Part I

BEWARE OF THE “TERRIBLE SIMPLIFICATEURS”

In the late 19th century the Swiss historian Jakob Burckhardt warned against “these terrible simplificateurs who one day will descend upon our old Europe…”1 Today’s economic, political, societal and social reality is even more complex than in the days of Burckhardt and the temptation to oversimplify is as great as ever before.

One of the political and intellectual challenges of our age is how to reconcile, on the one hand, the growing complexity, interdependence and globalisation of economic, political, social and technological developments that call for multi- disciplinary analyses and solutions, and, on the other hand, the specialisation and the increasingly narrow and abstract approach of economics, political science and the study of international relations.2

Thus, it is difficult, in the framework of a short article, to do full justice to the complexity of national and international order, yet some of this (changing) complexity has to be captured in the following analysis if we want to avoid falling in the trap of the “terrible over-simplifiers” against whom Jakob Burckhardt had issued his famous warning.

"HUNGARIAN REFUGEE" – A BADGE OF HONOUR

 
Since its start, Hungarian Review has also been publishing articles on political, societal and philosophical subjects that went beyond narrowly defined “Hungarian topics” by Hungarian and non-Hungarian authors, living inside and outside the borders of Hungary. The present text was written by an economist and a life- long student of international relations who claims to have “multiple identities”3 – American, Hungarian and Swiss.4 These three “national identities” also imply that he considers himself both a European and belonging to the “Atlantic Community” and to the broader “Western Community” which besides Europe also includes the United States and Canada as well as Japan, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand, i.e. all the countries that are part of the community of free, liberal democracies.

The text of this article is based to a large extent on a series of direct quotes – from some of the author’s own writings since the late 1990s. The justification for this somewhat unusual approach is that the article deals with recurring issues that have been at the centre of the author’s professional and personal interest and work for many years: not only as a student of international relations and through half a century of professional activity on five continents, but also as his direct experience as a child and teenager under the Horthy regime, under German occupation and the Szálasi nightmare of October 1944–early 1945 and in Communist Hungary from 1948 until December 1956 when he finally managed to become a refugee in the Free World. It is also considered as a personal contribution to the debate (or “battle of ideas”) on some of the important questions that Hungary, Switzerland, the United States and the rest of the world will be facing in the years ahead.

The international refugee situation has once more assumed dramatic proportions and all the democracies (including Hungary, Switzerland, the United States, etc.) are seriously challenged in this context. The new European and worldwide refugee crisis is an illustration of the complexity of the world order(s) that this article discusses. Thus, unwritten “disclosure rules” suggest that this preliminary section should be concluded with the following statement: I have always considered myself fortunate to have been able to escape from Communist Hungary after the Revolution of 1956. As a “Hungarian refugee” and later as a “former Hungarian refugee” I never suffered any discrimination in any country where I lived or worked or travelled over the decades. In fact “Hungarian refugee” was a “badge of honour”, it was an identity that we never had to hide – it was a negative label only in the countries of the “Socialist Camp”. Also, virtually all the members of my immediate family are or were refugees and when I was a student some of my best professors were former refugees. Finally, during the last twenty years I have been a professor of migration and refugee studies, and for eleven years I was the Director of the International Relations Programme and of an undergraduate and graduate degree programme in migration and refugee studies. On the small campus of Webster University, Geneva, for two decades I have had students from more than 160 countries. Last but not least I should mention the influence of the “spirit of Geneva”, a City of Refuge and “humanitarian capital of the world”, in shaping my intellectual and emotional identity, my personal and professional view of the world.

Thus, when faced with the double question, raised by students, colleagues, friends and casual acquaintances more and more frequently since the summer of 2015: “What do you think about the refugee crisis? What do you think about what Hungary is doing?” my answer is almost always twofold (and as brief or long as the questioner’s patience is to listen to an actual answer):

