ABSTRACT
The
study presents the impact of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East from
1948 to 1978 in a Postmodernism approach in general and Foucault in particular.
The study highlights the different wars between Arab nations and State of
Israel.
The
study reveals that Arab-Israeli conflict is affected by identity either Arab or
Israeli, nationalism either Arab nationalism or Zionism, and state either Arab
nations or State of Israel as the typologies based on the notion of Knowledge,
Truth, and Power.
It is an undisputed fact that the
Arab-Israeli Conflict plays an important role in the Middle East (Walvoord and
Hitchcock 2007). The Middle East became the most significant trouble spot in
the world. Many events have occurred in the past and those that are happening
today can be traced to basic political, economic, social, and cultural causal
factors (Winslow 2007). The
Arab-Israeli conflict spans about a century of political tensions and open
hostilities. It involves the establishment of the modern State of Israel, as
well as the establishment and independence of several Arab countries at the
same time, and the relationship between the Arab nations and Israel.
THE
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1948-1978)
The 1948 Arab-Israeli War was the
first in a series of armed conflicts fought between the State of Israel and its
Arab neighbours in the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arab-Israeli Conflict
began as a civil conflict between Palestinian Jews and Arabs following the
announcement of the United Nations (UN) plan of November 1947 to partition the
country into Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international enclave in
greater Jerusalem. For Palestinians, the war marked the beginning of the events
referred to as “The Catastrophe”. After the United Nations partitioned the
territory of the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab,
the Arab refused to accept it and the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan,
Lebanon, and Iraq, supported by others, attacked the newly established State of
Israel which they refused to recognize. As a result, the region was divided
between Israel, Egypt, and Transjordan.
The
Suez Crisis was a war fought on Egyptian territory in 1956. The conflict pitted
Egypt against United Kingdom and France. During the British colonial era, the
Suez Canal had been important in the Middle East, as well as for the penetration
of Africa and in maintaining control in India. For this reason the British
considered it important to keep the canal out of Egyptian control. Thus, in
1875, Isma’il Pasha, under the pressure of foreign debt, sold his country’s
share in the canal to the United Kingdom, and the Convention of Constantinople
(1888) declared the canal a neutral zone under British protection. The United
Kingdom gained control over the canal under the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936.
However, in 1951 Egypt declared this treaty null and void, and by 1954 the
United Kingdom agreed to pull out.
The
Six-Day War (Milhemet Sheshet Ha-Yamin), also known as the 1967 Arab-Israeli
War, the Third Arab-Israeli War, Six Days’ War,
an-Naksah (The Setback), or the June War, was fought between Israel and
its Arab neighbors of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria with Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
and Algeria contributing troops and arms to their fronts. On 25 January 1967,
the Israeli-Syrian mixed armistice commission convened, after an eight-year
hiatus, and published a communiqué according to which the two parties had
reached an agreement meant to prevent any hostile or aggressive action. On 7
April, in reprisal for Syrian artillery barrages on kibbutzim in the north of
Galilee, Israeli planes conducted a raid on the Golan, in the course of which
six Syrian MiGs were downed. On 13 May, Soviet intelligence informed Cairo and
Damascus that the Israelis were massing troops on the Syrian frontier. In the
context of the Egyptian-Syrian defense pact, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel
Nasser decided to mobilize his army. The following day, several Egyptian units
left Cairo for the Sinai.
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War
or October War, also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth
Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973, between Israel
and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. The war began with a
surprise joint attack by Egypt and Syria on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
Egypt and Syria crossed the cease-fire lines in the Sinai and Golan Heights,
respectively, which had been captured by Israel in 1967 during the Six Day War.
The Egyptians and Syrian advanced during the first 24-48 hours, after which
momentum began to swing in Israel’s favour (Fuare, 2005).
THE
NOTION OF KNOWLEDGE IN ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT
Foucault
begins with the principles that there are any numbers of different ways of
ordering experiences and knowledge. Every existing order in culture, society
and knowledge is limited, and alternative orders are always possible. It is
important to continually challenge these orders as they often fix and
perpetuate forms of social injustice and ignorance. All of Foucault’s work is
about order, or more specifically about the co-existence of different forms of
order and the continual historical transformation of those orders and their
interrelations. These orders exist both within culture and within the physical
world.
