:: Thursday, May 01, 2003 ::

Cracks in the Red Bastion: The Weakening CPM Grip in West Bengal

As this incident shows the decline of the CPM (M) in the state of West Bengal is disheartening and now too obvious to hide. While the Indian Left has always been prone to ideological and factional struggles and most Leftists preferring to lend support to formal parties from the outside rather than engaging in formal collective political action; the LF government in West Bengal represented one of the more solid achievements in India. Elected in after a decade of strife in 1977, in the wake of the anti-Emergency wave; much hope was placed on the shoulders of the CPM dominated LF coalition to restore stability and prosperity to the state. Initial successes such as Operation Barga which led to the registration of nearly 2 million sharecroppers, enforcement of the legal minimum post-harvest shares and rural minimum wages along with the devolution of power to village panchayats were seen as real if not radical moves towards socio-economic transformation and empowerment. Unfortunately the self-destruction of the Congress and the inability of third part formations such as Trinamul has left the LF coalition without any real political rivals for power; rapid signs of corruption, nepotism, criminalisation and abuse of policy implementation started to become apparent by the late 1980s as the first wave of reforms in the countryside faltered. By the mid-1990s the evidence of decay were impossible to conceal. Early critics such as Ross Mallick had taken to task endorsements given the LF regime by political scientists such as Atul Kohli and Ashutosh Varshney for being a meliorist and over-rosy view of realities. This was met by incredulity and the successful propaganda and PR efforts effectively obscured criticism for a long time and allowed the CPM to rest on its laurels. Yet whatever political capital it once had has now been long since depleted; loosening of membership rules has led to the influx of opportunistic and criminalised elements into the once famously disciplined party and untrammelled hold on power along with the retirement of the older generation of leaders has bred complacency and an unhealthy addiction to the spoils and trappings of power. It is sad to see a once emancipatory party become so hidebound and ossified; by contrast the LDF coalition in Kerala which circulates in and out of office with the Congress dominated UDF coalition has retained its reformist slant and ideological coherence.

Meanwhile, the state has not seen the same progress that it did under earlier LF terms in office and as this survey shows still carries much unfulfilled potential. Unrest and dissatisfaction with the CPM’s performance has led to a steady erosion of its electoral results and support base and given the weakness and incompetence of the formal opposition the main beneficiaries have been the other LF partners which are seen as being less affected by entropy than the CPM and a vehicle for further reform along with the departure of younger leaders in the CPM such as Saiffuddin Chaudhury, who disgusted with the CPM antics left to form his own political organisation; a further factor is the regional irredentist sentiment as seen in the northern hill tracts of the state and the agitation by the Kamptapur movement for greater autonomy as well as a resurgence of demands by the Gorkhas of the Dharjeeling hills for more freedom from Kolkata. A realignment in Bengali politics is long overdue and the CPM sensing the changing winds of fortune has responded by trying to crack down hard on any effective rivals: expelling party dissidents, repressing regional autonomy movements and intimidating its smaller LF coalition partners. Yet like the Congress government before it of the 1960s it will find that dissent will be articulated either through the ballot box or through the street; unless it can reform itself from within or excise those sectional interest groups that have captured swathes of the party machinery it will face a losing battle in the state for political power.

However, one cannot help but feel that given the policies of the CPM, which include a long list of failures starting with the inability at the national level to deal with the rise of communalism and indeed pandering to it within the state by harsh rhetoric against Bangladeshi illegal migrants, which has given into to the trade unions who are more interested in maintaining a labour aristocracy rather than promoting an industrial revival, which has allowed the devolved panchayat raj system to become a channel for disbursing largess to party cadres and punishing rivals rather than a genuine grassroots empowerment of the countryside and finally which has mouthed platitudes against the neo-liberal policy of the centre while at the same time lobbying both for MNC investments in local FDI projects and conceding excessively generous terms to domestic capitalists all of which include substantial tax breaks, repressive labour guarantees and waiving of planning and environmental obstacles – has really reached a stage where only an external crisis can be the solution. A spell in opposition would be the ideal answer, failing that some reverses in the upcoming Panchayati Raj elections should at least send the right warning signals to Alimuddin Street.

UPDATE: As this story shows there is a serious Law and Order problem rapidly developing in the rural parts of West Bengal; too many uncanny resemblances to the dark days of the 1960s and 1970s are cropping up again. The only problem with the article I have is the implicit responsibility being foisted on to Trinamul for starting the cycle of violence in the countryside. This is false for several reasons: firstly such violence was a pervasive feature of the local politics long before Trinamul arrived on the scene and the latter certainly cannot be blamed for inducting such practises into the political sphere. Secondly, this may have been more muted in the past given the acquiescence of the state unit of the Congress party in accepting the role of ‘the loyal opposition’ in the legislative assembly and effectively choosing not to rock the boat and instead spend its time infighting amongst the various factions; with the rise of the Trinamul, the CPM found itself actually facing an opponent that wanted to win and that dared to challenge its monopoly on power – a move which obviously was not gong to elicit a positive response. Lastly, given the relative imbalances in the structural position of the two parties and the greater availability of coercive force by the CPM it is no good pretending that the two are equally to blame or equally responsible – morally a strong case for this could indeed be found. However, given the marginal threat the Trinamul Congress is to the CPM and the domination by the latter of the state apparatus and machinery puts much greater responsibility on the leadership of the CPM to show restraint and to prevent the issue from cycling out of control; in anycase were elections contested under freer conditions and without the misuse of official funds or policy, such action would be less attractive. It is a bad sign if these are the measures to which the CPM will need to resort to, in order to maintain its rural support base.

:: Conrad Barwa 9:03 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Reading Anatol Lieven: Apologist for Empire?

Below is a response to Leiven's byline in the Financial Times, that appeared on the 28th of April, I have reporduced the whole article below in the process of fisking as it is not availabel for non-registered users online.

Kashmir is the key to a stable Pakistan: ANATOL LIEVEN:

Across most of the Muslim world, one key challenge for US foreign policy has not been changed by the war in Iraq: how to manage relations with client states so they do not collapse or turn hostile.

Ahem, well this is an unabashed expression of neo-imperialist aims that while a shock to some does comprise a refreshing candour to real US foreign policy aims. Some critics would feel that actually encouraging stable democratic regimes would be much greater and much more necessary challenge but apologists for the Order and Stability school understandably think otherwise. The repressed subtext though must remain: surely if management of ‘client states’ is a key foreign policy aim to ensure their stability or prevent them turning hostile then surely an invasion of Iraq was a counterproductive road to go down. It is surprising that this does not get even a passing mention from Mr. Lieven.

There are many Muslim states such as Pakistan that, for one reason or another, cannot be invaded and occupied by the US. In the words of one US general: "The military is the hammer in the US toolbox - but not every problem is a nail."

Again reassuring as it is that even a ‘hyper-power’ such as the US realises its limits, especially as far as the use of pure military force goes, particularly for those who have started to wonder whether the US’s understanding of diplomacy is based in the cockpit of an Apache helicopter; the unquestioned acceptance of military action as a primary tool of foreign policy rather than the ultimate resort is more than slightly troubling surely real diplomacy and a successful as well as efficient and effective foreign policy would make the actual use of this force (as opposed to the threat of its use) unnecessary as Sun Tzu’s dictum of the most successful victory being the one that does not require a battle to take place.

The problem of managing client states is as old as empire itself, and is extremely complex. The fear must now be that, carried away by hubris after their victory, the more radical elements in George W. Bush's administration will underestimate this and overplay their hand, with potentially disastrous results.

Yet again there is the lapse into ‘neo-imperialist-speak’ of client states, management et al. the impact of this kind of expansionist foreign policy on domestic politics and agendas is not alluded to but again there is the concern that one cannot have huge tax cuts and declining welfare capitalism at home while simultaneously pursuing such a militarised and aggressive posture overseas. The more radical elements within the US admin may actually be performing their determined role as, in the pattern of empire4s past, Paul Kennedy remarks such a strategic overreach may well be the beginning of the decline of US hegemony. In this sense no time is as dangerous for such a power as immediately in the afterglow of an easy and decisive victory; Power as Nietzsche said does indeed make one stupid.

Too little pressure on your clients and they may not follow your wishes, if a large part of their own populations oppose their doing so. Too much pressure and their humiliating submission to you will be nakedly revealed. Their domestic authority will collapse, they will be overthrown by rebellion and you may then be faced with an almost insoluble dilemma.

Ahh, the Goldilocks dilemma – not too hot, not too cold but juuust right!! Again unfortunately such fine-tuning in diplomacy and internal management of dependent states, is at the best of times a notoriously imprecise and unpredictable science and art. Even a sophisticated and nuanced stance from the US would have made this a difficult tightrope to walk; given the Manichean, “you are either with us or against” stance one wonders how this level of detail can even be expected at this juncture.

Pakistan exemplifies this dilemma for the US. On the one hand, from a US point of view it is far from being a fully satisfactory client state. Although some al-Qaeda leaders have been arrested by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the US, many others are still at large. In the tribal areas along the Afghan frontier, armed support is strong for groups hostile to the US presence in Afghanistan. Pakistan also continues to support armed Islamist militants in Indian- controlled Kashmir. Promises last year by General Pervez Musharraf, the country's military dictator, have led to a reduction of this support but by no means ended it. Washington's refusal to take a stronger stand against this apparently contributed to the resignation last week of Robert Blackwill, the US ambassador to India.