(1) First and foremost I am deeply sad and worried about the enormous humanitarian crisis and the refugee situation in and around Syria that for several years were “off the screen” of the pundits, the decision makers and the general public. For the majority of governments and opinion makers the “real” crisis started when the boats reached the shores of Italy and Greece and the refugees appeared at the Schengen borders. My fear has been for quite some time now, and this fear has been reinforced by the current confusion and finger pointing in Europe, that the cumulative effect of the Afghan, Iraqi and Syrian disintegration could be the most severe crisis faced by the international refugee regime since its creation in the early 1950s. The consequences of the de facto or de jure end of the international refugee protection regime (imperfect as it is) would be devastating not only for current and future refugees, but also for the actual and potential asylum countries and for the long-term self-respect of their nations. The only ones who could celebrate would be today’s and tomorrow’s perpetrators, the Bashar al-Assads, ISIS, and all the other present and future aggressors and persecutors. As a former Hungarian refugee and as a student of the migration and refugee field, I have always argued and also told my friends and contacts in UNHCR and other humanitarian organisations, that the exceptionally warm and supportive welcome that the Hungarian refugees of 1956 received throughout the world had a hugely positive long-term effect on the national identity of the asylum countries themselves not for economic reasons but because it strengthened national cohesion and their people’s commitment to their free and democratic societies. To convince people in Western Europe, in the Americas or in Australia or New Zealand of the validity of this argument was not and is not an excessively difficult task once people hear the detailed explanation. Where it is the most difficult to make people understand this point is in Hungary: even today, a quarter of a century after the regime change and the end of the Communist dictatorship, the effectiveness of the biggest lie of Kádár and of his acolytes is still almost unbroken: “The Hungarian revolution was unimportant. Nobody loves us Hungarians. The world did not and will never care.”

(2) The answer to the second question mentioned above is: yes, I am sad and concerned. First and foremost because of the gradual and increasing hostility towards Hungary of (1) the media, (2) the partner governments and organisations (in Europe and North America), and (3) parts of the general public. The tone and the systematic Western denigration of things Hungarian have reached a level that one can only call “hysterical”. I do not believe in conspiracy theories. I do not think that anyone in high places in New York, Washington, Berlin, Paris or especially in Bern, Zurich or Geneva, has an “interest” in destroying Hungary or its place and reputation in Europe and the world. I also know the extent and viciousness and skill of the “information warfare” carried out directly or indirectly mainly by the “children of the Hungarian nomenklatura” against those who defeated them at the polls – first in 1990 and then again in 1998, 2010 and 2014. I also know that there is once more a real grass roots anti-Semitism on the rise also in Hungary (and I may be more worried about this than even some of my closest friends who live in Hungary), as there is one in many other countries (and which has nothing to do with Israel or the plight of the Palestinians). Finally, I also know the (unattractive and risky) penchant for provocation (il faut épater les bourgeois) of the current government (combined with an inherited tradition of feeling sorry for themselves and for the entire nation). But Hungary is not a dictatorship and it is not on the road to becoming one. It has not turned once more into a “perpetrator country” as it did in 1944 and from 1946 to 1990. What worries me most is how rapidly Hungary became the whipping boy not only of the Western “Left” but also of large parts of the Western “Centre” and “Centre-Right”, and how much parts of official Hungary and the public seem to feel comfortable in this situation. Also, I am worried because this gives a distorted view for the Hungarian population about what humanitarian crises, humanitarian action and humanitarian values are all about. It also leads to confusion both in Hungary and in the rest of the EU and in Washington about what Europe and the Western Community are about. Finally, if this tension and angry rhetoric between Hungary and its partners adds to the weakening cohesion within the European Union and within the broader Western Community, it is the firm conviction of this writer that the greater part of the responsibility for such a dangerous development lies with the “old members” and not with Hungary
.

POLITICAL ORDER AND THE PARADOX OF THE 20th CENTURY

Whoever has lived through parts of the 20th century with open eyes cannot have ignored the profound contrast that marked the entire 100 year period between “positive” and “negative” forces and developments, ultimately between “good” and “evil”, not in a religious, but in a profound “this-worldly” sense. This is a paradox that the younger (and some of the not so young) generation are not aware of or prefer to forget. This leads me to start most of my international relations courses with the “paradox of the 20th century”. The following is my definition of this paradox taken from a volume on “values” I edited earlier in the current century:5

"During no known and documented period in human history has there been a century characterised by such extremes of positive and negative developments as the 20th century."

On the negative side, the last 100 years witnessed: the spreading of aggressive nationalism; two World Wars and innumerable other cross-border or ‘internal’ wars; the rise of totalitarian regimes that were responsible for the persecution, the torture and the death of millions and millions of their own citizens; the spreading of oppressive ideologies, of the ‘Right’ or of the ‘Left’, that aimed to reshape individuals, entire nations or the whole of humanity according to a single rigid mould; the multiplication of corrupt and oppressive regimes of all stripes; the use of technology to increase the scale and effectiveness of human destruction; the justification of terrorism and of random killings in the name of nationalism, religion, class struggle, racial or ethnic difference or other similarly misused concepts and ‘ideals’.

