liberalism

The Financial Times' Edward Luce talks today about the ways in which U.S. perceptions of China have changed:

[N]o amount of dexterity can disguise the fact that Mr Obama’s visit to China crystallises a big shift in the global centre of gravity over the past few years. Just a decade ago Bill Clinton persuaded Capitol Hill that China’s membership of the World Trade Organisation would strengthen the forces of democracy within China.

Today, almost nobody in Washington even tries to make that case. Subsequent developments in China – and elsewhere – make it hard to sustain the argument that economic liberalisation leads necessarily to political liberty.

Hmmm..... really? 

I'm not saying Luce doesn't have a point.  China's been opening to the world for two decades now and Beijing's Freedom House score on accountability and public voice hasn't really budged (and stories like these don't help).  So anyone who thinks that economic liberalization will lead to political liberalization in the short-term is fooling themselves. 

That said, this isn't a short-term game that's being played.  Freedom House also acknowledges that, "Even though political institutions in China have not undergone major change, the degree to which Chinese can manage their own lives has increased substantially in the reform era."  Furthermore, as someone watching their foreign economic policy, I think it's safe to say that the current Chinese leadership is far more sensitive to domestic political pressures than was the case a decade ago (whether the Chinese public actually wants what Kantian liberals think they want is another matter entirely). 

China might be one of the toughest tests imaginable on the relationship between economic and political liberalization.  The country has a strong civilizational identity, but the leadership is acutely aware of the rebellious tendencies of some of its ethnic minorities.  The population is so huge that even after decades of double-digit economic growth, a lot of Chinese citizens are dirt poor.  It will likely take another decade for China's GDP per capita figure to rise to the level when most political science models would predict some push towards democratization. 

I certainly don't think U.S. policymakers can sit around and wait for China to democratize as the answer to policy problems in the Pacific Rim.  But neither am I convinced that China's domestic polity has reached its final steady state. 

The following is not rocket science, but rather International Relations 101. Still, I hadn't seen it anywhere else, so here goes:

The parallels between ongoing events in Honduras and Iran are surprisingly strong, and it's worth thinking about them for a spell.

In both countries, conservative elements of the established regime conducted what was, essentially, a coup d'etat. In both cases, the coup-plotters used both legal and extralegal means to cement their hold on power. These actions have triggered mass demonstrations in the streets of Tehran and Tegucigalpa. Both governments are rather paranoid about external influence on their regime. And, in some domestic politics version of the security dilemma (I hereby label this the "sovereignty dilemma"), that paranoia about external meddling is merely fuelling greater international attention to their domestic affairs of state.

Now, what are the differences? They boil down to a few important distinctions:

• Iran is much, much more powerful than Honduras.
• Honduras possesses much less strategic significance than Iran.

What does this mean? It means that realist and liberal logics will work together in Honduras and against each other in Iran. The Organization of American States could never reverse a regime change in, say, Brazil -- but multilateral coordination will have an effect on Honduras. Indeed, the fact that Honduras is relatively small is what makes it easy for the OAS to muster some consnsus on the issue. Furthermore, in contrast to larger countries, the effect of multilateral sanctions on Honduras would be pretty significant.

In Iran, on the other hand, conflicting strategic interests prevent any kind of great power concert that could push for domestic change. It's also far from clear whether anything short of a gasoline embargo would really have an appreciable impact on the regime in Tehran.

So, holding everything else constant, the odds are that the coup in Honduras are more likely to be reversed than the coup in Iran.

Bear in mind, however, that life never holds everything else constant.

For a lot of very boring reasons having to do with “ethics,” political scientists are not allowed to conduct real experiments in world politics. We can’t tell a head of state, “say, would you mind invading this neighboring country to see if a balancing coalition forms against you?” Our lot in life is hard this way. The best that international-relations scholars can hope for is a “natural experiment.” This is when events change the value of a particularly important variable, and we can then closely observe the effects of that change on world politics. We’re about to experience a natural experiment on the causes of war, and the results may or may not be pretty.