational minority; instead it sees them asillegal immigrants who have entered theRakhine state of western Myanmar fromneighboring Bangladesh. Even thoughmany Rohingyas have lived in Myanmarfor generations, they have been denied cit-izenship there. Among the Buddhist ma-jority in the country’s population, anti-pathy toward the Rohingyas is widespread.It became evident again earlier this yearthat the antagonism between Buddhistsand Muslims harbored considerable poten-tial for conflict, as assaults on Muslims be-gan to take place in other parts of thecountry as well. In these cases the violencewas fomented mostly by radical Buddhistmonks, whose goal is to expel the Muslimminorities from Myanmar.



to it. Aung San Suu Kyi is already pushingfor such an amendment; however, it is notyet clear whether it could be passed beforethe 2015 elections. Presumably, the mili-tary and the USDP would only go along ifsuch an amendment were part of a broaderpolitical settlement that would insure thattheir interests would be protected even ifthe NLD took power. It is still not obviouswhat such a deal might look like. Never-theless, it appears that discussions are al-ready taking place within the NLD aboutthe possibility of forming a coalition gov-ernment with the USDP after the electionsof 2015. These are positive signs, whichsuggest that the necessary political com-promises are possible.

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and went far beyond anything that theformer military dictator, Than Shwe, mighthave had in mind originally when he talk-ed about »disciplined democracy.« TheinSein is largely responsible for this turn ofevents, since his courageous reform meas-ures ultimately convinced even Aung SanSuu Kyi to support the course he had set.Since their first meeting in August, 2011,the two of them have developed a form ofcooperation based on mutual trust, whichhas perhaps been the most important basisfor the success of the reform process sofar. But it is still an open question whetherthis cooperation will continue after the2015 elections.

The parliamentary elections scheduledfor that year could turn out to be a criticalpoint in the process of reform. The NLD’soverwhelming win in the 2012 by-electionsto parliament made it obvious that AungSan Suu Kyi has strong backing among thepopulace. Given her enormous popularity,one should assume that the NLD will scorea clear electoral victory in 2015 as long asthe elections are conducted fairly and freely.In that case parliamentary majorities wouldshift drastically in favor of the NLD. It isnot yet clear whether the current politicalleadership and the military are ready toaccept this. They worry that they will losecontrol of the reform process should theNLD seize the reins of power.

Aung San Suu Kyi is aware of thisdifficulty. That is why she is seeking arapprochement with the military. Besides,without the military’s acquiescence shecould not even be elected president. Ac-cording to the constitution, people whosefamily members hold citizenship in a for-eign country, or have held it in the past, arenot eligible to be president in Myanmar.Aung San Suu Kyi was formerly married toa foreign national; hence, she is not eligiblefor the state presidency. It would take aconstitutional amendment to reverse thatprohibition, and that could only be ap-proved by parliament if the military agrees



Muslim endeavors. That system was basedon an ideological foundation known aspancasila (five principles) that maintaineda relatively neutral position vis-à-vis thecountry’s religious diversity.

The goal of pancasila was to forge na-tional unity from the many different ethnicgroups, nationalities, religions, and cul-tures of the archipelago, yet without igno-ring the diversity of Indonesia (the islandnation includes more than 350 nationalgroups). Nevertheless, only five religionswere granted official recognition at thebirth of the regime: Islam, Christianity, in-cluding both Protestant and Catholic con-fessions, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Con-fucianism was added to the list by PresidentAbdurrahman Wahid in 1998. Pancasilaprohibits the establishment of any statereligion, no matter what its orientation, inthe first item of its credo. Instead it pos-tulates only belief in the one true God.After the demise of the authoritarian Su-harto regime in 1998, Islamic forces want-ed to proclaim Islam as the state religionthrough a constitutional amendment, butthose efforts came to naught.

To suppress religious freedom wouldfly in the face of the constitution and theplurality and liberality (!) of Indonesian

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On a purely theoretical plane – and thusbeyond all prejudices – Islam and de-

mocracy are compatible. On one side wehave a form of political authority, on theother, an exegesis of faith which can becounted among the world’s three greatmonotheistic religions. In principle, anyform of rule should be able to combinefreely with a multitude of different faiths.Christian as well as Islamic communitieshearken back to a canon of values that cango hand in hand with charismatic author-ity (in Max Weber’s sense) or with legal,collective forms of rule, such as democ-racy. But, as everyone knows, all theorywould be gray if one could not find a real-life example by means of which to illus-trate the relationship between Islam anddemocracy. The chosen example is Indo-nesia, the world’s largest country decisivelyshaped by Islam, with approximately 250million inhabitants, and one that enjoys ademocratic constitution.

