Reaction Paper on “The End Of Power” written by Moises Naim Kerlens Tilus To Prof. Roland Paris cc: Moises Naim The aim of the author Moises Naim in the “End of Power” is to delineate the impact of the decay of power. He explored the process of decay, its causes, manifestations and consequences in terms of the ways it affects the citizens, mostly the middle class. Moises Naim tried to prove that the decay of power is changing the world. He defined power as “the ability to direct or prevent the current or future actions of other groups and individuals”. He went further to say that power is “what we exercise over others that leads them to behave in ways they would not otherwise have behaved.” According to the author, there are four different ways to exercise power: influence, coercion, persuasion and authority. We find that the author didnt really make a clear difference between power and authority. Authority and power tend to be used interchangeably, but Max Weber in his sociological and philosophical work considered authority as a legitimate domination. In making his argument, Moises Naim showed that the megaplayers cannot exert their legitimate domination as they used to as they are more constrained by micropowers who become more aware of the liberal democracy rules. The clear distinction between power and domination would have given his argument about the decay of power more weight as he argued mostly about decay of authority to power over people than that of power to act for the people. Moises Naim argued that three revolutions make it more difficult to set up and defend the barriers to power considering that it is peoples nature to fight for power and when it is acquired, its holder tends to keep rivals at bay. The three revolutions are first, the more revolution, which is characterized by increases in everything from population size to number of countries and cities, access to knowledge and literacy rates, standards of living, and goods and serives on the world market. Second, the mobility revolution which accounts for how people, goods, values, capital and ideas move around the world. There are no barriers, the elements cited are moving at a very fast pace toward every corner of the world. And lastly, the mentality revolution which reflects the changes in the “vision du monde” or mindsets of people around the world. It accounts for changes in their needs and their aspirations. Globalization, economic growth, revolution in technology, the spread of democracy and the expansion of middle class around the world are the main factors that are changing the world. Moises Naim argued that the three revolutions make power easier to get, harder to use and keep. The author showed that the micropowers are mostly noise that will trigger chaos. We think that Naim doesnt take into account the power of the micropowers to foster positive changes. One of the points that the author failed to address in the book is how deregulation that is in favor of the 1% rich as Joseph Stiglitz says it in “The Price of Inequality” affects the micropowers that push them to make noise and to look for ways to participate in the political process and find solutions to their problems. The author is very poised in the debate as he portrayed himself as an advocate for the elite or the people traditionally in position of power. Moises Naim showed clearly that he is an opponent of Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. His deliberate choice to take Venezuela as an example in page 236 of the book, directly after referring to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the Taliban and murderous movements is an act of propaganda. One can repudiate the autocratic style of the late president Hugo Chavez who undermined democratic rules as he took power by the mean of a “coup detat” at first, and took measures without consensual agreement, but portraying him and the Bolivarian Revolution as lunatic is very subjective. Several reports from the United Nations and OECD showed the 99% in Venezuela, mostly the people at the bottom of the ladder are better off today than 2009 when Hugo Chavez came to power. Moises Naim is biased against the micropowers and the example of Venezuela clearly shows that. He failed to differentiate clearly between state and global governance. We think that the author tried to show that “great powers” are not that powerful and are under attack when we know the impact of exogenous development plans and the neoliberal agenda that they forced on fragile and failed states around the world. Also, in the light of globalization, great powers are governing the world and they erect institutions to advance their agenda as Mark Mazower showed it in the “History of an idea”. Eventhough, Barnett and Finnemore showed that international institutions can exert authority in several ways with their expertise, moral and the pathologies of bureaucracy, we have to take into account Manfred Stegers account in “A very Short Introduction” where market globalism is predatory in the sense that greed drives big corporations and they force poor countries to accept the rules of the game with no power to object. We can argue that justice globalism used constraint to force actions upon countries that dont share western values and carries out the interests of global powers and rich powerful countries. It is not a fair system of justice as it accepts the exceptionalism for certain actors as the United States who tends to improve the rules and doesnt abide by them. Moises Naim also failed to take into account how global institutions and the media which is a great power as per Manfred Steger played great roles in generating collective problems or hidding them. As we know that global governance is the management and regulation of collective problems(Roland Paris), it is pertinent to address these problems and the author did a great job. The author use empirical evidence to support the argument about how micropowers can impose great constraints on megapowers. The coerciveness of religious globalism as Al