In other words, Pakistan has been less than full co-operative in the WoT and has not done as its masters in Washington have ordered; though this is less due to any assertion of independence on the part of Musharraf but due to domestic political constraints and the fact that the NWFP where much of the militant Islamists elements are the strongest is also only under de jure formal state control – indeed as has been the case since the colonial period. This is not to say that the state cannot enforce its sovereignty there but that it simply does not have the infrastructure or the local resources to be able to mount a widespread effort, hence the piecemeal and incremental approach to apprehending suspected terrorists. The more embarrassing issue that such an important ally itself continues to indulge in cross-border terrorism is glossed over by Lieven. Clearly, when the US objects to terrorism and declares a war on global terrorism; some kinds are seen as less objectionable than others. The end result is that as long as terrorists don’t directly threaten the US or intend to mount any sort of attack on US soil; then they can go about their business as long as they are discreet and don’t get in the way of select US operations. Countries such as India, which are on the receiving end of these attacks meanwhile will have to struggle on regardless with anything more than verbal support from the US. This shows the basic failure to grasp the problem of terrorism – that being a global phenomenon only global solutions can be effective. This means that a selective approach and a unilateral one under the illusory aegis of a “coalition of the willing” is not going to be effective in eliminating terrorism as a real multilateral and inclusive approach is needed. Ignoring terrorism while it festers and grows in certain permissive spots will backfire as a blowback effect will take place.

But if Pakistan is an unsatisfactory US ally in the war against terrorism, it remains a vital one. Its population is more than two-thirds that of the entire Arab world put together; it has a strong tradition of Islamist militancy; its worldwide diaspora has immense potential for spreading militancy and terrorism; and its possession of nuclear weapons both risks nuclear war with India and makes the collapse of the Pakistani state too dangerous to contemplate. Indeed, all these dangers can be contained only by a sufficiently strong Pakistani state. US officials often complain that Pakistan is essentially buying off US pressure by handing over one senior al-Qaeda figure every three months or so. But one senior figure every three months is better than one junior one every six months, let alone none at all.

Superficially this makes sense; though it also ignores that a supposedly stable and democratic succession of regimes in Islamabad were unable to control the military and intelligence apparatuses in fostering and supporting the Taliban and the jihadi groups active in Kashmir and abroad. Benign neglect has not really led to positive results in this regard; a strong Pakistani state can only contain these forces in the short term. As Islamist dissent builds in opposition to military rule and gains credibility in the pro-democracy struggle; suppression of non-Islamist political parties and organisations will only serve to radicalise and push such opposition to the extremes. The Mosque has always been a traditional safety valve for such feelings in the past and given the difficulties in moving against such symbols of religious faith in an Islamic country; a reliance on a national security state to repress Islamist tendencies indefinitely is ultimately counter-productive strategy that can prove to be myopic in the long-term. The very inability to meet full US demands is an indication as to how unwilling even an autocratic regime is in provoking any reaction from those already opposed to its rule. More than anything else though it is the existence of a nuclear deterrent that makes US direct intervention almost impossible.

Of all the issues in US-Pakistani relations, none is more urgent or important than Kashmir. This conflict runs the risk of starting another Indo-Pakistan war, thereby adding still further to the arguments of Islamist extremists that the Muslim world is under siege. The jihad of such extremists against India has gained them the partial support of the Pakistani state, and helped them to spread their influence throughout Pakistani society. In the longer term, Pakistan's cripplingly expensive arms race with India may push it into economic failure.

Again there is partial truth to this as Kashmir is a nuclear flashpoint and with a military government in Pakistan and a Hindu Fundamentalist led coalition in New Delhi an escalation could occur relatively quickly while pressure or a willingness to exercise moderation in the face of provocation is unlikely to be present in either administration. The reference to Kashmir is more than slightly misleading; as there were several aspects to Kashmiri separatism. By far the most popular was the Kashmiryat irredentism of the JKLF and other Kashmiri Muslim organisations, which based their demands on a greater desire for autonomy and a unique Kashmiri identity which demanded either greater autonomy from the Indian federation or independence: such a movement was not Islamist and hardly pro-Pakistan. This has gradually been subsumed by the presence of foreign Jihadis from Afghanistan who espouse a much more hardline Islamist approach and whose political aim is to ensure Kashmiri accession to Pakistan. This has been Pakistani policy since Partition in 1947; earlier attempts such as Operation Gibraltar in 1965 to instigate such a pro-Pakistani uprising in the valley failed; however as remarked elsewhere the stifling of democracy in Kashmir and the practise of installing clientist as opposed to elected governments in Srinagar has alienated and destroyed the democratic integration of the state into the Indian Union.

Mr Blackwill was right to highlight the importance of this issue. But he was wrong to suggest the solution lies essentially in unconditional US support for India. Even if this brought an end to Pakistani support for the militants in Kashmir, the price to the US in terms of the radicalisation of Pakistani society and the diminished authority of the Pakistani government could be far too high.

Perhaps, though even if the issue is resolved in Pakistan’s favour; such pressures will not subside. This is a deeper problem of the nation-building project in Pakistan as it has been based on the premise of the two-nation theory; the existence of a secular and religiously pluralist Indian cannot but an implicit rebuttal to the foundational legitimacy of the Pakistani state. Moreover, given India’s growing emergence as a regional power and desire to exert ‘relational control’ over South Asia; Pakistani acceptance of Indian hegemony in the region is not going to be an easy one unless substantial political changes are made by both sides.

The task the US should undertake is to find a solution that establishes internationally recognised Indian sovereignty over the parts of Kashmir now held by India, while doing the maximum possible save Pakistan's face politically and - together with Europe - help it economically.

This again displays a slight air of unrealism; given the stake of the Pakistani establishment in regaining Kashmir as an integral part of Pakistan; it would be neigh unthinkable for any Pakistani administration to relinquish this demand and not lose face domestically. Moreover this development is a deeper problem of Pakistan’s “political economy of defence” which distorts its political decision making and which I will explore at the end of this post in some more detail.

The latest speech by Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Indian prime minister, offering a "hand of friendship" to Pakistan, is a hopeful sign. Washington should strongly urge General Musharraf to respond in kind. However, it is unlikely that talks between India and Pakistan will get far without close involvement by the US and a clear US plan for a solution to the conflict. Mr Vajpayee has modified only slightly the proviso of all Indian governments that violence should come to a halt before a settlement.

Again we see old patterns repeating themselves, it was a similar Lahore bus trip that generated much hype in the Indian media but ended badly in the peaks of Kargil that makes one wary of the BJP coalitions foreign policy forays. For a party that has proved so wily in manipulating domestic political opponents and state institutions; the BJP seems to be puzzlingly willing to substitute hope for experience in dealing with Pakistan and wish fulfilment all too often takes the place of real policymaking. This reflects a deeper reluctance to engage in direct hostilities as it is fraught with high risks and given the political course the BJP has decided to embark on domestically it will hardly be the ideal to time for any external conflict. Talks however, can only be a good thing, as at least it will serve to open dialogue and reduce any moves for more military activity by the two states.

This gives the possibility to hardliners on both sides to wreck the peace process. That would be a tragedy for India, Pakistan and, of course, the Kashmiris themselves. Given the potential terrorist threats emanating from Pakistan, it might in the long run prove a tragedy for the US as well.

True, though with a White House full of hardliners, it is perhaps not so surprising that those in other administrations are unlikely to respond well to any pressure to moderate their actions; it is though symptomatic I feel or too much myopic strategic thinking that the whole question of Pakistan's stability is approached in such a ad hoc and short-termist manner. To this I would like to put forward an alternative perspective of the issue.

Kashmir and Indo-Pak relations: An Alternative View:

Ayesha Jalal examines the factors that prevent Pakistan from ceding the claim to Kashmir: firstly there is the domestic scenario and the deeply entrenched interests of the Army and the various intelligence agencies which as we noted earlier will not easily allow their logic of defence to be superseded. Secondly, there are the organisations which arm and train militants for Kashmir, these would react quite violently to any shift on Pakistan's Kashmir policy and in turn switch their attentions to internal destabilisation. Lastly there is the "moral" responsibility argument that Pakistan has a duty to support long denied Kashmiri aspirations. Her solutions include those that are unpalatable to the official Pakistani line on Kashmir: retreat from any territorial claim, be ready for all options including Kashmiri independence except for the status quo, stop the jihad rhetoric and focus on the human rights issue and of course more conventional Pakistan responses such as calls to the international community to "restrain India's military war machine". All except the last are not really part of Pakistani policy towards Kashmir and indicate to me some of the deeper problems in such claims. Jalal goes on to query the basis for Pakistan's self-defined nature as the regional state in South Asia for Muslims, as an Islamic state or as a state seeking to bring its ethnic diversity together under the umbrella of religious unity. There are two problems she observes with all these definitions: the first is the their real incomplete nature: as a large part of Indian Muslims did not migrate to their new homeland, a neighbour which did not accept the two-nation theory, the earlier vision of Pakistan's founding fathers who did not envision an Islamic republic and finally the inability to reconcile ethnic differences under a religious unity first in East Pakistan and currently in the Mohajjir issue. There are real problems here of ethnicity versus religion and trying to put the blame on India I think diverts scrutiny from this. Which leads us onto the second problem that Jalal notes: however one may interpret it, the fact remains that all these various self-definitions involve either directly or by-way of comparison a reference to India. Such a process has led to the problem of Pakistan national identity always being cast in opposition to that of an external agency. This accounts, in Jalal's view at least partly for the incomplete nature of nation-building within Pakistan itself.