On the positive side, the 20th century also produced achievements that were not only unprecedented, but also unimaginable, even as recently as the 19th century. These included: the spreading and consolidation of free, pluralistic and democratic societies; economic prosperity and social promotion on a scale that no ‘egalitarian’ philosopher in the past could have hoped for; the respect of basic human rights including the right to be different; freedom of thought and expression, freedom of movement and freedom of religion, and freedom of economic, social, political and cultural initiative and expression; the reduction of discrimination of all kinds; protection and assistance of the weaker and solidarity at the national and international levels; the development and diffusion of technology to improve the material and spiritual quality of life; intensive international cooperation in all areas and economic and political integration respectful of the identity and the interests of small and large states alike; and last but not least, the realisation of conditions of permanent peace in large areas of the world, including between nations that had been involved in the bloodiest wars in their history as recently as the middle of the 20th century.”

One of the most dramatic expressions of the paradox that was the 20th century was the extraordinary contrast between political orders. What were the causes of these contrasting developments? Was it luck or misfortune, fate or accident, material conditions or the weight of history? While many factors may have played a role, individually or in various combinations, at one time or another in some of the positive and negative trends listed above, by now there can be no doubt that the decisive factors of influence were the differences in the nature and quality of domestic and international political order.

There is no single sentence definition of effective domestic and international order. While there is a vast literature on theoretical and desirable political orders and a lively debate not only between different schools of thought and within the same schools (e.g. the many shades of “realists”, “liberals”, “free”, “authoritarian”, “secular”, “religion-dominated or theocratic”, etc.), existing orders are recognised by people who live under them and are directly affected by them – even if they cannot give a textbook definition.

The world’s political landscape is still made up of close to 200 states: large states, small states, free states, unfree states, and last but not least failed states. The international landscape also contains a vast number of international organisations which have been created by the states as tools of international cooperation. While international organisations tend to be subject to constant criticism (just like national governments who are the actual decision makers), it should be remembered that the United States was the initiator of the creation and expansion of international organisations at the end of World War I, and has been the single most important promoter of international organisations during the ensuing one hundred years. There are very few international organisations that were created without American initiative and American support. This is also true for the institutions of European integration: without the United States there would not only be no NATO and OECD, but no EU either. This does not, of course, prevent most Americans from being either totally ignorant of the role and work of international organisations (including the EU) or from being highly critical (often justifiably), or from believing that these organisations represent an undue encroachment on American sovereignty. Sovereignty was never meant to be absolute, not even in the 17th century when the doctrine was first articulated: there were always external and domestic limits on the exercise of “sovereign state power”: these limits were and are, “no aggression” externally, “no tyranny” domestically. The fact that these limits have been ignored so often, and not only by large but also by small states and most violently also by “non-sovereign actors” like the Taliban or ISIS, does not make the respect for them less important.

In geographic terms current political orders can be divided into various categories or levels: (1) Universal level, with partly common organising principles (UN, incomplete order); (2) International suborders with common organising principles (e.g. Western Community); (3) Regional suborders (geographic definition, without reference to organising principles); (4) Domestic or national; (5) Chaos or absence of order.

“While the term ‘international order’ encompasses in principle all (or at least the main) aspects of international relations, according to the main focus, one can distinguish also more specific key orders: International Political Order, International Economic and Monetary Order and International Security Order. (The list of ‘specific international orders’ also includes: economic, trade, monetary orders, labour, finance, values, human rights, telecommunications, environment, etc.)

While it is generally assumed to be convergence or overlapping between these various types of orders, this is not always the case. These categories, however, are neutral and do not say anything about the quality and the basic orientation of the international order in question. Terms like ‘balance-of-power’, ‘collective security’, ‘liberal democratic order’, ‘Cold War’, ‘globalisation’, ‘international monetary order’ suggest both the specific aspects and the orientation of the international order considered and of the complexity behind these summary definitions.”

“In fact, the nature and the quality of international order – similarly to domestic order – is determined by the contents of a series of parameters and the way they affect a number of different areas or levels in the given ‘reality’ being considered. The principal parameters or elements include:

(1) Basic organising principles; (2) Actors (states, groups of states, nations, international organisations, non-state actors and leaders); (3) Values; (4) Explicit and implicit rules; (5) National and common goals and objectives; (6) Laws; (7) Policies; (8) Common and national interests; (9) Sovereignty and its external and domestic limits; (10) Institutions, tools and other channels of cooperation; (11) Resources, means and power; (12) Positive and negative incentives – rewards and sanctions; (13) Effectiveness; (14) Flexibility and adaptability; (15) Legitimacy; and last but not least (16) Geographic scope and relations with the rest of the world.”6

Between the late 1940s and the end of the Cold War in 1990, there were three distinct and well recognised “sub” international orders (i.e. not universal – but not regional in geographic terms), and an incomplete or partial universal order.7 The three “sub” orders were the Western Community, the Communist Camp and the Third World.