The young Indonesian Republic expe-rienced a democratic renaissance in theaftermath of the systemic upheavals of1998. Democracy is not a foreign word inIndonesia. On the contrary, when it looksback into its past, the country finds demo-cratic experiences. The latter include boththe nation’s political culture and tolerantattitude toward religious diversity as wellas the historical experiences it has accu-mulated since achieving its independencefrom the Netherlands in 1949. Indonesia’s»founding fathers,« Sukarno and Hatta,established a political system that, in itsearly years, made a serious and successfuleffort to resist the influence of non-secular

Matthias Heise

Islam meets Democracy: the Case of Indonesia

Indonesia is the largest country in the world with both a democratic constitutionand a society thoroughly shaped by Islam. The following essay profiles some of theways in which those two factors have been conjoined and where the difficultiesmay still lie.

Matthias Heise

(*1981) is a doctoral fellow and scholarlyresearcher at the Institute for Philosophy andPolitical Science at the Technical Universityof Dortmund. He recently edited a volumeentitled, Indonesia’s Search for Democracy:Political, Economic and Social Developments(Nomos)[email protected]



society that is inseparable from it. Thisargument was made even by Muslim in-tellectuals, including the country’s formerPresident, Wahid. And the anthropologistRobert W. Hefner underscores the factthat ideas of democracy, civil society, plu-ralism, and the rule of law have not enjoy-ed so much support from so many intel-lectuals anywhere in the Muslim world asthey have in Indonesia, from the represen-tatives of (civil) Indonesian Islam. It is nota trivial matter in this context that thefourth principle in Indonesia’s state ide-ology intends to give democracy a solidunderpinning. In this respect the ideologycan be traced back to two Muslim practices:mufakat (consensus) and musyawarah (con-sultation, entrusted to parliamentary rep-resentatives). Both principles – religiouspluralism and democracy – enabled thecritics of the authoritarian Suharto regimein the Nineties to legitimate the pro-democ-racy movement and the defense of pluralism.

What makes Indonesia so special is thesupport for democracy provided by Islamicgroups during the country’s transform-ation process. It is hard to ignore the pro-democracy influence of two groups in par-ticular: the Islamic organization NahdlatulUlama (NU) previously led by Walid, andthe Muhammadiyah. These are the twolargest Muslim organizations in Indonesiawith a combined membership of around60 million. The NU categorically rejectsinterpretations of the Koran that call forthe establishment of a caliphate or a sys-tem of Islamic law (Sharia). It is thereforestrictly opposed to associations such as theEgyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Mu-hammadiyah rejects radical and violentversions of Islam and emphasizes the con-science of the individual, with which everyhuman being is endowed from birth andin which God’s voice is expressed (»voxpopuli vox dei«). Thus, every individualcan and must be involved in public deci-sions. If a consensus is lacking, that in-volvement may take the form of a vote. For

these reasons, mainstream Indonesian Is-lam is certainly compatible with democ-racy. If one believes the scholar and jour-nalist Adam Schwarz, such pro-democracyleanings may link up with Javanese tradi-tion, which allegedly rejects ideas of moralsuperiority and intolerant exclusivism.

The anti-democratic side

On the other hand it is impossible todeny the existence of Islamist (i.e., anti-democratic) forces in Indonesia. Thosewho preach the unity of Islam and politicspursue their goal in various ways. Theterrorist attacks on the tourists’ favoriteisland, Bali (in 2002 and 2005) and on theMarriot and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta(in 2009) speak for themselves. Such eventsteach us to take a more subtle approachto Islam in Indonesia and put into focusthe radical, anti-democratic side. Here it isworth mentioning both the Indonesiansubsidiary of the Southeast-Asian organi-zation Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and the FrontPembela Islam (FPI or Islamic DefenseFront). So far these groups have not re-ceived much backing from the Indonesianpeople, but during the transitional phasethey were favored by some elements ofthe political establishment. It is true thatSuharto did take small steps to liberalizesectors of the economy and domains ofpolitical life. After thirty years as regenthe was not too worried about a completeloss of power. Yet in addition to thisshrewdly calculated liberalization, Suhartoalso sought allies among the radicalIslamic organizations as a counterweightto the increasingly bold bids for powermade by the military and pro-democracyforces. Even today a legacy of mistrust forradical groups lingers on account of thisunholy alliance. In addition, Suharto de-tached the state ideology of pancasila fromits neutral origins and refashioned it into adoctrine intended to stabilize political