One
of the most fundamental confusion in our culture is the tendency to assume that
words and things have the same structure and that words transparently reflect
and represents the structure of things. Or to put it another way, that our way
of talking about the world reflects the world as it really is in itself.
Foucault argues that there is no necessary neutral and fixed connection between
words and things or between knowledge and things. The order of words and the
order of things can only exist in analogous relations. An order of words may
appear the same as an order of things, but the order of words is using analogy
or mimicry or some other process to produce this effect.
The
non-transparent relation between words and things and the fact that somehow our
knowledge never quite matches what is actually out there is, in Foucault’s
view, the logical consequence of the fact that humans are limited historical
beings. Our inability to formulate a knowledge which is fixed and absolutely
true is not the result of the loss of an original natural innocence or ‘fall
from grace’. Neither is knowledge a mark of a divorce from ‘nature’ and ‘real
life’.
For Foucault, ‘history’ is the tool
par excellence for challenging and analyzing existing orders and also for
suggesting the possibility of new orders. History is about beginnings and ends
and about change and freedom.
In short, history can be used as a tool to show the
limits of every system of thought and institutional practice and to break down
the oppressive claims to universal truth of any one system. In opposition to
eternal, fixed and unchanging entities, Foucault proposes history, the
beginning and ends and constant change.
Identity
In both enduring interstate
rivalries and bitter ethnic conflict, interests are shaped by images that in
turn are partially shaped by identity. What we see as a threat is a function in
large part of the way we see the world and who we think we are. Embedded enemy
images and collective beliefs are a serious obstacle to conflict management,
routinization, reduction, or resolution. Once formed, enemy images tend to
become deeply rooted and resistant to change, even when one adversary attempts
to signal a change in intent. The images themselves then contribute
autonomously to the perpetuation and to the intensification of conflict.
Prospects for reducing and
resolving violent conflicts are not as grim, however, as this analysis
suggests. I argue that identities that shape images are not given but are
socially related as interactions develop and contexts evolve over the
trajectory of conflict. Change in identity can reshape images, and changing
images can provoke a relation of identity. If they are to be effective,
peacemakers, who confront bitter civil wars or enduring state rivalries must
address interests in the broader context of images and identity.
Images
of an enemy can form as a response to the persistently aggressive actions of
another state or group. A conflict generated by aggressive or militant leaders
with vested interest in escalating conflict is generally not amenable to
reduction unless intentions change. These kind of individual and group images
are not the subject of this chapter.
Rather, I focus on conflict generated by images and fears that form when
the intent of the others is not hostile, but action is ambiguous in an
unstructured environment; or conflict generated by images that were once
accurate but no longer reflect the intentions of one or more parties. Under
these conditions, social analysis is important both in the explanation of
conflict and in generating prescriptions to reduce its intensity.
An
image refers to a set of beliefs or to the hypotheses and theories that an individual
or group is convinced as valid. An image includes both experience-based
knowledge and values, or beliefs about desirable behavior (Rokeach 1973, 5).
When these individual images are shared within a group and defined in
opposition to another group, they become stereotyped (Druckman 1994, 50). A
stereotyped image is a group belief about another group or state that includes
descriptive, affective, and normative components. Stereotyped enemy images,
generally simple in structure, set the political context in which action takes
place and decisions are made. Converging streams of evidence from international
relations, and comparative politics suggest that individuals and groups are
motivated to form and maintain images of an enemy even in the absence of solid,
confirming evidence of hostile intentions.
Enemy
images can be a product of the need for identity and the dynamics of group
behavior. People have a fundamental human need for identity. Identity is the
way in which a person is or wishes to be known by others; it is a conception of
self in relation to others. An effective identity includes beliefs and scripts
for action in relation to others. An individual almost always holds more than
one identity and generally moves freely among these identities depending on the
situation. Individual identity is highly situational and relational.
One
important component of individual identity is social identity, or the part of
individual’s self-concept that derives from knowledge of his or her membership
in a social group or groups, together with the value and emotional significance
attached to that membership (Tajfel 1981, 255). People satisfy their need for
positive self-identity, status, or reduction of uncertainty by identifying with
the group (Hogg and Abrams 1993, 173-190).These needs then require bolstering
and favorable comparison of the “in-group” with “out-group (Tajfel 1982).”
Membership in a group leads to systematic comparisons, differentiation, and
derogation of other groups through processes of categorizing and social
comparison.
