From Global Democratisation to the Battle of World Powers? Contradictory Developments in the Present

Shortly after the democratic revolutions of 1989-1991, Francis Fukuyama wrote his highly influential essay on the end of history- that is, the end of violent history through global democratization.

The world has changed so dramatically since the end of the Cold War that it is necessary to look back in order to understand today’s global political situation. In total, there are five different discourses that will be discussed here as representative of historical developments. They range from Fukuyama’s thesis of global democratization to various versions of coming anarchy and global (“new”) civil wars (Kaplan, Kagan, Kaldor, Münkler), Huntington’s clash of civilizations, the concept of global governance and the “rise of the others” (Zakaria, Zhang), a multipolar world of nation-states, and the re-nationalization of world politics. My central thesis is that all five discourses are present in contemporary political conflicts and that we cannot neglect any of them.

But if you look at the history of democracy, you can almost discover a law of motion of democratic revolutions based on Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the French Revolution. It starts with a democratic revolt against a dictator or colonial rule. Then the revolutionaries become radicalized, civil war breaks out, a new, this time totalitarian ruler takes power, and only after his overthrow does democracy prevail.

Shortly after the democratic revolutions of 1989-1991, Francis Fukuyama wrote his highly influential essay on the end of history- that is, the end of violent history through global democratization. And his thoughts were very timely. What better confirmation could there be when, in just a few years, the old dictatorships from Berlin to Vladivostok, which only called themselves communist but were not, but rather geriocracies, were swept away in a wave of democratisation. The Arab Spring seemed to confirm his thoughts, as here, too, long-standing dictatorships were overrun by democratic movements virtually overnight, as in Egypt and Tunisia. But even then, there were counter-movements that contradicted the assumed linear process of global democratization. Fukuyama, therefore, had to defend his original thesis and argue that, despite all the setbacks, democracy was still at the end of history. In a way, he was echoing Hannah Arendt’s theory of revolution. The reverses of democratization in Russia, many Arab countries, and the global civil wars have often been cited as cultural – Russia, China, and Middle Eastern Islam were still too culturally authoritarian to allow for genuine democratization. But if you look at the history of democracy, you can almost discover a law of motion of democratic revolutions based on Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the French Revolution. It starts with a democratic revolt against a dictator or colonial rule. Then the revolutionaries become radicalized, civil war breaks out, a new, this time totalitarian ruler takes power, and only after his overthrow does democracy prevail. The French overthrew their king and got the emperor, Napoleon; the Russians revolted against the czar and got Stalin; the Chinese fought against their emperor and got Mao Tse-tung; the Germans overthrew their emperor after their military defeat and got the leader Adolf Hitler. Resistance to colonial rule also often followed this law of democratic movement: the colonial rulers were driven out and replaced by new rulers.

In the same year that the Soviet Union collapsed, the terrible civil wars in the former Yugoslavia began, the first Chechen war, followed by countless “markets of violence” and so-called new wars, which in a narrower sense were new civil wars and wars of state collapse. Mass rape became a weapon of war to demoralize the enemy, and an almost complete dissolution of the boundaries of violence took on a life of its own, seeming to make any rational resolution of conflicts impossible. Warlords, drug lords, terrorists, child soldiers, and “archaic” warriors who seemed to belong to the past dominated warfare worldwide. Against this backdrop, Western armies were transformed into intervention armies that were supposed to maintain a minimum of order on the borders of the U.S. “liberal empire” in order to prevent global anarchy (Robert Kaplan) or a “world civil war” (Enzensberger) – at least according to Western discourse. From the perspective of the countries affected by these wars of intervention, however, they were wars to maintain their immediate exploitation (especially in Africa), to keep corrupt regimes that collaborated with Western states alive (Arabian Peninsula), or to eliminate those that opposed the West (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan). In the open spaces of violence and violent markets, high-value illegal goods were traded: Drugs, blood diamonds, human beings (women and child slaves), weapons and rare earths.