The above is only one reading of how nationalism plays out in the region; other more conventional narratives may well prove to be more accurate in their evaluation of the past but it does suggest some disturbing points of thought for the present imbroglio in Kashmir. If one accepts the alternative narrative to partition, which scholars like Jalal have sought propound whereby Partition could have been avoided in an alternative settlement; then this means a rejection of the two-nation theory as a way of organising the political boundaries of the region. This has very serious consequences for the foundational legitimacy of Pakistan as it questions the very ideology which brought it into being; the consequences for India are also serious as it entails a major evaluation of how internal politics would work but it does not call into question the very identity of the Indian Nation-state in the same way, as the latter was never founded on the principle of exclusive religious identity or affiliation. This is why I feel it was easier to "Islamicise" the Pakistani state (along with other reasons which I have mentioned earlier such as the untimely death of Jinnah etc) but it has proved consequently harder to "Hinduise" the Indian state notwithstanding the creeping soft saffronsim and the strength of Hindutva appeals. An explicit acceptance of the two-nation theory had already dealt a weakened blow to secularist forces in Pakistan, while the formally secularist foundations of the Indian state had given weak secular forces a much-needed prop. What this has mean is that unlike Pakistan, it has not been possible and is not possible for Religious Fundamentalists in India to communalise the polity without questioning its foundational principles and forcing a major change in its very basis; so far different political and social forces have gone along some ways with this programme but have resisted going the whole hog and to gain power the BJP have been forced into a dilution of their saffron programme. The easy elision and slippage by which national identity becomes synonymous with religious identity has not happened in India unlike Pakistan - this is why we can talk of a "civil war" in India not a religious war; any direct and unilateral attempt to impose such a Hindu Rashtra will result in an open conflict and expose deep cleavages in the supposedly homogenous Hindu majority; could anyone have seriously thought that an Islamicisation of the polity would have ever led to such a civil war scenario in Pakistan? I rest my case. The extrapolation of this is to consider what an adverse result to the Kashmir issue entails for the nationalisms of the two states. I would argue that though serious to both it would prove fatal for Pakistan in a way that it would not for India. In a potential scenario where Kashmir joins the "other side" as it were: for Pakistan I think it would severely undermine the central nationalism of the state itself given how Kashmir being part of Pakistan is bound up with claims of the self-identity of Pakistan itself, already weakened by the loss of East Pakistan, by the existence of a South Asian Muslim population outside its borders and by ongoing conflicts such as the MQM disturbances in Karachi. For India I think it would undermine the govt at the Centre which would have been perceived to have "lost Kashmir" in the eyes of the public (one reason why no govt wants to risk this) push the terms of political discourse further to the right for the non-Saffronist but opportunist elements and be a setback for secularist forces across the polity. Yet I don't see the critical deathblow as none of the foundational principles of Indian nationalism are quite called into question the same way here. I don't buy this excuse of Kashmir being a Muslim majority state and "thereby proving Indian secularism can provide a place for the Muslims" enough time has passed for Indian Muslim communities in different regions of India to understand that the space and legitimacy Indian secularism can give to Indian Muslims to be both Indian and Muslim with their dignity and security intact is dependent not on the potential achievability of secularism as a principle per se but on the political dynamics of their region and of the wider conflict between Saffron and secular forms of nationalism - the existence of Kashmir means little to Indian Muslims who have suffered at the hands of Saffronist state govts in place which have communalised politics like UP and also the general harmonial communal relations in the South have little to do with Kashmir' existence per se. This is another reason why Kashmir I think is so essential to Pakistan in a way it is not for India and why it is misleading to talk of morality and the rights and wrongs of the issue in a purely legalistic fashion; were this really the bone of contention then as Jalal notes the articulation of Kashmiri policy from the Pakistani side would have been quite different and as a counterpoint I do not believe that Pakistani claims or action would have been any more subdued had their case been much weaker on these grounds.

Two important things result from what I have argued above: firstly more than ever this puts more of a burden on India to take the initiative and shoulder more of the negative consequences for resolving the issue in a satisfactory manner given that the what is at stake is less destabilising for the Indian polity than it is for the Pakistani. Secondly it offers an insight into how nationalism works differently in Pakistan and India and accounts for the differential appeals and strengths of religious fundamentalism and secularism in the different polities without having to fall back on suspect forms of Othering or stereotyping like the irrational Muslim fundamentalist or the secular, peace-loving Hindu; needless to say both these figure and the ensuing national characterisations are largely figments of the imagination.

:: Conrad Barwa 10:10 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Globalisation, the 'Territorial State' and Neo-Weberian Paradigms In International Political Economy: a Structuralist Apporach: Part One

The 1980s were marked by two seemingly antithetical tendencies in theorising about states. On the one hand, a strong neo-liberal current connected with the rise of Thatcherism–Reaganism –– which was deeply imbued with neo-classical economic assumptions –– called into question the power or competence of states, suggesting that the states which governed best were those which governed least. Advocates of this position who attended to Third World development issues were particularly convinced that the rise of East Asian newly industrialised countries (NICs), such as South Korea and Taiwan, constituted evidence that states could best facilitate economic growth and development by maintaining open, export-oriented regimes in which markets were allowed to work unhindered . On the other hand, by the late 1980s, a school of neo-Weberian scholarship developed in direct response to this neo-liberal approach. Taking issue with the neo-liberals' characterizations of East Asian economic growth, a series of these neo-Weberian scholars showed that state intervention in the economy was far more extensive than the neo-liberals had allowed, and that moreover such interventions seemed to have been successful in fomenting industrial transformation such as the work of Peter Evans, Robert Wade and Alice Amsden.

The neo-Weberians raised telling arguments and evidence against the neo-liberal position, and it is perhaps a small but significant sign of their success that the World Bank grudgingly acknowledged not only the heavy presence of the state in East Asian industrialisation but also some limited efficacy to that presence, especially in the financial sector (World Bank, 1993; Amsden, 1994 and Wade, 1996). If this was a victory for the neo-Weberians, however, it may well prove pyrrhic mow that the powerful South Korean growth dynamic has been stalled by forces which the Korean state appears to have difficulty controlling. Indeed, paradoxically perhaps, the more neo-classically inclined now seem to acknowledge the existence of `strong states' in East Asia and use their existence not to explain economic success but rather to explain the economic meltdown which began in 1997. While the debate being waged in these quarters is important and reflects crucial political differences between major players such as US and Japanese officials, the fact that the debate has so strongly defined the terrain on which discussions of the state occur is unfortunate. Like all debaters, the neo-liberals and neo-Weberians share certain assumptions which make their dialogue mutually intelligible –– and as is often the case, these shared assumptions can be deeply problematic and difficult to discern amidst the contention.

I argue that neo-liberal critics of etatism and its neo-Weberian defenders share a crucial and problematic assumption regarding the nature of states –– namely that states and their powers can for practical purposes be thought of as contained within the bounded territories over which they have formal sovereignty. In addition, many neo-liberals and some neo-Weberians also seem to assume that insofar as the forces of internationalisation and/or globalisation are increasingly important, it follows that state power is diminished –– such power being fundamentally anchored in the nation-state apparatuses which are being superseded by internationalisation and globalisation. These foundational beliefs produce varied responses, depending upon precisely how the authors in question view the phenomenon of increased economic integration. For the most ecstatic neo-liberals (e.g. Kenichi Ohmae), increased international movement of capital in recent years indicates that states are indeed less and less capable of controlling or efficiently governing markets. Neo-Weberians, also being committed to the notion of state powers as fundamentally national in scale, but wishing to maintain the continued importance of these powers, have responded by insisting that globalisation is less real and internationalisation somewhat less significant than is typically advertised, with national production and consumption remaining at the core of economic activity. As Robert Wade puts the matter in a paradigmatic statement of the neo-Weberian position :

The world economy is more inter-national than global. In the bigger national economies, more than 80 percent of production is for domestic consumption and more than 80 percent of investment by domestic investors...These points suggest more scope for government actions to boost the productivity of firms operating with their territory than is commonly thought...

Wade has backed this claim by convincingly showing that the globalisation rhetoric emanating from business schools and the popular press opportunistically oversells the power of international capital and the weakness of states. Yet the sort of position which Wade articulates is in some ways defensive. On the one hand, even though it can be shown that the global economic integration currently occurring is not new and has not yet reached astronomical proportions, neo-Weberians nonetheless acknowledge that such integration has increased since the 1960s; and if the strongest argument against its importance is only that integration is now no greater than in 1913 –– when it had reached historically high levels –– then the neo-Weberian response has certainly conceded something to the globalisation camp. More tellingly, though, the neo-Weberian response has not yet adequately explained why, if globalisation is of limited significance, there should have been the wholesale movement of states ––particularly in the Third World –– in the direction of policy agendas favoured by neo-liberals. No doubt states are not as overwhelmed by the power of capital as the globalisers claim, yet they routinely behave as if they are. Indeed, Wade's wistful conclusion that "In the states of the South we may see a reassertion of the role of the state and even a deliberate step toward disintegration from the world economy for [a] distress-driven reason" seems somewhat unprescient in light of the current response of East Asian states to the economic crisis jolting the region.

In several recent works, on the other hand, Linda Weiss picks up some of the basic themes articulated by Wade and crafts a more nuanced response to the issue of state capacity in the era of increased economic integration. Weiss defines globalisation as " the creation of genuinely global markets in which locational and institutional––and therefore national––constraints no longer matter", contrasting this with internationalisation, in which "economic integration is being advanced not only by corporations but also by national governments". A similar claim has been made by Peter Dicken, who argues that few international firms are truly `global,' `footloose,' or `borderless,' and that most in fact rely heavily on the continued services of nation-states –– including those services which facilitate increased global economic integration. Weiss has presented the implications of this sort of claim in straightforward fashion. She argues that there has only been very weak globalisation of economic activity, though strong internationalisation, and that state power has not declined but rather its adaptability to new circumstances has become more important. Moreover, Weiss argues that `strong states,' rather than being overrun and outmaneuvered by international capital, may actually facilitate internationalization of capital or `so-called globalisation' . In sum, then, Weiss challenges the second of the assumptions shared by many of the neo-liberals and neo-Weberians –– namely, that international economic integration is leading to the erosion of state power.