Social
differentiation occurs even in the absence of material bases for conflict. This
need for collective as well as individual identity leads people to
differentiate between “we” and “they”, to distinguish between “insiders” and
“outsiders”, even when scarcity or gain is not at issue. In an effort to
establish or defend group identity, groups and their leaders identity their
distinctive attributes as virtues and label the distinctiveness of others as
vices. This kind of “labeling” responds to deep social needs and can lead to
the creation of enemy stereotypes and culminate conflict.
An
examination of massive state repressive leading to group extinction, for
example, concluded that genocides and politicides are extreme attempts to
maintain the security of one’s “identity group” at the expense of other groups
(Harff and Gurr 1988, 359-371). Ethnocentrism, or strong feelings of self-group
centrality and superiority, does not necessarily culminate in extreme or
violent behavior. However, it does draw on myths that are central to group or
national culture and breeds stereotyping and a misplaced suspicion of others’ intentions
(Booth 1979).
Common
cognitive biases can also contribute to the creation of enemy images and the
sharpening of polarization. The egocentric bias leads people to overestimate
the extent to which they are the target of others’ action. Leaders are then
likely to see their group or state as the target of the hostility of others
even when they are not. The fundamental error leads people to exaggerate
systematically the importance of others’ disposition or fixed attributes in
explaining their undesired behavior. Leaders are, therefore, likely to
attribute undesirable behavior to the “character” of other groups or states
rather than to the difficulties they face in their environment (Fiske and
Taylor 1984, 72-99). President Hafiz al-Assad of Syria rarely drew a
distinction between Israeli’s leaders, ignored differences among political
parties, explained Israel’s behavior as a consequence of its Zionist character,
and dismissed the impact of public opinion on the policy of a democratically
elected leadership. He consistently exaggerates the “disposition” of Israel’s
leaders at the expense of the situation they confronted.
Social
identity and differentiation, however, do not lead inevitably to violent
conflict through stereotypical enemy images (Mercer 1995, 229-252). If they
did, conflict would occur at all times, under all conditions. Differentiated
identities and cognitive biases are necessary but insufficient explanations of
the formation of enemy images. If they were sufficient, individuals, groups, and
states would have strong enemy images all the time. This is clearly not the
case. The critical variables are the kinds of environments in which individuals
and groups seek to satisfy their needs and the norms that they generate and
accept. Certain kinds of international and domestic conditions mediate and
facilitate the formation of enemy images (Taylor and Moghaddam 1987).
THE
NOTION OF TRUTH IN ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT
Truth
plays a major role in the way Foucault structures his writings. It could even be
argued that his entire work is one long effort to reinstate a form of truth
that has been consistently marginalized since Descartes – a form of truth that
relies on history, on patient and constant work and ‘exercise’ by every
individual in their daily lives in the world. It is a form of truth that is
accessible to, and is indeed revealed by, the most marginalized of individuals
– mad people, ill people, prisoners, those designated as ‘abnormal’. It is a
truth that does not have a fixed and unchanging content and is not the province
of a privilege few, but can be acquired by anyone through exercises involving
choices of action within their own specific historical, social, and cultural
settings.
There
has been a great deal of discussion about Foucault’s approach to truth. He is
often accused of denying ‘objective truth’ and of introducing an amoral and
highly dubious relativism. But he firmly insists that he is not engaged in a
‘skeptical or relativistic refusal of all verifies truth’ (Foucault 1982: 330),
noting further: ‘all those who say that for me the truth doesn’t exist are
simple-minded’. (Foucault 1984: 456) This is not to say however, that
Foucault’s notion of truth is the same as his detractors. He argues that there
are strict historically and culturally specific rules about how truth is both
accessed and disseminated. One cannot make any claims about truth except from
within quite specific cultural and historical settings. Further to this, any
system of rules is also a finite system of constraints and limitations;
therefore truth is of necessity the subject of struggles for power. In short
‘truth’, like every other category in Foucault’s work, is a historical
category. Foucault further specifies that the history of truth he is describing
is specific to the West arguing that there has been an overwhelming obligation
in Western history to search for the truth, to tell the truth and to honour
certain people who are designated as having privileged access to the truth.
Nation
and Nationalism
Political division is a key
characteristic of traditional global politics.
