Global ethics: anarchy, freedom and international relations

193 Pages·2009·1.19 MB·English

by  Mervyn Frost

GLOBAL ETHICS
This provocative and original book challenges the commonplace that con-
temporary international interactions are best understood as struggles for
power. Eschewing jargon and theoretical abstraction, Mervyn Frost argues
that global politics and global civil society must be understood in ethical
terms. International actors are always faced with the ethical question: So,
what ought we to do in circumstances like these?
Illustrating the centrality of ethics to our understanding of global politics
and global civil society with detailed case studies, Frost shows how inter-
national actors constitute one another in global social practices that are
underpinned by specific ethical commitments.
Case Studies examined include:
• The War on Iraq
• The ‘Global War on Terror’
• Iran
• Human Rights
• Globalization and Migration
• The use of Private Military Companies
Global Ethics forces readers to confront their own necessary ethical engage-
ment as citizens and rights holders in global society. Failure to understand
international relations in ethical terms will lead to misguided action. This
book should be read by all scholars and students of international relations as
well as the general reader seeking an accessible account of the importance of
ethical decisions in world affairs.
Mervyn Frost is Professor of International Relations and Head of the Depart-
ment of War Studies, King’s College, London. Educated at Stellenbosch and
Oxford, he has held appointments at Rhodes University, the University
of Natal and Kent University. His major publications are: Towards a
Normative Theory of International Relations (Cambridge University Press,
1986), Ethics in International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
and Constituting Human Rights: Global Civil Society and the Society of
Democratic States (London, Routledge, 2002).
Critical Issues in Global Politics
This series engages with the most significant issues in contemporary
global politics. Each text is written by a leading scholar and provides
a short, accessible and stimulating overview of the issue for advanced
undergraduates and graduate students of international relations and
global politics. As well as providing a survey of the field, the books
also contain original and groundbreaking thinking which will drive
forward debates on these key issues.
1.Global Ethics
Anarchy, Freedom and International Relations
MERVYN FROST
GLOBAL ETHICS
ANARCHY, FREEDOM
AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
mervyn frost
First published 2009
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2009 Mervyn Frost
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Frost, Mervyn.
Global ethics : anarchy, freedom & international relations / Mervyn
Frost.
p. cm. – (Critical issues in global politics ; 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. International relations–Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title.
JZ1306.F76 2008
172′.4–dc22
2008012959
ISBN 0-203-89058-2 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 10: 0–415–46609–1 (hbk)
ISBN 10: 0–415–46610–5 (pbk)
ISBN 10: 0–203–89058–2 (ebk)
ISBN 13: 978–0–415–46609–7 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978–0–415–46610–3 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978–0–203–89058–5 (ebk)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Abstract viii
1 Introduction 1
The ubiquity of ethics in international relations 2
International ethics: thick or thin? 11
Taking the ethical turn 18
Social practices, actors and ethics 20
Power, politics and ethics 28
The primacy of ethics 32
Understanding international relations in ethical terms 41
War in Iraq understood in ethical terms: the Baker Hamilton
Report and other interpretations 45
2 Global ethical practices 54
The anarchical society of sovereign states 55
Evaluating rival appraisals 59
In defence of anarchy: freedom and diversity 60
The anarchical society of civilians: global civil society 72
Private military companies: contested appraisals 74
In defence of anarchy: freedom and diversity 81
Evaluating the rival readings of PMCs 89
Global civil society: a recapitulation 93
VI Contents
3 Ethical incoherence: Individual rights versus states’ rights 96
Rights and sovereignty: reframing the tension 103
The ethical underpinning of double anarchy 110
Ethical transformation in a double anarchy 112
Migrants in world politics 114
Assessing humanitarian intervention 123
Assessing globalization 126
Understanding torture in international relations 142
The security of anarchies: threats and defences 147
4 Global terrorism understood in ethical terms 150
The threat of self-destruction in civil society 160
The threat of self-destruction in the society of
sovereign states 163
5 Defending anarchies 169
References 174
Index 178
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have been exploring the ways in which an engagement with ethical
questions is central to understanding international relations for
almost thirty years now. During this time I have incurred too
many intellectual debts to list here. However, I would like to offer
my special thanks to all the members of the British Academy
Network on Ethics, Institutions and International Relations which
was founded by Toni Erskine in 1999 and run by her since then. This
group of scholars has provided me with a most congenial framework
of criticism and encouragement. Of great use to me have been the
insights of: Howard Adelman, Kirsten Ainley, Chris Brown, Kateri
Carmola, Molly Cochran, Lynn Dobson, Francis Harbour, Tomohisa
Hattori, Tony Lang, Catherine Lu, Cornelia Navari and Nicholas
Rengger. I would also like to thank Lola Frost for the many highly
productive conversations about this topic that I have had with her
throughout this period. I, of course, accept full responsibility for any
weaknesses that still remain in the argument presented below.
ABSTRACT
In this book I make the positive case for an ethics-centred approach
to understanding international relations without confronting the
vast array of theories currently to be found in the discipline of Inter-
national Relations (IR). The array includes theories that are realist,
neo-realist, liberal, neo-liberal institutionalist, interpretive, critical,
post-modern, post-structural, Marxian, discourse-centred, feminist
and philosophical-realist. In IR the encounters between these theo-
ries have become increasingly complex events in which theorists
encounter one another in a debate that is ever more arcane and far
removed from the questions of immediate concern to us as we
participate in global affairs as producers, consumers, travellers, sports-
men and -women, soldiers and educators. The endless concern with
epistemology, ontology and methodology is incomprehensible to
most people and far removed from our daily lives in the inter-
national domain in which we have to decide what to do. Should
we (or our sons and daughters) go to war in that country? Should
we keep migrants out of our neighbourhoods, towns, countries or
regions, or let them in? What should we do about threats to
the global environment? In the fight against global terror, should we
agree to our governments and their agencies using torture? In the
face of globalizing forces should we erect tariff barriers or should we
take them down? Should we seek to spread democracy to our inter-
national organizations or ought we to preserve the traditional
arrangements? A complete list of the pressing questions would be
a very long one. In this work I present an ethics-centred way of
Abstract IX
understanding international relations that indicates some answers to
these pressing questions.
I set out as simply as I can a theory of international relations that:
• Is holist in that it assumes that we, the people of the world, are
already participants in two major global social practices: global
civil society and the society of sovereign states.
• Analyses these from the internal point of view, from the point of
view, that is, of ourselves who are participating in them.
• Makes the case that, as participants, we can only understand our
own actions and those of others insofar as we understand their
ethical dimensions.
• Demonstrates this with reference to a range of contemporary
international problems to do with migrants, humanitarian inter-
vention, globalization, torture and global terrorism.
• Shows that at their core these have to be understood as presenting
us with ethical problems.
• Sets out a substantive ethical theory that indicates how these may
be resolved.
• Indicates how this approach leads to an analysis of global terror-
ism that is distinctively different to that which informs the
current ‘war on terror’.