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authority by emphasizing the principle ofthe unity between rulers and ruled. Large-scale protests launched by a self-confidentcivil society and stoked by the harsh side-effects of the Asian crisis of 1997 initiallycalled for a revision of the constitution.But by 1998 they had paved the way intothe post-Suharto era for a system that wasalready becoming de facto democratic.Indonesians refer to this transition as thereformasi. The demands for democracygive evidence that the civilian populationalready possessed a strong awareness ofcivic values. The reformasi also reinforcesthe expectation that political Islam wouldnot do well in a libe-ralized system inwhich political parties were allowed tocompete for support. Yet one should notimagine that the idea of merging Islam andpolitics has been laid to rest once and forall. It is not an irreversible element of theconstitution, since radical currents of Islampersist in calling for a change of course.

The example of Indonesia thus revealsin fascinating ways how Islam and democ-racy might dovetail with one another. Onthe other hand, the Indonesian case, testingas it does the compatibility of Islam anddemocracy, should not mislead us intooverlooking the universal aspects of de-mocracy. All too often both »Western«scholars and Asian politicians have claimedthat Asian democracies should and couldnot follow the so-called Western canon,allegedly because they are grounded onoriginally »Asian« values (though there islittle clarity about exactly what these aresupposed to be).At one time this argumentallowed Suharto to justify an authoritarianpolitical system by using a distorted notionof democracy that ended up damaging itsreputation. Still, campaigning for the fulldevelopment of democracy in Asia re-mains a worthwhile endeavor, which al-ways has to be adjusted to the concretecase, both theoretically and practically.

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Almost two decades after the end of thebrutal Balkan War, the international

community still practically governs manyaspects of politics in Bosnia and Herzego-vina. The international community wouldlike to withdraw and turn over respon-sibility for the country to local politicalelites. However, this would be a mistake, as

Paul Pasch

A Failed State?The hard road ahead for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Far from advancing the processes of pacification and democratization, the post-war constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina has actually hampered both, largelybecause it clings to the old Yugoslavian model of distributing resources accordingto ethnic criteria. Today, the country is a dysfunctional state with elites who areunwilling to compromise and a devastated economy. Ethnic criteria of fairnessin distribution need to be abandoned in favor of a principle of justice based onindividual rights and merit.

Paul Pasch

(*1957) is a political scientist who has studied inBerlin, Jerusalem, and Sarajevo. He has served ascoordinator of international development effortsfor the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Hehas worked as a country director in Israel, Jordan,Malaysia, Myanmar, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.Since August 2012 he has served as the FESdirector in the state of Thuringia, [email protected]



demonstrated by the political paralysisthat has prevailed since 2010 and espe-cially by the ongoing crisis of governmentin the Federation since June, 2012. Bothshow that the constitution as currentlydesigned does not allow for proper gov-ernance.

In fact, the international communitystill remains deeply engaged in the coun-try, as it has been for some time. The HighRepresentative for Bosnia and Herzego-vina, governing with a mandate from theU.N. Security Council, is supposed tomonitor the implementation of the Day-ton Peace Accords. The Special Envoy ofthe European Union (EUSR) representsthe E.U. in civil affairs. The Military Unitof the European Union (EUFOR) handlesmilitary issues. The European Police Mis-sion (EUPM) coordinates police matters.The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) deals withinternational security issues and providessupport for the rebuilding of a pacifiedpost-war society. Besides these bodies, theinternational community is represented inthe form of certain other U.N. institutionsand international aid organizations.

However, after the new Balkan strategywas approved in 2011, the E.U. has seemedto back away from its commitments. Ledby the German government, the inter-national community appears to be deadset on withdrawing despite the increasingpotential for conflict. Because its domesticresources are shrinking, the community ispreparing to shirk its responsibilities andleave the fragile Balkan entity to its owndevices.