While Weiss' views on the role of `strong states' in promoting global economic integration seems well supported by the evidence from Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere in Northeast Asia, it is still problematic in that it recognizes only `strong states' as progenitors of internationalisation, while relegating states such as the second-tier NICs of Southeast Asia to the backburner, in spite of their very clear role in promoting internationalisation and in undergirding high rates of Third World manufacturing growth. This seems in part to be the result of Weiss wishing to differentiate the Southeast Asian NICs from the original East Asian `tigers' in order to marginalize the implications of the Southeast Asian economic crisis for her discussion –– move of dubious value given the crisis currently wracking South Korea. But even more to the point, perhaps, is that Weiss' linking only the `strong state' with internationalisation conforms to the neo-Weberian view that states can or should act primarily in response to domestic classes and social groups. The Northeast Asian states can be seen as promoting internationalisation primarily as part of a strategy to strengthen the position of their own domestic constituents –particularly their capitalists, to a lesser extent other groups in society – but this is a characterisation which would not so neatly fit the patterns of internationalisation in Southeast Asia. Thus, even in what is in fact a very sophisticated and powerful rebuttal of neo-liberal claims about the powerlessness of states, the assumption that state power is most fundamentally linked to processes and social groups within the national territory retains its tenacity.

Another structuralist view suggests that it is true both that internationalisation of capital is increasingly important and, as Weiss and others argue, that states retain a crucial role in the international political economy. But unlike Weiss, structuralists argue that what makes both phenomena simultaneously possible is not the strength or adaptability of states so much as "the internationalisation of the state". They define internationalisation of the state as a process in which the state apparatus becomes increasingly oriented towards facilitating capital accumulation for the most internationalised investors, regardless of their nationality. This process is a dimension of broader internationalisation tendencies which, while not erasing national boundaries in the fashion predicted by the globalisation literature, has nonetheless created a set of elite-based transnational alliances which strengthen the possibilities for internationalised capital accumulation based less on national priorities than on shared transnational class interests. Internationalisation of the state thus forces social theorists to problematise the conceptions of the state which have been at the core of the neo-liberal/neo-Weberian debate. In particular, it demands that we think about states in a fashion which is at once more class-based –– breaking down the sort of distinction between politics and economics which permeates both neo-liberal and neo-Weberian discourse –– and more geographically nuanced –– breaking down conventional distinctions between the national and international. Towards this end, one can outline a general theoretical approach to the internationalisation of the state, referring particularly to the international relations and international political economy literatures in which this concept has been developed. This emphasises the complexities of class relations in an internationalising economy and suggest how these can be thought to relate to the internationalisation of the state.

Beyond the nation-state container:

Recent works by political and economic geographers have begun to suggest that nation-states should not be identified fundamentally or exclusively with national territories or nationalist economic policies. In his discussion of transnational corporations and nation-states, for example, Dicken notes the internationalising activities of states. He points out that states, much like firms, compete with one another to gain material advantage, and that in doing so they "increasingly engage in strategic alliances with their competitors" –– as for example in the promotion of regional free trade areas (NAFTA), customs unions (MERCOSUR), common markets (the European Community Market), and economic unions (EU). Thus, states operate trans-nationally, in certain respects, much as do corporations. But while this point helps loosen the conceptual connection typically drawn between the state and the nation, neither Dicken nor other authors who have written in this vein fully investigate the possibilities suggested by such a loosening. To elaborate some of these possibilities, I begin with the theoretical argument advanced by John Agnew and Stuart Corbridge in their critique of international relations theories and International Political Economy. Agnew and Corbridge present three interrelated geographical assumptions which they argue have informed most varieties of IR theory. These assumptions are: (1) national spaces are fixed units of secure sovereign space; (2) a clean distinction can be made between the domestic and the international; and (3) the territorial state exists prior to and is a container of society .4 In arguing for a reconstruction of geopolitical thought which is informed by IPE, Agnew and Corbridge note that such assumptions are made problematic by a number of contemporary economic realities –– for example, by the fact that as much as 40% of what is counted as world trade may actually be movement of goods within the same firm, which makes any attempt to draw clean lines between what is internal and external to a national economy difficult at best.

For Agnew and Corbridge, analyses which hew narrowly to the accepted practices of national accounting, without recognizing how internationalisation of capital is breaking down some of the boundaries between national territory and its exterior, are examples of thinking which falls into the `territorial trap.' Yet it is important to emphasize that the internationalisation of capital which is making the idea of a national economy increasingly problematic is less a persistently observable empirical phenomenon than a deeply ingrained structural tendency of capitalist development. Internationalisation is an uneven process which can be counteracted by various forces at particular points in time –– e.g. war, economic crisis, etc. –– and thus may not be immediately manifest as an empirical reality; but it is nonetheless a perpetual underlying urge of the capitalist accumulation process. This is a point which has long been argued in the political economy literature, and which has gained particular attention from geographers. Without recapitulating this literature here, I wish to outline several major points regarding the internationalisation of capital which undergird the conception of internationalisation of the state which I will discuss below.

(1) The internationalisation of capital is the internationalisation of the classes in capitalist society. This means, in particular, that capitalists and urban-industrial workers become more globally ubiquitous. Moreover, production processes and class relations involving these groups are in the process of actively stretching across space, not infrequently across international boundaries. This can take the form of increased exploitation of a `national' labour force by `international' capital, but it can also take the form of increased communication and coordination of activities between workers of different nationalities and between capitalists of different nationalities. The latter of these phenomena is of particular significance to the post World War II process of internationalisation, since the US government has acted –– through foreign assistance, international training programs, and other measures –– to create a like-minded international business and governmental elite. Thus, crucial positions within the upper echelons of both the capitalist class and the capitalist state are increasingly peopled by groups with similar ideologies and class interests (especially in increased international trade and investment). Such elites often share not only an abstract worldview but a common language (English), common technical skills and training, and common consumption norms that set them apart from most inhabitants of the Third World. Thus, the fact that the majority of smaller capitalists and labourers remain more place-bound and provincial in outlook –– corresponding no doubt to the statistical significance of domestic economic activity cited by neo-Weberians –– cannot be taken as evidence that capitalism is tightly wed to national strategies of accumulation. Indeed, it remains clear that capitalism is perhaps distinct from all other known forms of socio-economic organization in the intensity of its internationalising tendencies –– and these tendencies are generally most developed within the most powerful fractions of the capitalist class, who have gained the most from past rounds of internationalisation.

(2) Internationalisation of capital, as a long-term tendency, has been directly connected with the phenomenon of imperialism. This was more transparent in earlier periods of internationalisation, when colonialism was the pre-eminent form of imperial control. The colonial model, however, is misleading as a general model of imperialism in that it foregrounds the national dimensions of domination when these have been increasingly subordinated to the class-relevant dimensions of imperial projects. Contemporary theories of imperialism (e.g. Baran, Sweezey, Frank, Amin, Wallerstein) have framed the discussion in terms of core–periphery relations, and while this geographic imagery can be instructive it can also mask such class-relevant processes. Imperialism is most usefully seen as an expression of capitalism's development, in which more powerful accumulation processes in capitalist core areas allows the formation of alliances linking the interests of both core and peripheral area elites with those of core area workers. In such alliances, a stratum of peripheral elites and a larger and more complex group within core areas benefit from the `super-exploitation' of workers in peripheral areas. Imperial alliances rely heavily on the collaboration of peripheral elites who both benefit from and endorse a capital accumulation process linking core and periphery –– even if in the form of 'dependent development' . These `liaison groups' `transnational kernel' , are frequently the most dynamic `local' forces promoting industrial growth within the periphery. Thus, while their performance in helping give rise to Third World manufacturing development can be seen as undermining assertions of perpetual `underdevelopment' in the global periphery, their relationship to internationalisation processes suggests that the development they help foment cannot be properly regarded as a narrowly national phenomenon. At the same time, the participation of core country elites in these alliances does not typically make core countries or states as dependent on transnationalised accumulation as peripheral states. Thus, imperialism expresses the unevenness of capitalist internationalisation.

(3) Internationalisation of capital is not merely an economic phenomenon but implies a much broader set of social transformations. Imperialism, for example, is not simply a matter of economic domination but has crucial and interrelated political, cultural, and ideological dimensions which affect both the general structures of the dominated societies and their patterns of capital accumulation. In addition, reproduction of capitalist social relations does not occur mechanistically, and so the process of spreading capitalist relations throughout the periphery requires a complex struggle to find appropriate `modes of regulation' for an increasingly internationalised process of accumulation. Moreover, social reproduction in the broadest sense demands the explicit or implicit negotiation of `gender contracts' which allocate various responsibilities between men and women and these contracts both affect and are transformed by internationalisation. In sum, then, internationalisation of capital is a complex, multi-faceted tendency which is not always manifest and never uniform but which is nonetheless regularly expressed in actual development processes, especially within the global periphery. Most significantly for the discussion that follows, it has helped generate a highly transnationalised elite, dominated (though not peopled exclusively) by men. It is the presence of these elites within a broader alliance of class forces which helps give a shape to internationalisation more palpable than what is betrayed by aggregate economic data.

The Capitalist State: Within the Behemoth

There is by now an enormous literature on the capitalist state, written from a variety of perspectives, and I will not attempt to review this literature here. I start from the assumption that class relations and the capital accumulation process have crucial constraining and enabling effects on the forms and functions of capitalist states. Yet these class forces do not mechanistically produce the sort of capitalist state needed for the reproduction of capitalist social relations and so the fit between the forces at work within the accumulation process and the specific activities of the state is always somewhat loose and underdetermined. For this reason, we can speak of the state `as the site of class(-relevant) struggles and contradictions,' but we also need to be aware that it is "the site of struggles and rivalries among [the state's] different branches". The state, as this suggests, is not a unitary or homogeneous entity but rather is an ensemble of different institutions among which there is enough contention to insure that there is no simple, mechanical production of the kinds of policies favored by any one element of the capitalist class. As Bob Jessop puts it "The state is a specific institutional ensemble with multiple boundaries, no institutional fixity and no pre-given formal or substantive unity". But this lack of institutional fixity is not merely the result of some loosely conceived relative autonomy of the state or of the actions of individual state managers vying for power through the use of state mechanisms. Rather, it is inherent in the nature of state power, since the state has no power of its own but only a set of institutional capacities:

...the power of the state is the power of the forces acting in and through the state. The forces include state managers as well as class forces, gender groups as well as regional interests, and so forth. State power also depends on the forms and nature of resistance to state interventions––both directly and at a distance from the state.