Qaeda inflicted great damages on America on 9/11 that left a bill estimated at seven trillion dollars. If the West use soft tactics as information, gongos, charities, the extremist groups use force and violence to foster convergence of religious beliefs. Moises Naims book makes a great contribution in our understanding of governance as it pinpoints the erosion of power of big corporations, dominant countries, international institutions, great armies which is real as they fail to take into account the challenges that affect the less unfortunate in the state and in the world. In fact, with the advent of internet and innovative developments in technology, people enjoy connectivity, they live longer, they gain more knowledge than previous generations, they travel more and they have greater expectations in life. Moises Naim didnt think that technology itself is not a constraint without leaders with skills and vision that can use it to advance agenda. At the same time, it showed that analysts and others tend to overestimate the power of micropowers on the internet who are advocating for real state and global issues. We really appreciate the work of the author, eventhough we think that it is an advocacy for great and mega powers to show that they are not as powerful as people are perceiving them and deter people to keep putting constraints on them distribute and redistribute wealth. Naims book warns the world of the destructive forms of power that can trigger chaos in either national territory or the world. We are not an expert, but just a graduate student. But, if we take into account the work of such great and beautiful minds as George Akerlof and Robert Schiller, both Nobel in economics who co-wrote Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives The Economy, And Why It Matters For Global Capitalism”, Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, alss Nobel in economics, Noam Chomsky and Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa who made powerful arguments against capital market, the long history of exploitation and crafted policies which generate widespread suffering and disaster around the world, we can tackle Naims account that “the promises and assumpations of the Bolivarian Revolution inspired by Hugo Chavez or, at the opposite extreme, those of the US Tea Party are also rooted in terrible simplications immune to the lessons of experienced and, for that matter, to data and scientific eveidence” and the micropowers “are not committed to the general good” as unreasonable bias. We are asking ourselves why Naim didnt argue about the ability of micropowers to shape a sustainable future, putting aside the drug cartels, malevolent individuals and the organization that support terrorirism and violence in the world to advance their agenda. Professor Patrick Imbert advocated largely for the erection of knowledge-based societies. According to him, more knowledge is positively correlated to positive changes and the causality with progress and sustainable development is evident. We think that the book failed to address the corrosion of moral authority and legitimacy in the prism of megapowers. The author would have been more balanced in his analysis if he advocated, even in two pages the potential of micropowers to foster positive changes, sustainable development and force the megaplayers with more constraints to sit down and discuss in the aim to foster a liberal international order as John Ikenberry argued in “Liberal Leviathan”. The author made a case for strengthen political parties in the aim to encourage collaborative efforts, cooperation, to touch based with the micropowers and the citizens who have real issues that need to be addressed and resolved eventually. The idea of Moise Naim is great, but he failed to understand that advocating more power to coerce people to act in a certain way, authority is not the solution. It would rather be interesting if the author could have argued about more civic participation and citizens engagement, finding way to democratize the political process of public policy while listening to the people and try to get their trust back. Moises Naim protrayed himself as a neo-conservative advocate who is witnessing the decay of authoritarian rule in a democratic liberal order which fails to be efficient as Milton Friedman stated it long ago. Instead of finding peaceful ways to deter micropowers, specifically the activists on the internet and citizens who are living in horrible conditions around the world and to stop the too many killings in the world, the sinking feeling of disempowerment expressed by people around the world with the advent of globalization(M. Steger) and the suffering in the world, Moises Naim is pushing for the overpowering of megapowers that used well their muscle, codes, pitch and rewards to play the feeble and disempowered citizens around the world. As Moises Naims stated that “driven by the transformation in the acquisition, use, and retention of power, humanity must, and will, find new ways of governing itself”, he should tackle this task as a former editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine and a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment who can truly deliver as he is very skilled. We have enough to live well in conviviality in this world. America must return to liberal internationalism as recommended by John Ikenberry in Liberal Leviathan if it really wants to maintain its hegemony, and live up by the rules he crafted and forced upon others, and be fair to others, particularly fragile and failed states. There is no better person than Moises Naim to transfer this message as he is part of the megapowers inner circle. The author tried hard, but the glass is half-full. He needs to fill the empty space. The book could have been edited and reduced by a couple of pages as the author is redundant on certain aspect if we take it as an impartial argument.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 18:02:52 +0000
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