The crippling legacyof the Tito era

To fathom these problems it is necessary torecall how the multi-ethnic Yugoslav stateused to work. In Tito’s day access to power,jobs, state funds – really, just about all

resources that were not distributed via themarket – was allocated on the basis of eachethnic group’s percentage of the total pop-ulation. In this way resources were suppo-sed to be allotted in the fairest way possibleand such that no ethnic group would be ata disadvantage.However, this arrangementhad one glaring weakness: it forced peopleto rally behind an ethnic group rather thanopt for a shared civic identity and member-ship that transcended ethnic boundaries.That system also discouraged – and stilldoes – interethnic marriages and asso-ciations. Instead, demographic rivalriesamong the ethnic groups flared up all tooeasily, as they tried to boost the share oftheir own group in the overall population.Thus, Tito-era practices sustained and po-tentially intensified existing antagonisms,causing society to splinter along ethniclines. The whole system worked only aslong as there was a single source of author-ity that dominated everything, but thatwas seen as impartial and able to achievea balance among ethnic interests. Tito andhis apparatus (including especially themulti-ethnic army) constituted just sucha central, authoritative institution able tooperate »above« the collision of ethnicinterests. They arbitrated – or issued au-thoritarian fiats for – all of the inevitableconflicts among ethnic groups. For a longtime this approach worked well.

But after Tito died and the authorita-tive center collapsed in the wake of com-munism’s demise, the federally organizedPeople’s Republic began to disintegrate.Slobodan Miloševic manipulated the sys-tem so as to elevate Serbian interests abovethose of other ethnic groups. Those asso-ciations, which had been perpetuated andcatered to for so many years, inevitablyevolved into competing power centers thatmade sweeping claims upon the resourcesof the state as a whole. Their squabbleseventually resulted in a competition forall the goods under the state’s control,but one that was decided on exclusively

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ethnic grounds. In spite of the interculturalexperiences they had accumulated, theYugoslav people were soon forced to optfor one or another of the ethnic groups,since these controlled everything andclaimed to be the only institutions capableof representing citizens’ interests. Therewas less and less leeway for people to ope-rate »in between« ethnic divisions. Atthat point, the disintegration of the multi-ethnic state was a foregone conclusion.

In the war that broke out in theearly 1990s, Bosnia and Herzegovina wassqueezed between the warring Serbs andCroats. Both nations laid claim to its terri-tory. In 1992 Serbia established a puppet»Republic of the Serbian People in Bosnia-Herzegovina« complete with a parliamentthat it had selected. To resist such pres-sures, the Croatian and Bosniak Muslimpopulation held a referendum on March1, 1992, in which a large majority of thelocal population expressed its wish thatBosnia-Herzegovina should remain an in-dependent country. Soon afterward, pitchedbattles erupted in Bosnia and Herzego-vina, which gradually evolved into a waramong Bosnian Croats, Bosniak Muslims,and Bosnian Serbs. It proved to be a partic-ularly savage, unrestrained, and protractedconflict featuring genocidal massacres,concentration camps, mass rapes, dev-astation, »ethnic cleansing« across vaststretches of territory, and artillery barragesaimed at one-time bastions of civilizationlike Sarajevo. Ironically, the latter had beena cosmopolitan, multicultural city thatheld the Winter Olympics in 1984 with theacclaim and participation of the wholeworld.

In November, 1995, the Dayton PeaceAccords put an end to this dreadful war.But the agreement only worked becausethe feuding ethnic groups were practicallyfrozen in place, still holding the positionsthat they had fought to gain. The countrywas divided into a Federation of Bosniaand Herzegovina and a Republika Srpska.

Both were formally placed under the sameroof: the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.The latter was supposed to determine whatthe common interests were, how best toachieve them, and how to make them trumpspecial interests. But in fact the countrywas divided among the three constituentnational groupings: Bosnian Serbs, BosnianCroats, and Bosniak Muslims. As in theTito era, the constitution provided thateach ethnic group should have access tojobs, resources, and influence in propor-tion to its share of the overall population.This arrangement gave rise to perpetualhaggling for positions and sinecures, ac-companied by intrigues, obstructionism,and mutual recriminations. Rather thanencouraging shared interests, this systemfostered an ever-increasing potential forconflict.