Nationalism is the world’s “most powerful political idea” (Taras and
Ganguly 1998,11). It is the primary political identity of most people. As such,
nationalism has helped configure world politics for several centuries and will
continue to play a crucial role in shaping people’s minds and global affairs in
the foreseeable future. The political segmentation of the world rests in great
part on three concepts: nation, nation-state, and nationalism (Mortimer and
Fine 1999). Understanding both the theory and the reality of what they are and
how they relate to one another is central to our analysis of international
politics.
A
nation is a people who (a) share demographic and cultural similarities, (b)
possess a feeling of community (mutually identify as a group distinct from
other groups), and (c) want to control themselves politically. As such, a
nation is intangible; it exists because its members think it does. A state
(country) is tangible institution, but a nation, as a French scholar puts it,
is “a soul, a spiritual quality” (Renan 1995, 7).
Demographic and Cultural Similarities. The similarities that a people share are
one element that helps make them a nation. These similarities may be demographic
characteristics (such as language, race, and religion), or they may be a common
culture or shared historical experiences.
Feeling of Community . A
second thing that helps define a nation is its feeling of community. Perception
is the key here. For all the objective similarities a group might have, it is
not a nation unless it subjectively feels like one. Those within a group must
perceive that they share similarities and are bound together by them. Thus, a
nation is an “imagined political community,” according to one scholar. As he
explains, “It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will
never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet
in the mind of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson 1991, 5).
The
central role of perceptions in defining a nation leads, perhaps inevitably, to
a “we-group” defining itself not only by the similarities of those in the
nation but also in terms of how those in the nation differ from others, the
“they-groups.” The group members’ sense of feeling akin to one another and
their sense of feeling different from others are highly subjective.
Desire To Be Politically Separate. The third element that defines a nation is
its desire to be politically separate. What distinguishes a nation from an
ethnic group is that a nation, unlike an ethnic group, desires to be
self-governing or at least autonomous. In nationally divided states, the
minority nationalities refuse to concede the legitimacy of their being governed
by the majority nationality.
It
should be noted that the line between ethnic groups and nations is not always
clear. In many countries, there are ethnic groups that either teeter on the
edge of having true nationalist (separatist) sentiments or that have some
members who are nationalists and others who are not (Conversi, 2002).
The
second aspect of the traditional political orientation is nationalism, which is
the separatist political impulse of a nation. It is hard to overstate the
importance of nationalism to the structure and conduct of world politics
(Beiner, 1991). Nationalism is an ideology, a complex of related ideas that
establishes value about what is good and bad, directs adherents on how to act
(patriotism), links together those who adhere to the ideology, and
distinguishes them from those who do not. Specially, nationalism connects
individuals, their sense of community, and their political identity in
contradistinction to other nations. The links are forged when individuals (1)
“become sentimentally attached to the homeland,” (2) “gain a sense of identity
and self-esteem through their national identification,” and (3) are “motivated
to help their country” (Druckman, 1994, 44). As such, nationalism is an
ideology that holds that the nation should be the primary political identity of
individuals. Furthermore, nationalist ideology maintains that the paramount
political loyalty of individuals should be patriotically extended to the
nation-state, the political vehicle of the nation’s self-governance.
A
third element of our traditional way of defining and organizing ourselves
politically is the nation-state. This combines the idea of a nation with that
of a state. A state is a country, a sovereign (independent) political
organization with certain character such as territory, a population, and a
government.
Ideally,
a nation-state represents the joining of nation and state. In this arrangement,
virtually all of a nation is united within its own state, and the people of
that state overwhelmingly identify with the nation. Thus, the ideal
nation-state is one in which one nation and one state engenders powerful
emotions called patriotism, the extension of identification with the nation to
loyalty to the state.
During an address to the UN
General Assembly, Pope John Paul II spoke of two nationalisms. One was “an
unhealthy form of nationalism which teaches contempt for other nations or
culture . . . [and] seeks to advance the well-being of one’s own nation at the
expense of others.” The other nationalism involved “proper love of one’s
country . . . [and] the respect which is due to every [other] culture and every
nation.” What the pope could see is that nationalism, like the Roman god Janus,
has two faces. Nationalism has been a positive force, but it has also brought
despair and destruction to the world.
Most scholars agree that in its
philosophical and historical genesis, nationalism was a positive force. It
continues to have a number of possible beneficial effects.
Nationalism
promotes democracy. Popular sovereignty, the idea that the
state is the property of its citizen, is a key element of modern nationalism.