This sort of `society-centered' view of the state –– in which the state is seen as being fundamentally enabled by the forms of power and struggle emanating within the broader society, rather than as representing any permanent congealed power in its own right –– is not incompatible with the notion that state activity is crucial to the reproduction of capitalist society. Indeed, as Jessop's work argues in great detail, it is necessary for capitalist classes to struggle through the institutions of the state to create the conditions for reproduction of capitalism since these conditions cannot be guaranteed within the market itself. State functions are not optional but are in fact necessary for capitalism. But there is no guarantee that the particular functions capitalism as a whole needs for its reproduction will come into being through the state because the state is not a unitary whole in which plan-rational activity readily takes place. Rather, the state internalises struggles within the broader society and this also internalises society's fractiousness. Consequently, the actual activities of the state do not depend narrowly on the forms and functions of the state at any given time but rather on how these are produced and reproduced through social struggle. This shifts the analysis of the state not only to an examination of the dialectic between social forces and state forms and functions but to the strategies adopted by different social actors in struggles over the capital accumulation process. It is for this reason that Jessop calls the approach to the state which he elaborates –– and which I fundamentally adopt here –– a `strategic-theoretical' view of the state. The approach is strategic in that while acknowledging the state as the site of class (-relevant) social struggles it also acknowledges the under-determination of any outcomes at the level of the state; that is, the capitalist class structure in general does not determine specific outcomes. Rather, these must be determined through the strategic activities of specific classes and class fractions engaged in social conflict and collaboration. This approach, then, draws attention to the existence not only of classes and class fractions but to their active engagement in alliance formation, through the institutions of the state, as part of the process of political contestation.

Class fractions and the internationalisation of the state

In a formative discussion regarding the internationalisation of capital, Robin Murray makes several important, general points. Murray starts from the observation of a `territorial non-coincidence' between the economic reach of international firms within the global economy and the political reach of nation states which have economic responsibilities vis-à-vis these internationalised fractions of capital. The issue which needs resolution here, for Murray, is how the economic functions which capital needs the state to carry out can in fact be carried out, given this non-coincidence. Murray provides a lengthy discussion of these economic functions, which need not be reviewed here, but which include most of the well-known activities of the state, from maintaining capitalist property rights and providing infrastructure and educated workers to maintaining social consensus and absorbing surplus production. The crucial point is that the extension of capital across international boundaries makes possible more complex relationships between capital and the state than what is conceived to be the case when capital is assumed to have a nationality:

When any capital extends beyond its national boundaries, the historical link that binds it to its particular domestic state no longer necessarily holds. A capital which has extended itself in this way will require the performance of the primary public functions for its operations. But the body which performs them need not be the same as the body that performs them within the area of the capital's early development.

Murray identifies five possibilities here. First, the domestic state can perform the functions for overseas capital through geographic expansion, as with colonialism. Second, the domestic state can arrange for foreign structures to carry out the functions through neo-colonial policies. Third, internationalised capital may perform the functions itself, either singly or in conjunction with other capitals. Fourth, foreign states may already be performing the necessary functions or may be willing to do so of their own accord. And finally, existing state bodies may carry out the necessary functions in cooperation with one another. The main point here is to note that discussion of the relationship of capitalist internationalisation to internationalisation of the state needs to begin with recognition that a central part of the latter process is the negotiation and coercion used to establish the precise roles of various states in carrying out these economic functions.11 The internationalisation of capital, in short, does not imply that capital transcends the state. In Nicos Poulantzas' words, "internationalisation of capital neither suppresses nor by-passes the nation states". Instead, internationalisation implies that the narrow association of the most internationalised fractions of capital with particular nation-state apparatuses does not hold and thus the process of determining how necessary state functions will be carried out becomes more complicated. As Poulantzas puts it (in referring to the relationship between US and European capital specifically):

...capital which overflows its national limits certainly has recourse to national states––not only to its own state of origin, but to other states as well. This gives rise to a complex distribution of the role of the state in the international reproduction of capital under the domination of American capital, which can lead to the exercise of the state functions becoming decentered and shifting among their supports, which essentially remain the national states. According to the conjuncture, any one or other of the metropolitan national states may assume responsibility for this or that international intervention in the reproduction process, and for the maintenance of the system as a whole.

With recognition of `territorial non-coincidence' in mind, then, I now look in more detail at the issue of how capital is fractioned in order to see what this suggests about the way states become internationalised. A useful approach to this has been presented by Richard Bryan. Bryan argues against treating geographic divisions between `foreign' and `domestic' capital as either stable or fundamental in and of themselves. Instead, Bryan returns to the circuits of capital identified by Marx –– namely the transformation of money capital (investment) into commodities (productive capital) which can be used to produce more commodities that are sold and thus re-transformed into money capital (realisation of value), enabling the circuit to begin again (reproduction). Bryan identifies four different types of capital in relation to this circuit, the distinctions between fractions being based on their current strengths and weaknesses within the global market. First, there is capital which, regardless of its formal `nationality', not only produces commodities within a given national space (this being true of all forms of capital) but which must realise value by selling products and reinvesting in production within that same national space. This fraction of capital, which is historically associated with import-competing industries, Bryan refers to as the `national' fraction. Juxtaposed to this is a fraction of capital which though producing within a nation-state can sell on global markets and reinvest in production beyond the borders of the nation-state in which the original production process took place. This fraction, for which the TNC would be the paradigm, is referred to as `global' capital. But there are two other fractions which can be delineated in relation to this circuit. One is capital which Bryan calls `investment-constrained'. This is capital which can sell on international markets but cannot consider international production because it is not large-scale enough. A final fraction of capital is capital which is `market-constrained'. This is capital which can invest internationally but can only sell the products thus produced within the national markets where those products are produced. This may again be a circuit for which TNCs are paradigmatic, but in this case the TNCs do not invest in order to export but rather to compete on the domestic market.

Bryan's point in making these sort of distinctions is to show that different fractions of capital benefit from different kinds of state policies. Moreover, these interests themselves are in part shaped in advance by the existence of state policies. Thus, a period in which import-substitution policies are dominant will tend to be identified with the dominance of national and market-constrained capital. By contrast, a period such as the present, where states are undoing many barriers to specific forms of capital movement is associated with the rising importance of global capital. The utility of identifying fractions of capital in this way is that despite the oversimplicity –– for example, many TNCs produce both for local markets and for export markets –– the fractions thus illustrated highlight the structural basis for collaboration between fractions of capital across national territories. For example, both investment-constrained domestic capitals and global capital can benefit from state policies promoting exports. On the other hand, TNCs which invest in order to produce for local markets may be comfortable with import-substitution policies which are also favoured by market-constrained domestic producers. In short, the positioning of fractions of capital leads to possibilities for alliances which transcend national boundaries and which are grounded in objectively similar interests in particular kinds of state policies. State policies may thus simultaneously serve certain `domestic' and certain `foreign' fractions of capital. This is one foundation for the development of an internationalised state which can function to facilitate capital accumulation by foreign nationals within its own national territory.

Another structural support for international alliance-building within the state can be explained by further elaborating on the relationship between the three circuits of capital highlighted in this discussion –– namely, the money circuit, the commodity circuit, and the productive circuit. Circulation of capital necessarily involves all of these circuits, but the spatial relationships between fractions of capital identified with each shape the character of the accumulation process in crucial ways. Rob Steven argues that it is the interrelationships between these three fractions –– and in particular the strength and interpenetration of each––which determines the strength of a given national accumulation project. For Steven, for example, the power of contemporary Japanese imperialism is a function of the keiretsu networks and the way they interweave banking, trading, and productive capital in order to extend their activities across different geographical zones. This perspective provides insight into why Third World states should frequently find alliances with TNCs and imperial states to be both necessary and useful. In general, the uneven development of capitalism has meant that for many developing countries the fractions of capital are unevenly developed. Most typically, Third World countries are weak in the development of productive industrial capital, though the most underdeveloped economies may also have weakly developed trading and banking sectors. Since successful capital accumulation requires that all three fractions of capital be well-developed, Third World states and their 'domestic' capitalists frequently find it necessary to build alliances with the more advanced sectors represented by TNCs and imperial states. Given this structural affinity of certain fractions of capital within the Third World for TNC capital, it is not surprising that Third World states should often court TNC investment.

Fractions of capital and state institutions:

This conception of the relationship of fractions of capital to the orientation of the state can now be expanded through examination of concrete ways in which capital shapes specific institutions of the state. Here, much work has already been done by authors looking at the development of the imperial state apparatus. For example, James Petras and Morris Morley argue that the state apparatus within the imperial state is by no means a unitary entity and that certain specific institutions which are associated with specific fractions of internationalising capital have played the most significant role in the formulation of imperial state policies. The institutions which they note for the case of the United States are divided into three categories: (1) economic, (2) coercive, and (3) ideological. The economic institutions can in turn be divided into those which serve particular forms of capital (e.g. the Department of Agriculture) and those performing specific tasks that cut across different capitals and promote foreign investment generally (e.g. the Treasury, Commerce, and State Departments). Even within the latter group, it should be noted, certain departments may develop a particularly close working relationship with particular fractions of capital; for example, the Commerce and Treasury Departments are likely to have strong ties with TNCs. However one regards the specifics of their argument, there are several general features of Petras and Morley's account which are especially worthy of note. First of all, the imperial state apparatus is seen as fractured in complex ways: first, between agencies representing the interests of more specific blocs of capital and those representing the more general interests of capital as a whole; second, between agencies closely tied to specific blocs of capital which may be competing with one another; and third, between agencies which have differing types of functions (e.g. military versus ideological). There are not always strict dividing lines between institutions based on these sorts of categories ––f or example, military institutions may carry out economic, military, and ideological projects simultaneously. Nor do the specific divisions of constituencies or responsibilities prevent collaboration between institutions at crucial points in foreign policy processes. But the sorts of distinctions drawn here provide a useful first cut for analysing how specific blocs of capital might end up competing, negotiating, and collaborating with one another, within the institutions of the imperial state, over the orientation of foreign policies.