Unsuccessful pacification

The Dayton Peace Accords were designedto allow the authorities established by theinternational community, noted above, toregulate and arbitrate these inevitable con-flicts. In this sense the constitution pre-scribed by the Dayton Accords reproducesthe basic structure of the former Yugo-slavia. There is an authoritarian centralinstitution to arbitrate conflicts of interestwithout being too deeply enmeshed inthem, while resources are distributed ac-cording to criteria of fairness to eachethnic group. This design does not permitany true solution, or genuine progress. Theeconomic indicators speak for themselves:Bosnia and Herzegovina remains one ofthe poorest countries on Europe’s peri-phery. With 3.9 million inhabitants it hasa GDP of just 12.3 billion euros, a percapita income of 3,154 euros, and anunemployment rate of 44.3 %. At the sametime, hopes for the »great alternative« –closer ties to the E.U. – are fading. Becauseof the interest gridlock, promised reforms

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to bring the country closer to the E.U. legalsystem have not materialized. Given thesituation that now prevails, a kind of per-manent »blame game,« people are be-coming ever more receptive to ethno-nationalist rhetoric. Thus, in the October,2012 elections, the most bellicose partieswere again the clear winners: those led byRadovan Karadzic, Franco Tudjman, andAlija Izetbegovic.

The chaos is worsening, as evidencedby two phenomena: the constant demandsmade by the rump republic, RepublikaSrpska, to dissolve the overarching state,and the crisis of government in the Fed-eration of Bosnia and Herzegovina thathas been festering since June, 2012. Bothillustrate the problem of the flawed consti-tutional design bestowed on Bosnia andHerzegovina by the international commu-nity which has pacified the country at theexpense of effective governance. The out-come: 18 years after the end of the bloodyclashes among Bosnian Orthodox Serbs,Bosnian Catholic Croats, and the MuslimBosniaks, the traces of a war that broughtethnic cleansing to entire regions are stillclearly discernible.As in the past, the short-term fears and needs of the three nationalgroupings determine day-to-day politics.The pacification and democratization ofthe country have ended in failure.

The failure of local elites

One thing is clear and unambiguous: Thechief obstacle in the way of transformingBosnia and Herzegovina’s postwar societyinto a state structure fit for entry into theE.U. is its present constitution. The latter,an add-on to the Dayton peace Accords of1995, was a successful tool in ending thewar. Nevertheless, the perpetual crisis ofgovernment demonstrates that the consti-tution is blocking the emergence and artic-ulation of interests that could transcendethnic pork-barrel politics. As things now

stand, the country cannot meet the chal-lenges that would accompany its sought-after membership in NATO and the E.U.That is the reason why the Treaty of Sta-bilization and Association with the E.U.,agreed upon in 2008, and the prospect ofNATO membership, offered in 2012, havenot gone into effect.

There is a consensus among the popu-lation, the political elites, and the inter-national community that the only way forthe country to escape the blind alley it hasreached is to amend the constitution; how-ever, the political will to implement a pro-gram of revisions is lacking. Local politicalelites have learned that the Dayton consti-tution enables them to take »maximalist«positions in behalf of their respective ethnicgroups. Under the pretext of defending»national« responsibilities, all sides rejectcompromises, because they are confidentthat international society will straighteneverything out. The High Representativeand – since the summer of 2011 – in-creasingly the E.U.’s Special Envoy assumethe task of finding compromises.

In the wake of a new Balkan strategyapproved by the E.U. in 2011, which limit-ed the authority of the High Represen-tative, the international community hasincreasingly tried to engage the country’speople and political elites to become thedriving force behind necessary amend-ments and reforms. The magic formula isnow »local ownership.« But because theconstitution is designed to accommodateethnic criteria of fairness, local ownershipmeans mutual obstruction. That is the rea-son why appropriate reforms of state insti-tutions (for example the establishment ofan independent supreme court or limita-tions upon the ethnic veto) have not beenforthcoming. The result is the politicalparalysis that has lasted since October,2010.