If the state is the agent of the people, then the people should decide what
policies that the state should pursue. This is democracy, and in the words of one
scholar, “Nationalism is the major form in which democratic consciousness
expresses itself in the modern world” (O’Leary 1997, 222). In short,
nationalism promotes the idea that political power legitimately resides with
the people and that governors exercise that power only as the agents of the
people. The democratic nationalism that helped spur the American Revolution has
spread globally, especially since World War II, increasing the proportion of
world’s countries that are fully democratic from 28% in 1950 to 46% in 2003.
Nationalism
discourages imperialism. During
the past 100 years alone, nationalism has played a key role in the demise of
the contiguous Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires and of all or
most of the colonial empires controlled by Belgium, France, Great Britain,
Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States. More recently,
nationalism was the driving force behind the birth of the newest state, East
Timor, one of the last remnants of the Portuguese empire and from 1975 to 2002
a territory annexed by Indonesia.
Nationalism
allows for economic development. Many scholars see nationalism
as both a facilitator and a product of modernization. Nationalism created
larger political units in which commerce could expand. The prohibition of
interstate tariffs and the control of interstate commerce by the national
government in the 1787 American Constitution are examples of that development.
With the advent of industrialization and urbanization, the local loyalties of
the masses waned and were replaced by a loyalty to the national state.
Nationalism
allows diversity and experimentation. It has been
argued that regional or world political organization might lead to an
amalgamation of culture or, worse, the suppression of the cultural and
government promotes experimentation. Democracy, for instance, was an experiment
of in America in 1776 that might not have occurred in a world dominated by
monarchical political systems alone. Diversity also allows different cultures
to maintain their own values. Political culture varies, for example, along a
continuum on which the good of the individual is at one end and the good of the
society is at the other end. No society is at either extreme of the continuum.
Americans are among those who tend toward the individualism end and the belief
that the rights of the individual are more important than the welfare of the
society.
For
all its contributions, nationalism also has a dark side. Although it has a
number of aspects, the troubling face of nationalism is feeling a kinship with
the other “like” people who make up the nation. Differentiating ourselves from
others is not intrinsically bad, but it is only a small step from the salutary
effects of positively valuing our we-group to the negative effects of devaluing
they-groups. Four aspects of negative nationalism are lack of concern for
others, exceptionalism and xenophobia, internal oppression, and external
aggression.
Lack of Concern for Others. The mildest, albeit still troubling, trait of
negative nationalism, we tend to consider the they-group as apart from us. As a
result, our sense of responsibility – even of human caring – for the “they” is
more limited than for our we-group. People in most countries accept significant
responsibility to assist the least fortunate citizens of their national
we-group through social welfare budgets. The key is what we not only want to
help others in our-group but that we feel we have a duty to do so.
Exceptionalism and Xenophobia. If the positive emotion of valuing one’s
nation is one side of nationalism, its other side involves feeling superior to
or even fearing and hating others. Exceptionalism is the belief by some that
their nation is better than others.
Fortunately
less frequent but an even more negative way some people relate to they-groups
is xenophobia, the suspicion, dislike, or fear of other nationalities. Negative
nationalism also often spawns feelings of national superiority and
superpatriotism, and these lead to internal oppression and external aggression
(Kateb 2000). Feelings of hatred between groups are especially apt to be
intense if there is a history of conflict or oppression.
Oppression and Aggression. If negative nationalism were confined to
feelings, it might not be so worrisome. But a sense of superiority or
unreasoned fear or loathing often leads to domestic oppression and external
aggression.
Internal
oppression is common. Indeed, it is rare to find a multinational country in
which the dominant ethnonational group does not have political, economic, and
social advantages over the other group or groups. Perhaps inevitably, this
inequality of circumstance causes the disadvantaged groups to become restive.
Domestic
nationalist intolerance can also lead to conflict when, as one scholar notes,
it becomes “a scavenger [that] feeds upon the pre-existing sense of nationhood”
and seeks “to destroy heterogeneity” by trying to suppress the culture of
minority groups or by driving them out of the country (Keane 1994, 175).
External
aggression can also be the product of negative nationalism. Exceptionalism for
example can lead to the belief that it is acceptable to conquer “lesser”
nations or indeed, even to the notion that they will be improved by being
subjugated and having their cultures replaced by that of the conqueror.