Three further notes about Petras and Morley's account are in order, First, the authors point out the fractions and complexities within the imperial state, but they do not draw out similar complexities within the countries of the periphery. Yet the periphery is not dominated as an undifferentiated region. Thus, there is a need to examine how the social cleavages within peripheral areas are manifest in cleavages within the peripheral capitalist state. Second, it is significant that all of the institutions and social constituencies which Petras and Morley describe as integral to the imperial state are by definition, internationally-oriented. This in itself suggests, as has already been noted, that all fractions of capital have internationalising tendencies, and that these are particularly manifest in the core of the global economy, where capitalist classes are strongest and most well-developed. Furthermore, even certain non-capitalist classes within the core, such as industrial workers, have participated indirectly in the activities of the imperial state, with specific institutions (putatively) acting internationally on their behalf. This points to the need to examine the class coalitions within core countries which underpin imperial state activities. Third, Petras and Morley note the significance of factors beyond the merely economic in the evolution of imperialism, highlighting the use of both coercion and ideology as tools of imperial policy.

To work out a few more of the details regarding the internal complexities of the peripheral state, it is helpful at this point to examine the claims about state power which have been advanced by Robert Cox. Cox argues –– much as do Jessop, Petras and Morley –– that the state is not a homogeneous entity but an ensemble of institutions, and that furthermore, the most internationalised segments of capital have been most powerfully represented within particular sections of the nation-state apparatus. Specifically, Cox suggests that certain agencies of the state have been given precedence by the internationalisation of capital and have been pulled more tightly within the jurisdiction of the imperial state system. These would include agencies such as ministries of finance and prime minister's offices, which as Cox notes are "key points of adjustment of domestic to international economic policy." By contrast, Cox argues, "Ministries of industries, labour ministries, planning offices, which had been built up in the context of national corporatism, tended to be subordinated to the central organs of internationalised economic policy"

The specific characterization of ministries which Cox suggests in this account is not of particular concern here, though his focus on the arena of finance as particularly internationalised accords well with the notion that money capital has become the leading edge of internationalisation processes in recent years. What is of greater concern, however, is his general point that state agencies can be seen as having stronger or weaker affiliations with fractions of capital that are more or less internationalised. Using Bryan's terminology, we might suggest that `global' fractions of capital, which sell on global markets and reinvest internationally, will be likely to have strong connections within particular segments of the state (such as commerce and finance ministries) that are crucial for the internationalsation of goods and re-investible surplus. The global fraction here would include both `foreign' TNC capital and `local' capital that sells and invests abroad. This is not to say, either, that other fractions of capital might not fight for control within such agencies. But since these less-internationalised fractions have perhaps more stake in policies other than deregulation of money capital –– for example, in industrial policies that would benefit those producing goods for local markets –– they may expend less effort on control of the most internationalised ministries.

Placing this description of the orientation of specific ministries in the context of inter-state relations, Cox characterizes the interactions between leading states within the global political economy as involving a hierarchically structured process of consensus formation between state actors which involves the adjustment of internal state structures "so that each can best transform the global consensus into national policy and practice, taking account of the specific kinds of obstacles likely to arise in countries occupying the different hierarchically arranged positions in the world economy". The fact that the system is hierarchical is crucial, because while consensus can be relied upon to generate the internal adjustment process at the top of the system, coercion and the exercise of cultural imperialism are more prevalent in the relations between state apparatuses at opposing poles of the global hierarchy. As Cox puts it in discussing Third World states:

The top-level countries in effect jointly fix the parameters of the developmental options of late-industrializing countries. Third World elites do not participate with the same effective status as top-level elites in the formation of the consensus. The consensus does, however, gain ideological recruits and places ideologically conditioned agents in key positions within Third World countries. The networks through which international finance flows to these countries are staffed within these countries (e.g. in top positions in central banks and finance ministries) by people who have been socialized to the norms of the consensus and of its professional cadres. These people are often graduates of major advanced-capitalist-country universities and have often passed through the IMF Institute and similar bodies that bring Third World technical financial personnel into personal contact with the milieu of international finance.

The development of a Western-trained technocratic elite within the Third World state is an important theme to which I will return. But even with the presence within Third World states of such an elite, attuned to the broader international capitalist consensus, "the internationalising of the Third World state is more openly induced by external pressures than the internationalising of the advanced capitalist state is and thus provokes more awareness and resentment". Consequently, force is a fairly routine handmaiden of the internationalisation process within the Third World state.

Imperialism and the internationalisation of the peripheral state:

The account of the internationalisation of the state which has been developed so far suggests the need to foreground imperialism and its effects on the forms of peripheral states. Imperialism, again, is not a matter of one nation-state dominating another, but neither is it a process of particular blocs of capital dominating a nation-state. Rather, it is a complex process by which particular fractions of capital, acting through particular branches of the imperial and peripheral state, act to facilitate the forms of internationalisation of capital most relevant to their interests. But since this involves the strategic manoeuvring insisted upon by Jessop as central to state activity, it is never a simple expression of class-fractional interests but rather a process of class (-relevant) struggle enacted through coalition-building both outside and within the state. Cox notes that the imperial state system involves "inter-state institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, symbiotically related to expansive capital, and with collaborator governments...in the system's periphery" . But it is equally important to note, in an era when money capital has the appearance of being a power unto itself, that the imperial system has historically been underwritten by the direct use of military force. As Petras and Morley bluntly state the matter, "The multiplicity of coercive regimes and their continual reproduction lead us to identify force as the central element of the imperial system..." . Given the significance of force, one of the crucial characteristics of peripheral states is not only that they are highly penetrated by multinational capital but either directly or indirectly by the political and military forces of the imperial state: "Political and military organizations and cultural institutions contain leaders, formed and loyal to the ideas and definitions of reality formulated in the imperial centres"

One of the major instruments of imperialism has been military aid and the collaboration of military forces which allows the military agencies of the imperial state access to the territories of the peripheral nation-state. This process of collaboration has implications which go far beyond narrow concerns about militarisation, since military penetration has been a major means for fomenting the broader process of modernisation. But what is highlighted here is the general point that among the forms of inter-state collaboration which are part of imperialism and the internationalisation of the state is the direct representation of core area military forces within the peripheral state –– these core area military forces not simply representing narrow, militarily defined interests but rather broader societal and class interests which have crystallised within the projects of the core country military. In short, the peripheral country's military is itself one of the state institutions which is potentially internationalised in specific ways as part of the internationalisation of capital within an imperial state system. This means that in spite of the pretence that the peripheral state's military is the national institution par excellence it is in fact a significant site of internationalisation. It is important to acknowledge, of course, that direct use of military force as a tool of imperialism has become somewhat less imperative than in earlier eras, even though it is still a crucial underpinning of imperial power. This shift is in part the result of increasing ideological conformity on the part of most state and business elites under the hegemony of `transnational liberalism' Thomas Biersteker in his analysis of the sources of neo-liberal restructuring within the developing world during the 1980s.

In this context, we should note the ways in which imperialism as a political and cultural phenomenon complicates the picture of the nation-state as a site for the reproduction of national culture. Benedict Anderson's account of the development of nationalism argues that the expansion of the colonial state and the production of a group of colonial subjects educated in these schools but excluded from corporate boardrooms "meant that to an unprecedented extent the key early spokesmen for colonial nationalism were lonely, bilingual intelligentsias unattached to sturdy local bourgeoisies". The results of the colonial educational system, in sum, were paradoxical because they produced subjects identifying with certain core values of the colonizing countries, yet unable to advance on their own within the colonial system. Part of what distinguishes imperialism in the post-colonial period from earlier variants is the shifting character of this peripheral cultural–ideological complex as certain of the older barriers to advancement have fallen. Post-colonial imperialism has successfully created a `counter-nationalist' intelligentsia, which though still needing to some degree to have national credentials in order to serve within the nation-state has nonetheless taken on board most of the perspectives of its international mentors. Particularly significant here are various economists and others trained in economics, who have frequently had significant influence precisely within some of those peripheral state agencies identified by Cox as crucial to the internationalisation of the state. This counter-nationalist intelligentsia is in effect a `transnational kernel' within the technocracy and a crucial player in the process of alliance formation which promotes capitalist internationalisation. This suggests, then, that the collaboration and alliance-building crucial to the imperial system not only transcends narrowly economic class coalitions through the internationalisation of military force but also through the internationalisation of certain political and cultural values and ideals –– these again being propagated through the complex process of struggle within the arena of the state.

Capitalist internationalisation thus involves the state as an internationalising agent not only vis-à-vis economic processes but vis-à-vis the broad panoply of human activities which constitute social life, since most if not all of these are at some points related in crucial ways to the production and reproduction of capitalism. It is in this sense that Peter Bell refers to capitalism as turning society into a `social factory,' where all aspects of life become more or less conditioned by the requirements of generalised commodity production and attendant ideologies of competitiveness. Within the core of the global economy, this process is highly advanced, so that rather than being merely neutral or apolitical, virtually all aspects of education and popular culture are to some extent politicised in a fashion that is more or less conducive to the social reproduction of class privilege. This is quite important when considering the impact of Western training and technical aid missions upon the development of the bureaucracy in peripheral countries. Even within the realms of the state typically seen as less beholden to the immediate logic of international capital accumulation, ideologies of competitiveness, respect for capitalist property, and so forth have often taken deep root, making advocates of particular forms of education, medicine, labour legislation, or other social services conscious or unconscious supporters of the project of capitalist internationalisation.