Until the principle of ethnic justiceanchored in the constitution has beensupplanted by a universalistic criterion of

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»The time has come to write about morethan just the things one understands;

it is just as important, if not more so, towrite about things one cares about.« Theseare the words of Tony Judt, the English-American historian and intellectual whopassed away in 2010 and left to posteritya record of his life, his work, and his wide-ranging reflections on the past and presentin Thinking the Twentieth Century. Thebook took shape in the course of months-long, systematic conversations in 2009 be-tween Judt and his much younger friendand colleague, Timothy Snyder, a historian

of Eastern Europe. During this entire timeJudt was suffering from ALS, a progressivedisease of the nervous system which lefthim increasingly paralyzed and ultimatelyunable to move at all, yet still fully capable

Jürgen Kocka

Judging the Past and Critiquing the PresentThinking the Twentieth Century, a Dialogue betweenTony Judt and Timothy Snyder

Jürgen Kocka

(*1941) is a professor (emeritus) of historyat the Free University of Berlin. He waspresident of the Social Science ResearchCenter (WZB) in Berlin. In 2011 he wasawarded the Holberg International MemorialPrize for outstanding scholarly work inthe fields of the arts and humanities, socialsciences, and [email protected]

justice based on human rights, the onlysolution left is the Yugoslavian one in-herited from Tito’s undisputed authority:The institutions set up by the internationalcommunity have to take rigorous authori-tarian measures and impose solutions.This dilemma implies that the interna-tional community again must assume theunique leadership role assigned to it in theconstitution and take charge of the reformprocess.

If one heeds the historical analogy, theapparently liberal approach of makinglocal people personally responsible forreform is equivalent to what happened inthe wake of Tito’s death: the collapse andfailure of the central authority that arbi-trated disputes. The outcome of that col-lapse was the war of each ethnic groupagainst all the others. It would be frivolousand irresponsible to repeat that mistake.This is even more evident when one con-sults some of the relevant studies, such asthose done by the Democratization Policy

Council and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung,which confirm that the potential for vio-lence is high on account of the ongoingpolitical paralysis.

Instead, the institutions authorized bythe international community should ini-tiate a process of reform following a steady,step-by-step approach. More and moreinstitutions need to be created that compelparticipants to place common interestsand goals in the foreground. Accordingly,the first and most important step in thisprocess would be to harmonize the consti-tution with the European Convention onthe Protection of Human Rights. Sucha reform would set in motion a crucialparadigm shift away from ethnic criteria ofjustice. Fairness would then be judged bythe extent to which human rights are up-held for all members of society in an indi-vidual rather than group (ethnic) sense.That could be the foundation upon whichreconciliation among national groups andhuman beings might take place.



of thinking and using his vocal chords.Those conversations are reproduced inthis volume and supplemented by autobio-graphical and reflective passages added byJudt. The finished product combines his-torical judgments with a critique of thepresent age, erudition with polemics.

The history of the Jews forms a centralthread in this fabric of reminiscences,ideas, and interpretations. Born in 1948,Judt was the offspring of a Jewish familywith roots in Eastern Europe that hadsuffered persecutions during the 19th and20th centuries. Snyder, for his part, had be-come well known in academic circles forhis book, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitlerand Stalin, a story of suffering and crimescommitted in East-Central Europe underthe rule of both dictators. Judt and Sny-der elucidate the crucial role played byJewish immigrants from Eastern Europein shaping Vienna’s version of the modernera around 1900.They show that the Haps-burg Empire was fairly congenial to theJews, and point out that the post-1918breakthrough of the democratic nation-state in Central and Eastern Europe ulti-mately had a negative impact on the cir-cumstances of their lives. Judt tells of hisyouthful enthusiasm for Zionism and hisidentification with an idealized image ofthe state of Israel. However, starting in thelate 1960s he became disenchanted withthe Jewish state and distanced himself fromit. His criticism of Israel’s current policiesis unusually harsh, especially in respectto that country’s strategy of obsessivelyinstrumentalizing the memory of the Holo-caust in order to shore up its own identityand advance its interests. Judt taught atboth British and American universities.His research was devoted mainly to Frenchhistory.But by the 1980s he had discoveredEast-Central Europe for himself and ap-proached it with great sympathy. The twoauthors clarify the special kind of libera-lism with social-democratic overtones thatCentral-European dissidents who spurned

Soviet Marxism introduced into Europeanintellectual life before and after the demiseof communism. Leszek Kolakowski, whomJudt admired,deeply influenced the latter’sunderstanding of Marxism.