The following were the principal common characteristics of these three suborders:

1. the first and most important feature was the close link between the domestic political, economic and social systems and belonging to one of the three suborders;

2. the external relations among the countries belonging to one of the orders were clearly different from the relations between countries belonging to different suborders;

3. the nature of these international suborders was well known (“internalised”) by both political leaders and the general public and there was a high degree of predictability of the external policies of most countries – great powers, middle powers and small countries – belonging to the various suborders;

4. the first three factors also largely determined the respective position and policies of the countries belonging to the different suborders with respect to the universal international order represented by the UN Charter and the UN family of organisations (hence the partial universal international order) and

5. finally, all three suborders were both values based and interest based.

THE CREATION AND DESTRUCTION OF POLITICAL COMMUNITIES

The history of the world is the history of the creation and the destruction, of the evolution and unravelling of political communities. Also, the last hundred years have witnessed throughout the world the creation and destruction of record numbers of political communities, and it should come as a surprise to no one that this process has continued and might even accelerate in the new millennium.

Political communities can be “tangible”, “legal-territorial” (e.g. the state) or “virtual” (e.g. the Western Community) or a combination of two or even three types, tangible, legal-territorial and virtual. Most people and most states belong to several communities and most political communities can be broken down into smaller components. The graph below shows the scope of different levels of communities within the Western international order.

“Political communities, both the ‘real’ ones and the ‘virtual’ ones can come about by evolution and slow transformation, they can be freely created or be imposed by force or propaganda, they can be ‘natural’ or ‘artificial’, people may willingly identify with them or they may feel imprisoned in them.

Most communities are linked by vertical or horizontal ties to other communities: convergence and complementarity lead to peace and cooperation, incompatibility to tensions and conflict. True federalism is the best model for free societies found so far. Artificial federalism of authoritarian or totalitarian regimes – the late USSR or the former Yugoslavia are among the best illustrations – is no substitute for the cohesion of free societies: once the terror and fear from the oppressor are gone, the phony federations tend to explode violently or simply fall apart.

The Scope of Political Communities

Universal – International Community

Regional (1) (example: Western/Atlantic community)

Regional (2) (examples: European Union, Nordic community)

National (State)

Intermediate (Cantons, etc.)

Local

The quality of a political order and of a community depends on how the different levels interact vertically and horizontally, on whether they are mutually compatible, on whether they are a source of freedom and autonomy as well as of convergence, or they are incompatible and a source of potential or actual conflict.”8

“Political communities are about both shared values and shared goals and interests. It is not necessary, and it is even highly unlikely, that all members of a political community share all the values and pursue all the goals and uphold all the interests to the same extent. Debate, competition and even conflict about values, goals, interests and policies are an essential element of a political community: the political process consists of establishing the priorities and the hierarchy of values, goals, interests and policies within and among political communities. The nature and the quality of a political community depend on how differences in interests, values and potential conflicts are dealt with – on the effective rules and procedures and institutions. Political communities are characterised by a ‘creative tension’ between conflicting values, interests and preferences, on the one hand, and common ties and consensus on basic features and orientation of the political community, on the other hand. Finding a balance between these two sides of the equation is the principal task of the democratic process. If the conflicts systematically predominate over the consensus on fundamental goals and procedures the political community becomes ineffective and is threatened by a breakdown.”9

The successful examples of community creation in modern times include the Western Community and the European Union; examples of successful community “transformation” are for example post-war Germany and Japan. Artificial and failed community creations include the USSR, the Third Reich, “Gross-Raum Europa” (Nazis), the Soviet-dominated Socialist Camp, etc. Democratic communities tend to be more resilient than dictatorships “brought together” and “held together” by extreme nationalism, religious fundamentalism or outright totalitarian ideologies. But both new and old democratic communities can also be threatened by narrow- minded political ambitions and agendas (and outright political incompetence). These threats are well illustrated by ongoing attempts at community destruction in democracies: in Spain (Catalonia), United Kingdom (Scotland internally, Brexit externally), the attempts to push Greece out of the European Union (Grexit), etc.

THE KEY ORGANISING PRINCIPLES OF THE WESTERN COMMUNITY

“The ‘free world’ or the ‘Western international order’ or the ’Western Community’ have been and remain a reality ever since the second half of the 1940s. This reality has been well understood both by its supporters and its adversaries and enemies inside and outside. While there has been an explicit or implicit majority supporting its creation and preservation and development during the last sixty years throughout the countries that make up this ‘order’ or ‘community’ – there has been constant debate at all levels about its nature, its objectives and its legitimacy and justification.