Linked to these wars of intervention was the apparent cultural triumph of the West, which is associated with the term globalisation, but was, in fact, initially an Americanization, the so-called McDonaldization or Mac World. However, this cultural globalization of the American way of life, combined with U.S. wars of intervention, led to a backlash as many societies saw their cultural identity threatened. Taken together, these two factors triggered Samuel Huntington’s concept of the clash of civilizations.

In their liberal hubris, his Western critics argued that there could be no clash of civilizations because only the West had produced a civilization – the others were religions or cultures, but not civilizations.

 His book has often been misunderstood as a guide to action for the coming war – but in fact, he had written the book to prevent that clash, and he argued for the U.S. to withdraw from small wars around the world because he saw the liberal identity of the U.S. at risk. Perhaps more importantly, he saw non-Western religions not just as cultures but as civilizations that had grown out of their respective religions. In their liberal hubris, his Western critics argued that there could be no clash of civilizations because only the West had produced a civilization – the others were religions or cultures, but not civilizations.

While globalization initially had the effect of Americanization, in the medium term, it facilitated the “rise of the others” (Zakaria), the great empires and civilizations that had perished under European colonization and Euro-American hegemony. As a result of their initial economic success (Malaysia, Singapore, the Asian Tigers, China, India, the Pacific Rim countries), they no longer sought to imitate Western culture in order to be recognized as equals, but to develop their own identity, which they considered superior to the West. From the point of view of Western discourse, the “others” were, at best, immature children or barbarians – now the West suddenly sees itself in the role of other civilizations, seeing themselves as superior to the West. One expression of this changed self-image was Zahng Weiwei’s book China – The Civilizational State. We are now experiencing a paradoxical situation in which the West is consumed by fear of decline and the dissolution of its own sense of superiority, leading to the rise of right-wing populist and radical right-wing movements; large parts of the Asian world population are filled with hope for a better life, and the Islamic-Arab world is desperate in the face of unfulfilled promises, leading to the radicalization of young people in Islamist movements.

The concept of global governance was invented at the beginning of the 21st century as a reaction to advancing globalization. The assumption, correct in itself, was that the absence of a democratic world state did not necessarily mean that there was no possibility of at least regulating global problems, subjecting them to rules, if not solving them. Global governance was based on the idea of cooperation between nation-states, non-governmental organizations, globally active institutions, the emerging global civil society, globally active corporations, and global players. However, the resurgence of big states has pushed global governance into the background, just like globalization itself. Some states want to reverse globalization, at least in the economic and political spheres. This applies at least to Western democracies, whose citizens often see themselves as the losers of globalization.

The relative loss of importance of the Western states and the institutions they helped to create, such as the U.N., cannot be overlooked – the overstretched role of the U.S. as the world’s policeman is due, on the one hand, to its own lack of investment in development and education, and on the other to the rise of others.

What we are currently experiencing is not simply a multipolar world of great powers, even if there are signs of a renaissance of great power politics. Instead, we are witnessing a contradictory process of the five discourses alluded to here: Democratization, failed states, the clash of civilizations, further globalization, and the renaissance of great power politics. The still existing, but also partly former, Global South is still dependent on cooperation, even if new forms of cooperation are emerging, such as the expansion of the BRICS, which compete politically but cooperate economically. The relative loss of importance of the Western states and the institutions they helped to create, such as the U.N., cannot be overlooked – the overstretched role of the U.S. as the world’s policeman is due, on the one hand, to its own lack of investment in development and education, and on the other to the rise of others. What remains unpredictable is whether the emerging states of the Global South and the former superpower Russia will make the same mistake as the West in its centuries-long quest for hegemony, namely, to see itself as superior to all others. Eurocentrism would be replaced by an equally problematic ethnocentrism, and a nationalist dynamic would be set in motion that would be difficult for states to control. Even if all current developments point to the contrary and we see a return of tribalism in the form of “us versus them – whoever the others are” discourses, the only option left is to revive intercultural dialogue if we do not want to experience “another bloody century” (Colin S. Gray).

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