Struggles over the Internationalisation of the State:

It is important to emphasize that the internationalisation of the state conceived in this broad fashion is, like the internationalisation of capital, a process in motion. As Cox puts it "the tendency toward the internationalising of the state is never complete, and the further it advances, the more it provokes countertendencies sustained by domestic social groups that have been disadvantaged or excluded in the new domestic realignments" . The fact that the state is not given as internationalised but is being internationalised –– and unevenly at that –– suggests the need to look for the effects of particular struggles over the forms and functions of the state. Much analysis of state policy focuses on the latter of these, but it is equally important to emphasize the struggle over forms of the state. As Gordon Clark and Michael Dear note, "a capitalist social formation should give rise to a distinctively capitalist state form, and an evolving social formation should realize concomitant change in the state structure." But as these authors go on to suggest, such a statement is too functionalist. Thus, there is a need to focus on how different classes and class fractions attempt to transform the forms of the state through political struggle, rather than assuming an automatic evolution of state form in relation to evolution of the social formation. What can be identified, if the state is examined in this way, are struggles which correspond to the evolution of the social formation and the rise or decline of particular fractions of capital –– but the specific dynamics of which depend upon concrete political mobilisations by classes and class fractions.

Thus, for example, as Philip McMichael and Davy Myhre note, "structural adjustment loans (SALs) have been used by the IMF and World Bank to force a more `outward' reorientation of economic policies within the state from program-oriented ministries (e.g. social services, agriculture, education, etc. ) to the central bank and to trade and finance ministries...Thus, policymaking is displaced upward from South to North". Such displacement, however, has not occurred without contestation, including frequent resistance to IMF measures by popular organizations in the Third World. This suggests that we should not take the orientation of particular ministries as given but should rather see internationalisation as an ongoing struggle over the forms of the state and, within this, the orientations and relative empowerment of various ministries. In addition, we cannot assume the main lines of battle to always be drawn simply between ministries. The training of a wide variety of professionals abroad, in conjunction with the development of actively internationalist or expansionist classes in the periphery, means that there are strong tendencies towards internationalisation of the state at work within almost any given segment of it, and representatives of these tendencies often fight older or more established interests for control within the ministries. Leo Panitch makes this point when he suggests that ministries and approaches associated with a `competitiveness ideology' are gaining status and that social welfare agencies "are perhaps not so much being subordinated as themselves being restructured" –– often from within as much as from without.

Here we should also note, however, that viewing the internationalisation of the state as a process of state restructuring does not necessarily imply a constant or steady reorientation of state forms so that they facilitate internationalisation. The competing interests of class fractions, determined in part by their differing degrees and forms of internationalisation, may place obstacles in the way of any clean movement in the direction of World Bank-style restructuring. Thus, while the internationalisation of the state is a process in motion it is not a teleological process with a predetermined outcome such as increased dominance of international finance capital. Rather, it is a process linked to the tendencies of internationalisation in the various circuits of capital and mediated by the vagaries of class struggle and broader social and political struggle, all of which can have a bearing on the forms of the state and the balance of power between and within various ministries. It should nonetheless be recognized that the recent World Bank and IMF-led attempts to restructure states along neo-liberal lines have been a dominating theme within the Third World. This can rightly be seen as manifesting the current hegemony of specific forms of core country capital, especially finance capital. But it is equally important to recognize, as Manuel Pastor has persuasively argued, that restructuring serves definite interests of peripheral elites. Thus, the policy orientation which has so repeatedly emerged within Third World states in the post-Fordist era can be seen as reflecting the power of an alliance involving both core and peripheral elites who are closely connected to internationalisation processes and dominant within the ministries which most aggressively promote such processes

:: Conrad Barwa 2:08 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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A Comparitive Note on Indian and American Secularism: what Lessons can be Learnt and Why the Anti-Secularists are Wrong:

Indian secularism has been shaken by the growth of sectarian Hindu revivalist movements, the violence that they have unleashed, and the associated rise to government of the main party that represents their aspirations: the BJP. Like many other intellectuals, TN Madan and Ashis Nandy are deeply troubled by these developments. But, rather than joining in the defence of India’s commitment to secularism, they have responded by criticizing the attempt to establish this commitment in the first place. According to ‘antisecularists’ like Madan and Nandy, secularism has been unsuccessful because it is not an indigenous concept, but one which is imported from the West and artificially imposed upon Indian society. As a result, it is not only impotent in the face of rising sectarianism, but is actually partly responsible for this development. Secularism is complicit, they argue, because of its intimate relationship to the project of ‘modernity’: a project which has itself generated the growth of ‘fundamentalism’ and violence, either indirectly by provoking a backlash or directly through the nation-state’s pursuit of an unrestrained instrumental rationality. Thus, the ‘anti-secularists’ urge political leaders to abandon attempts to establish secularism, and instead, to embrace their country’s indigenous religious traditions and to appeal to arguments within these traditions which might promote toleration.

I should reiterate, however, that the assumptions that I propose to discuss are not confined to the writings of ‘anti-secularists’, but are widely shared on all sides of the debate. Secularism in the West Let me begin with the first assumption, according to which a common set of secular beliefs and practices govern the relationship between religion and politics in the West. In fact, whatever other commonalities these societies may have, in this respect, they are marked by extraordinary diversity. Even if we look only at one small subset of Western societies – those rooted in English cultural, political and economic traditions – we find a full range of possible outcomes. The United States has a secular state, but not a secularised society. Britain has a secularised society, but not a secular state. And only Australia has both a secular state, and a secularised society. Moreover, even where similar outcomes have been achieved in different Western societies, these outcomes have often been reached by very different paths. Both the United States and France have established secular states. But in France this was achieved by mobilizing militant anti-religious movements, while in the United States it was achieved without any such mobilisation. Likewise, both Britain and France have largely secularised societies. But in France secularisation was accompanied by massive conficts between church and state, while in Britain such conficts were limited. The case of the United States is especially interesting. For there, as in India, we can study what happens when a formally secular state presides over a deeply religious society: a society from which religious issues continually emerge and seek to force themselves into the political arena.Many of the major political conflicts which have shaped the United States can be understood only once they are viewed in this light: the abolitionist struggle against slavery in the mid-nineteenth century, the prohibitionist struggle against the production and consumption of alcohol in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the anti-abortion crusade since the 1960s and even (though it is hardly in the same league) the recent struggle over the President’s sexual morality.

These were not the only important conflicts in American history, but they were all defining conflicts that absorbed the energy and ingenuity of millions of activists and voters, and played a key role in defining their political loyalties. Each is a manifestation of a recurring struggle between the inheritors of a Puritan Protestant tradition, which seeks to ensure that the state uses its authority to make the United States a ‘Godly’ society, and a ‘secular’ coalition that rejects any government activity which seeks to promote a particular version of godliness. The United States is also especially interesting, because it was there that the concept of religious ‘fundamentalism’ was invented. It was first used in the 1920s, not to refer to Islamic, Hindu or other foreign zealots, but to refer to home-grown evangelical zealots, who were fighting secular humanism in all its forms, and especially in the classroom, where a mass movement of ‘fundamentalists’ sought to ban Darwinian theories and replace them with the teaching of ‘creation science’ based on the ‘historical truth’ revealed in the Bible. Indeed the term ‘fundamentalist’ was invented by these zealots to describe themselves. Finally, the United States is especially interesting because, in the literature on Indian secularism, it has frequently been treated as the paradigm case of a ‘Western’ society, and as the paradigm embodiment of ‘modernity’. Consequently, it has, from the beginning, been used as the benchmark for judging the extent to which independent India really is secular, and for assessing whether or not the establishment of a fully secular state is either possible or desirable in Indian conditions.

The Puritan legacy in the United States

In what follows, then, I want to focus on the United States. I want to start by using the US case to consider some of the more specific claims which have been used to underpin the assumption that there has been a common Western experience in matters pertaining to secularism. This assumption is often justi-fied by referring to ideological or intellectual developments which are said to be common to the West. In particular, a common Western experience in matters pertaining to secularism is said to stem from either the Protestant Reformation or the Enlightenment, or both. The US case presents a number of problems for this thesis. Although it has been usual, especially in the middle of the twentieth century, to view the United States as having being born liberal the colonies which formed it were in fact founded well before the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment. As a result, some of the basic enduring features of the political culture of the United States were formed under the influence of pre-Enlightenment doctrines. It is certainly true, however, that, first and foremost among these was a particular brand of Protestantism. The settlers who established the northern colonies of New England in the 1630s were religious radicals, who, when they seemed unable to prevail in England itself, sought to establish a new, model, righteous society in America, based firmly on the principles of Puritan Protestantism. But their Protestantism was in no way conducive to secularism, or even to the tolerance of religious dissent. On the contrary, the founders of New England colonies like Massachusetts, were the Ayatollah Khomeneis of the early seventeenth century. What was the system of government, and what was the relationship between religion and politics, in the societies which the Puritans founded? The Puritans believed in predestination – that God had already chosen those that would be saved. Those so chosen would know who they were because they would have a personal religious experience, and only those who could publicly attest to having such an experience – never more than about one fifth of the population – could be full members of the official ‘Congregational’ church and hence of the state, and only they could elect their religious and political rulers.

However, these rulers were not to act according to the wishes of those who elected them, but, rather, in accordance with the will of God, which, for most purposes, was thought to be revealed in the Bible. There were, of course, a number of disputes about just what an orthodox interpretation of the Bible revealed, but all agreed that orthodoxy represented the truth, from which no dissent could be allowed. Proponents of dissent were fined, whipped, exiled and, eventually, if they persisted, hanged. In short, the Puritan state was not just a dictatorship: it was an authoritarian theocracy. The idea that there should be a separation of church and state was completely alien to the Puritan tradition. On the contrary, the unity of religion and politics was axiomatic, indeed it was central to the very rationale for founding these new societies.