THE NOTION OF POWER IN ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT
Foucault’s
name is linked most famously with the notion of power and also with the idea
that knowledge and truth exist in an essential relations with social, economic,
and political factors. It is well known that Foucault addresses the question of
power in his writing subsequent to 1970, but similar themes can also be found
in his earlier work even if such themes are not couched in the same terms. Foucault
(1971, 159) explains that in the early 1960s he was impressed by the attempts
of certain Marxist historians of science to link geometry and calculus to
social structures. But the problem with Marxist attempts to link the actual
disciplinary content of science with economic, social, and historical factors
was that they made the links too simple. In Foucault’s view, the relation
between social and economic structures and the actual content of science was in
fact far more complex than one simply being the expression of the other. He
therefore embarked on his studies of psychiatry and medicine with a view to examining
these complexities. In The Archaeology of
Knowledge, Foucault briefly adopted the term ‘ideology’ to refer to these
social, economic and political structures, using the term in much the same way
as he subsequently used power.
But
whatever the terminology, he remains firm in his rejection of a long-standing
assumption in Western philosophy that there is a fundamental opposition between
knowledge and power, that the purity of knowledge can only exist in stark
opposition to the machinations of power. As he puts it, the accepted view is
that ‘If there is knowledge, it must renounce power. Where knowledge and
science are found in their pure truth, there can no longer be any political
power. This great myth needs to be dispelled’ (Focault 1974, 32).
In
The Archaeology of Knowledge Foucault
criticizes the idea that ‘ideology’ and science are mutually exclusive. If the
proposition that science does not exist in isolation from power or ideology is
now a fairly familiar one, it is usually assumed as a result, that such a
relation immediately undermines the truth claims and validity of science. This
conclusion is, however, still premised on the notion that knowledge and power
can never be mixed. Foucault, for his part, insists that exposing the
‘ideological’ functioning of a science and treating it as merely one practice
of knowledge amongst many is not an attack to its legitimacy or the validity of
its propositions as a science. Within science there are internal ‘thresholds’
which mark how that knowledge is systematized, how propositions are
constructed, formalized and validated. Thus Foucault is able to make a
distinction between the ‘archaeological’ level where ‘objects are constituted,
subject are posed and concepts are formed’ (Focault 1971, 162) and the ‘epistemological’
level of science.
At the end of The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault
asks ‘Must archaeology be – exclusively – a certain way of questioning the
history of the sciences?’ His answer to that is, of course, no, and the book he
published next, ‘The Order of Discourse’, marks the beginning of his move away
from a specific focus on science to broader forms of knowledge relating to
social organization. It also marks the introduction of his notion of power.
What
exactly is power? As is the case with archaeology, Foucault uses the term for a
while without offering any definitions. Early on, he adopts the classic view of
power as repressive, noting for example: ‘for medicine, I tried … to detect
relations of power, that is necessarily the types of repression which were
linked to the appearance of a knowledge’ (Focault 1973, 410). But he quickly
discarded this idea and took another tack. If Foucault’s ideas on power are
notoriously changeable there are certain principles to distinguish his own
views on power from more traditional – particularly Marxist – models.
The most important feature of
Foucault’s theories on power is that for him power is not a ‘thing’ or a ‘capacity’ which can be owned either by State,
social class, or particular individuals. Instead it is a relation between different individuals and groups and only exists
when it is being exercised. According to this scenario a king is only a king if
he has subjects. Thus, the term power refers to set of relations that exist
between individuals, or that are strategically deployed by groups of
individuals. Institutions and government are simply the ossification of highly
complex sets of power relations which exist at every level of the social body.
How Foucault characterizes the operation and limits of these exercises of power
was co-extensive with the social body. There were no pockets of freedom which
escaped power relations, but instead resistance existed wherever power
exercised (Focault 1977, 142). This resistance was everywhere and at every
level, right down, as Foucault says, to the child who picked his nose at the
table in order to annoy his parents (Focault 1977, 407). Although Foucault
insisted on several occasions that resistance was not doomed to inevitable
failure in the face of the omnipresence of power, numbers of his readers still
found it difficult to understand how such resistance could not be compromised,
since in effect it could only ever be the mirror of the power being exercised.
Foucault tried to get around this problem by briefly proposing something he
called the ‘plebs’, which was a certain ‘something’ which existed in
individuals and groups that escaped relations of power and which limited the
exercise of power (Focault 1977, 137-8). He also toyed briefly with the notion
of ‘counter-conduct’ which existed in opposition to the forms of conduct which
were imposed by the exercise of pastoral and subsequently governmental power.