The development of the Western international order was not the result simply of a reaction to the Communist threat as it is often and wrongly assumed: it was a natural development of the countries that wanted to break with the tradition of aggressive nationalism, wars and authoritarian regimes in Europe, of countries that opted for, and were free to opt for democracy, for the respect of political freedom and human rights and that rejected the political extremes on the Left and the Right. This led to the de facto creation of a ‘sub’ international order, to the emergence of a community of states – with shared liberal values and interests.

The new traditions, the three pillars of this order were the following:

1. war among the members of this community has become unimaginable;

2. members of this international order had to be fully democratic countries, respectful of political freedom and human rights;

3. liberal international economic policies and integration have been contributing both to unprecedented growth and prosperity and social progress domestically and to peaceful relations externally among the members of this community.10

One of the secrets of the success of the ‘Western international order’ has been the harmonious and democratic relationship between the different levels (vertical – up and down) and horizontally between the various communities on the same level belonging to the Western Community. The principal example of this is the simultaneous development of the ‘Atlantic Community’ and of the ‘European Community’11 from the 1940s onward.”12

GLOBALISATION IS ONCE MORE UNDER ATTACK: BOTH FROM ITS ENEMIES AND FROM ITS EXTREMIST (ALLEGED) SUPPORTERS

Today, globalisation is one of the most frequently used terms in international political debate – both critically and approvingly: the term has moved in a short time from virtual inexistence to the centre of political debate.

Globalisation is an international order under which large and small countries are (or should be) living in freedom, peace, prosperity and social progress. Globalisation is both (1) the continuation of a trend (which had seen its ups and downs) that started in 1945 in the Western world in response to the experience of the preceding decades and to the imminent new threat to freedom and peace, and (2) a new quantitative and qualitative jump since the end of the Cold War.

Is globalisation simply the extending of the borders of the “Western Community” to the entire World community (all countries can join who accept and apply the common organising principles)?

Is globalisation simply the extension of freedom and of the “free society” to all countries? A summary definition in four points, dating from early 2007 (i.e. before the outbreak of the crisis of “global finance” and of the most severe crisis so far of globalisation itself), seems to be still valid today:

1. The first one is that globalisation represents both the intensification and in some cases the culmination of trends some of which started fifty or even sixty years ago – we are talking here about the broadening, widening and deepening of the trends in question – and new trends and situations with the increased accumulated momentum of trends creating a veritable breaking point and a qualitatively and quantitatively new situation. There is both continuity and a break with the past.

2. The second point is that what makes globalisation a truly global (and in this respect a truly new) phenomenon is that the tendency of trends to become global has occurred more or less simultaneously in several key areas: the political field and political values (freedom and human rights in particular) and the role of the state in particular at the domestic as well as at the international level; the economic, monetary and financial area; technology and in particular information and communication technologies, products and services; social issues and policies; culture and societal models; as well as the multiple aspects of security and of environmental challenges.

3. The third point is that like the term “integration” (as in European integration) the term “globalisation” has multiple meanings: it is a process, a state, a condition, but it refers also to objectives, goals and policies.

4. The fourth point has to do with the positive and negative perceptions of globalisation. These perceptions can rest on objective and subjective assessments: globalisation brings great benefits but it also has costs – there are winners and losers in all parts of the world.

There are three main issues today: (1) there has been no real consensus on what the “Western model” was and is about; (2) the implementation of the “Western model” is often unsuccessful partly because of the ignorance and short-sightedness of Western experts and leaders; (3) the need for correcting and rebalancing the various features and objectives of globalisation (de-emphasising the primacy of global finance13, correcting the prevailing “short-termism” and bringing back a more balanced approach to solidarity and competition).

Today some of the key questions about the record and the future of globalisation are: Where is the social dimension, the solidarity that makes globalisation politically and socially acceptable? Where is the respect for diversity?14

There is no doubt that the ethical and social dimensions of globalisation have to be addressed urgently and in a positive way. There is no real alternative to globalisation but there is a need for remembering the original challenge: unity in diversity. For globalisation to be a success there has to be a balance between private interests and public interests. The denial of “public interests” is a mortal threat for the survival of individual freedom as well as for the respect of the private sector and the market economy. The systematic denial of economic freedom and initiative and declaring that there are only “common interests” is a well-trodden road to tyranny, inefficiency and poverty.

What happens if globalisation fails? There will be no new international order worth of its name. At a first stage, there would be a world divided into two with a growing gap between the successful and those who fail to perform. At a second stage, if globalisation fails, there will be a generalised backlash against globalisation and crises along the lines of all of those positive aspects that fail to materialise.