Judt’s attitude toward Marxism orig-inally was informed by the views of hisradical-socialist yet anti-Stalinist parents.While most people interested in the his-tory of the French left wanted to study theCommunists, Judt chose the Socialists forhis research. One can read his sweepingand brilliant attack against (nearly) everykind of social history (»A Clown in RegalPurple,« 1979) as a milestone in his re-treat from Marxist interpretations. He waseventually drawn to the study of Western-European intellectuals in the twentiethcentury, because nothing interested himmore than the question of why so many ofthem lionized Soviet communism in spiteof its inhuman crimes. He also found itpuzzling that, even after the defeat of fas-cism in 1945, numerous intellectuals wereeither hesitant or slow to break with it. Hetook them rigorously to task, but he alsosought to understand them. In a conver-sation with Snyder, he charged Eric Hobs-bawm with having written encomiumsand apologies for the German DemocraticRepublic and East Berlin. He attacksBrecht’s poem »To Posterity« as a justi-fication of present crimes in the name offuture progress. Both charges are muchexaggerated.

At the same time Judt is quite emphaticin thinking of himself as belonging to theleft and championing social democracy.The book features a vehement critique ofneo-liberalism, a settling of accounts withgrowing inequality in the United States,and a resolute brief in favor of the neces-sity of the social welfare state. Some ofthese appraisals are strikingly apt: e.g., hisjudgment that capitalism is incapable ofcreating or even preserving the social con-ditions that it requires for its own survival;his identification of gambling as the prin-

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ciple at the heart of financial capitalism;his plea that we recognize anew the »so-cial« principle inherent in society; and hisbroadside against the cult of privatizationand in favor of the relevance of publicgoods. Judt in his persona as a historianof ideas approaches the history of neo-liberalism through the familiar contrast be-tween the doctrines of Keynes and Hayek.He attributes Hayek’s radical, market-based rejection of the social welfare stateto his interwar experiences in authorita-rian Austria and with Viennese municipalsocialism – an original but debatable pointof view.

Democracy’s uncertain future

Popular historical syntheses consistentlypaint a dismal picture of the 20th centurywith its wars, persecutions, and barbarousacts. One sees this tendency, for example,in Hobsbawn’s account of the Age of Ex-tremes and in Mark Mazower’s book, DarkContinent: Europe’s Twentieth Century. Judtand Snyder say nothing to contradict suchassessments, but they do add much thatis important and stress different aspectsof the contemporary scene. For example,they emphasize the remarkable improve-ments that the last century brought aboutin people’s everyday lives. They remind thereader that for many decades the chiefantagonists were communism and fascism,not totalitarianism and democracy. Theyargue that it was »one of the truly un-expected developments of the century« thatthe democratic, constitutional state withsocial-welfare policies emerged victorious.That is true, even though its victory is in-complete and it faces an uncertain future,as both authors are aware.

Thinking the Twentieth Century – thisretrospective remains remarkably provin-cial. The authors’ twentieth century tookplace exclusively in Europe and the UnitedStates. They pay no attention to impe-

rialism, decolonization, and globalization.Nor do they inquire into the internal unity,boundaries, or gaps in that century. Sincethey are drawing up a balance sheet of oneman’s life and works, why do we not findeven the slightest hint of self-criticism?Because they are always in search of amemorable mot juste, their text exagge-rates its points time and again. What ismore, there is no lack of errors and dis-tortions, as when they equate Stresemann’sforeign policy with that of the Nazis.

Still, the book is an impressive tes-tament to the intellectual inquiries of twoprofessional historians who play the largerrole of intellectuals by making argumentsthat transcend the narrow boundaries oftheir respective specialties. This is the casenot only for Judt, who explicitly cast him-self as a public intellectual and only secon-darily as »an academic.« Snyder, who madehis mark in quite different ways, has littletrouble keeping up with Judt. He turns outto be a brilliant conversationalist who in-spires Judt but is not afraid to correct thelatter’s judgments gently. The two authorsare on the same wavelength and funda-mentally agree on their principles. Theydemonstrate how a person can use histo-rical knowledge to assess the present, andwhy someone who wishes to understandand explain the present, and have animpact on public life should be fascinatedby history. It is rare for trained historiansto bring off the balancing act between aspecialist’s competence in his/her chosenfield and the discourse of a committedintellectual as explicitly, self-consciously,and thoroughly as Judt and Snyder do.In that respect, Thinking the TwentiethCentury is an exemplary book.

Tony Judt/Timothy Snyder, Thinking theTwentieth Century. Penguin Books, NewYork, Reprint Edition, 2013, 432 pages (pa-perback), $ 12.78.

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