But
it was not until his 1979 Tanner lectures and subsequently that Foucault was
able to offer a more refined and usable version of the same ideas. In this
model, power still pervades the social body at all levels, but it does not
encompass every social relation and its exercise if extensive, is limited. He
distinguishes power from relationships of exchange and production and also from
relationships of communication (Focault 1981, 324), thus distancing himself
respectively from both Marx and Habermas. Power becomes a way of changing
people’s conduct, or as he defines it, ‘a mode of action upon the actions of
others’ (Focault 1982, 341).
In
addition to this, Foucault argues that power can only be exercized over free
subjects. By freedom, Foucault means the possibility of reacting and behaving
in different ways. If these possibilities are closed down through violence or
slavery, then it no longer is a question of relationship of power but its
limits. Of course, those exercising power can threaten and indeed exercise
violence but those who are being confronted can refuse to modify their actions.
It is at this point that the relationship of power breaks down and becomes
something else. Foucault provides a useful example of what he means in the
Tanner lectures:
A
man who is chained up and beaten is subject to force being exerted over him,
but if he can be induced to speak, when his ultimate recourse could have been
to hold his tongue preferring death, then he has been caused to behave in a
certain way. His freedom has been subjected to power … There is no power
without potential refusal or revolt (Focault 1981, 324).
A second way in which Foucault
distinguishes his idea on power is by criticizing models which see power as
being purely located in the State or the administrative and executive bodies
which govern the nation State. The very existence of the State in fact depends
on the operation of thousands of complex micro-relations of power at every
level of the social body. Foucault offers the example of military service which
can only be enforced because every individual is tied in to a whole network of
relations which include family, employers, teachers, and other agents of social
education. The grand strategies of State rely on the co-operation of a whole
network of local and individualized tactics of power in which everybody is
involved. Foucault (1977, 406-7) observes that if the police certainly have
methods (‘we know what those are’ he adds ironically) so do fathers in relation
to their children, men in relation to women , children in relation to parents,
women in relations to men and so on. All these relations of power at different
levels work together and against each other in constantly shifting
combinations. The State is merely a particular, and ultimately precarious,
configuration of these multiple power relations. It is not a ‘thing’ or a
universal essence.
The
third point Foucault makes about power, again a criticism of more traditional
models, is that power is not about simply saying no and oppressing individuals,
social classes or natural instincts. Instead, argues Foucault, power is
productive. By this he means that it generates particular types of knowledge
and cultural order. Power and oppression should not be reduced to the same
thing for a number of reasons in Foucault’s view. Firstly, there are multiple
and very different relations of power extending throughout the entire social
body and to identify power with oppression is to assume that power is exercised
from one source and that it is one thing. Secondly, some people want to
exercise power and find pleasure in doing so, others find pleasure in resisting
power (Focault 1978). Thirdly, power produces particular types of behaviours,
by regulating people’s everyday activities, right down to the way school
children hold a pen or sit at a desk. This is something that Foucault also
describes as the ‘microphysics of power’ and ‘capillary power’: where power
reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts
itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes
and everyday lives’ (Focault 1975, 39). Foucault develops this view of power
States
States are territorially defined
political units that exercise ultimate internal authority and that recognize no
legitimate external authority over themselves. States are also the most
important units in defining the political identity of most people. States are
also the most powerful of all political actors. Some huge companies approach or
even exceed the wealth of some poorer countries, but no individual, company,
group, or international organization approaches the coercive power wielded by
most states. Whether large or small, rich or poor, populous or not, states
share all or most of six characteristics: sovereignty, territory, population,
diplomatic recognition, internal organization and domestic support.
The
most important political characteristic of a state is sovereignty. This term
means that the sovereign actor (the state) does not recognize as legitimate any
higher authority. Sovereignty also includes the idea of legal equality among
states. It is important to note that sovereignty, a legal and theoretical term,
differs from independence, a political and applied term (James 1999).
Independence means freedom from outside control, and in an ideal, law-abiding
world, sovereignty and independence would be synonymous. In the real world,
however, where power is important, independence is not absolute. Sometimes, a
small country is so dominated by a powerful neighbor that its independence is
dubious at best. Sovereignty also implies legal equality among states. That the
theory is applied in the UN General Assembly and many other international
assemblies, where each member-state has one vote.