Though New England was the centre of American intellectual life, and the ideas developed there had an enduring impact on subsequent American thought, not all the colonies which later established the United States were founded on Puritan principles. Southern colonies like Virginia were also hostile to any separation of church and state, but there it was the Anglican church (i.e. the Church of England) that was established as the official state church. In the mid-Atlantic colonies, however, there was no established religion, in part, as in New York, because the proponents of establishment were divided over which church to establish and, in part, as in Pennsylvania, because of the influence of Quakers, who, unlike the Puritans and Anglicans, were doctrinally committed to toleration. These exceptions aside, for a century or more, most American colonies, whether in the North or the South, actually reduced the small amount of religious freedom that was then available in England. How then, did the United States, come to have a secular constitution which institutionalised the separation of religion and politics? Three developments were important: the two ‘Great Awakenings’ and the Revolution. The two Great Awakenings were mass Protestant revival movements in which highly emotional waves of religious frenzy, promoted by charismatic and often uneducated itinerant preachers, swept through the country. The First Great Awakening took place in the 1740s. The second rolled on through the first half of the 1800s. These movements altered the religious geography of the United States. They democratised the Puritan legacy, and spread it throughout the country, in a new pietistic and evangelical form. The new pietistic and evangelical movements rejected the restrictive Puritan prescriptions that limited those chosen by God to an élite minority, and, instead, made the kind of personal religious experience that Puritanism called for easily available to all: indeed, in the name of God, they demanded it of all. But they simultaneously carried forward the Puritan idea that the Bible revealed the will of God, and that government should act to reorganise society in accordance with that will. This combination of ideas proved to be a powerful mix, and it has remained a central element of American culture to this day. Ideologically, then, the Great Awakenings were conducive to democracy. They were not, however, conducive to secularism. But the Great Awakenings also had another effect. For they left in their wake a multiplicity of sects and denominations, and an inescapable religious pluralism: not just between the various colonies, but also within them, as Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and others split or displaced the previously dominant (Puritan) Congregationalists, Anglicans and Quakers. This made it increasingly difficult for colonies (and later states) to sustain official preference for any one church. By 1833, even the Puritan redoubt of Massachusetts had disestablished its official Congregational Church. The emergence of an inescapable religious pluralism also had a decisive influence both on the framing of the new federal constitution of the United States in the 1780s and on the First amendment, passed soon afterwards, which stipulated that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ’. Here we begin to see Enlightenment ideas influencing American political thought. But, while key individuals like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were personally influenced by these ideas, it wasnot their personal preferences that were principally responsible for establishing what Jefferson later described as ‘a wall of separation between Church and State’. For, as we have seen, most Americans, whether adherents of the old Protestant churches or the new evangelicalpietistic ones, belonged to traditions that were, in principle, against such a separation. Rather, there were two other factors which were crucial to the emergence of a secular constitution.

First, faced with a multiplicity of competing religious organizations, many denominations and sects were now more concerned that the authority of the state might fall into hostile hands than they were with the unlikely prospect that they could acquire exclusive control of it for themselves. A unified regime of church and state, which ensured that the whole community would live a more Godly life, was still considered optimal, but, if that were now impossible, a neutral state, that enabled one to live a Godly life oneself, was the next best thing, far better than being forced to live according to the edicts of some other religious group.Second, the framers of the constitution saw that, given the passions which religion aroused, it would have to be excluded from the political arena, if their nation-building project were to stand any chance of success. By promising to keep the federal government out of religious affairs, the states would be free to retain their own institutional arrangements: those that favoured establishment could retain that arrangement, as could those that favoured political neutrality towards different churches. Only under these circumstances would all states be likely to ratify the proposed constitution. In short, the United States adopted a secular constitution ‘not because religion was unimportant to the colonists, but rather because it was too important’. Those, like Jefferson and Madison, who were influenced by Enlightenment ideas, supported the separation of religion and politics for fear that religion would corrupt politics. But a far more widespread reason for supporting this separation was the evangelical fear that politics would corrupt religion. Two conclusions which emerge from this discussion are vital for thjis debate:

First, the anti-secularists (along with many other contributors to the Indian debate) make the specific claim that Western secularism emerged as a result of either the Protestant Reformation or the Enlightenment, or both. But the establishment of a secular constitution in the United States does not bear this out. A particular brand of Protestant ideology was indeed a strong influence, but it did not favour secularism. Enlightenment ideology did favour secularism, but key elements ofAmerican political culture emerged before its influence was felt, and, when that influence was felt, it was largely restricted to a section of the revolutionary élite.

Second, the specific importance claimed for Protestantism and the Enlightenment is embedded in a more general claim: namely, that the values embedded in the dominant ideological or intellectual traditions of society play an important role in explaining whether or not secularism can emerge and sustain itself. Thus, according to Madan, ‘what exists empirically, but not ideologically, exists but weakly’. The US case shows that this, too, is misleading. Whatever their role in other Western countries, it was not ideological traditions that gave rise to secular institutions in the United States, and even less was it the classical commitments of high theological thought, as Madan seems to suggest.Of greater importance were more prosaic and pragmatic considerations, like the desire of sects and denominations to protect their separate organizations and the need to maintain a consensus, if the nation-building efforts, to which political élites gave priority, were to succeed. The political attitudes of religious groups are profoundly affected by the context in which they find themselves. For many Protestant sects and denominations in the United States, the need to coexist with a number of well-supported competitors came to outweigh purely ideological considerations.

Incorrect Analogies: Learning the Wrong Lessons from the West

Let me turn now to the second assumption which is present in much of the literature on secularism. According to this assumption, the prospects for secularism (and even its desirability) can be best understood by highlighting fundamental differences in the relationship between religion and politics in India and the West. But, at least with respect to the United States, many of the differences that have been highlighted either do not exist or do not help to explain the development of secularism. A hierarchy of increasingly specific characteristics has been identified as constituting the key differences between India and the West. First, it is said that India is different because the secularisation of society has been very limited, and secularisation must be widespread if a secular state is to survive and prosper. But we have seen that the society over which the (atypically) Enlightenment-influenced Jefferson presided was every bit as deeply religious as the society presided over by the (atypically) Enlightenment-influenced Nehru. Jefferson was, in a sense, a kind of American Nehru: influenced by the emerging thought of the French Revolution, just as Nehru was by the emerging thought of English socialism. If Nehru’s secular constitution ‘imposed’ Enlightenment values on a religious society in India, Jefferson’s did so no less in the United States. Second, even if secularisation is also limited in the United States, it is said that India is different because of the particular kinds of religious belief that dominate there. In particular, intellectual traditions in the United States were suffused with Protestant Christianity, which is said to be the only religious tradition conducive to secularism. Indeed, according to some, secularism was a ‘gift of Christianity’. But we have seen that, though Protestant beliefs do indeed course through the veins of the American body politic, this tradition was far from conducive to secularism. Third, even if Protestantism itself is irrelevant, it is said that India is different because classical Indian religious thought posits a ‘hierarchical relationship’ in which politics is subordinated to religion, and that Indians themselves have a ‘totalizing’ religious world-view which makes it both undesirable and impossible for them to separate political from religious questions. But we have seen that a similar hierarchy is posited by classical Puritan religious thought, and that this also fostered a ‘totalising’ world-view: one which ‘penetrates all partial and fragmentary worlds in which men participate’, and in which ‘the unity of religion and politics was so axiomatic that very few men would even have grasped the idea that church and state could be distinct’.

Some Important Similarities: Shared Ground for Action:

Here, however, I want to take the argument one step further. I want, not only to dispute the relevance of the differences which others have highlighted, but also to make the stronger claim that there are actually striking similarities between India and the United States. More particularly, I want to highlight similarities between contemporary India, and the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century. I want to suggest that consideration of these similarities might help to clarify some of the possible consequences of contemporary Indian developments. I do this somewhat tentatively – conscious of the scepticism which such a claim is likely to invoke. But at the very least I hope to convince you that a different kind of comparison with the United States may be worth exploring further. There are a number of general structural similarities which contemporary India shares with the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. Both are continent-wide societies, with a predominantly rural population, a largely agrarian economy, a British legal system, a federal polity, a well-entrenched democracy and a first-past-the-post electoral system. There are also similarities between the American party system that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and the party system that now seems to be emerging in India. It is these similarities which I want to discuss here. The electoral history of the United States is punctuated by intense periods of ‘realignment’ in which the social bases of party support, and the issues around which political conflict is centred, are redefined. These periods are followed by longer periods in which a new party system, based on the new alignments that have emerged, and the party loyalties which they generate, is frozen in place – or, rather, becomes relatively immutable – for several decades. Here I want to focus on the ‘third party system’, which emerged in the 1850s, from the developments that led to the American Civil War, and lasted until the depression of the 1890s. Prior to the Civil War, the Democratic Party – the party of Jefferson – was the dominant force in federal politics. Its dominant position had been strongly reinforced by reforms it initiated in the 1820s and 1830s, which, among other things, removed the remaining property qualifications on white male voters. The alignment of the 1850s ended the dominance of the Democrats and led to the birth of a powerful new opponent – the Republican Party.

The most important component of the new Republican Party was the pietistic and evangelical movements which grew out of the religious revival of the Second Great Awakening. As we have seen, these inheritors of the Puritan tradition had accepted the formal separation of church and state, but they remained committed to the task of moral regeneration and of establishing a Godly society in America. All around them they saw terrible sins, and, irrespective of their differing sectarian and denominational affiliations, they rallied together to force the government to use its authority to uphold their notion of righteousness, and to
enforce what they deemed to be a Godly way of life. These neo-Puritan social movements demanded that the government act to end a wide range of sinful practices in saloons, schools, in the desecration of the Sabbath and elsewhere, but more than anything else they demanded an end to the truly abominable sin of slavery. A second important component of the new Republican Party was anti-Catholic nativist movements (like the ‘Know-Nothings’), which grew out of a backlash against mass (especially Irish) immigration, following the European famines of the 1840s. These nativist movements – ‘nativist’ in the sense that they were movements of those who were born in the United States – partly overlapped with the pietistic and evangelical movements. To the sectarian Protestant imagination (as indeed to many liberal humanists), Catholicism was not just another Christian denomination, it was an international, authoritarian conspiracy – perhaps even the work of the anti-Christ – which posed a threat to America’s culture and values not unlike that which Communism was deemed to pose in the twentieth century. These two groups of movements – the pietistic movements