A
second characteristic of a state is territory. It would seem obvious that a
state must have physical boundaries, and most states do. On closer examination,
though, the question of territory becomes more complex. There are numerous
international disputes over borders; territorial boundaries can expand,
contract, or shift dramatically; and it is even possible to have a state
without territory. Many states recognize what they call Palestine as sovereign,
yet the Palestinians are scattered across other countries such as Jordan. An
accords that the Israelis and Palestinians signed in 1994 gave the
Palestinians a measure of autonomy in Gaza (a region between Israel and Egypt)
and in parts of the West Bank, and these areas have been expanded through
subsequent negotiations. However, the spiral downward in Israel-Palestinian
relations in 2002 and 2003 brought numerous Israeli military operations within
Palestinian areas. Indeed, at times the Israeli army had the headquarters of
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat under siege. In sum, depending on one’s
viewpoint, the Palestinians have some territory, no territory, or have been
expelled from the territory now occupied by Israel. It is also possible to
maintain, as the United States and most other countries currently do, that the
Palestinians still have no state of their own.
People
are an obvious requirement for any state. The populations of states range from
the 911 inhabitants of the Holy See (popularly referred to as the Vatican) to
China’s approximately 1.3 billion people, but all states count this
characteristic as a minimum requirement.
What
is becoming less clear in the shifting loyalties of the evolving international
system is exactly where the population of a country begins and ends.
Citizenship has become a bit more fluid than it was not long ago.
How
many countries must grant recognition before statehood is achieved is a more
difficult question. When Israel declared its independence in 1948, the United
States and the Soviet Union quickly recognized the country. Its Arab neighbors
did not extend recognition and instead attacked what they considered to be the
Zionist invaders.
Certainly,
the standard of diplomatic recognition remains hazy. Nevertheless, it is an
important factor in the international system for several reasons. One is related
to psychological status. History has many examples of new countries and
governments, even those with revolutionary ideology that have assiduously
sought outside recognition and, to a degree, moderated their policies in order
to get it. Second, external recognition has important practical advantages.
Generally, states are the only entities that can legally sell government bonds
and buy heavy weapons from another state. Israel’s chances of survival in 1948
were enhanced when recognition allowed the Israelis to raise money and purchase
armaments in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. Also, it would be
difficult for any aspirant to statehood to survive for long without
recognition. Economic problems resulting from the inability to establish trade
relations are just one example of the difficulties that would arise.
States
must normally have some level of political and economic structure. Most states
have a government, but statehood continues during periods of severe turmoil,
even anarchy. Afghanistan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and some other
existing states dissolved into chaos during the last decade or so, and none of
them can be said to have reestablished a stable government that can exercise
real authority over most of the country. Yet none of these “failed states” has
ceased to exist legally. Each, for instance, continued to sit as a sovereign
equal, with an equal vote, in the UN General Assembly.
An
associated issue arises when what once was, and what still claims to be, the
government of a generally recognized or formerly recognized state exists
outside the territory that the exiled government claims as its own. There is a
long history of recognizing governments-in-exile. The most common instances
have occurred when a sitting government is forced by invaders to flee.
The
final characteristic of a state is domestic support. At its most active, this
implies that a state’s population is loyal to it and grants it the authority to
make rules and to govern (legitimacy). At its most passive, the populating
grudgingly accepts the authority for any state to survive without at least the
passive acquiescence of its people.
As
is evident from the foregoing discussion of the characteristics of a state,
what is or what is not a state is not an absolute. Because a state’s existence
is more a political than legal matter, there is a significant gray area. No
country truly imagines that the Palestinians control a sovereign state, yet
many countries recognize it as such for political reasons. By the same political
token, Taiwan is functioning state, but China’s power keeps it in a legal
limbo. And no matter what the Tibetans and their Dalai Lama say and no matter
what anyone’s sympathies may be, Tibet is not and has never been recognized as
a sovereign state by any government. Then there are the failed states that
remain legal sovereign entities by default because there is nothing else that
can be easily done with them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Christian Tangpuz comes from the Department of Political Science as a student of Political Science major in International Relations and Foreign Service of the University of San Carlos, Cebu City, Philippines.
Marc Christian Tangpuz comes from the Department of Political Science as a student of Political Science major in International Relations and Foreign Service of the University of San Carlos, Cebu City, Philippines.
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