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Abstract
Post-Cold War interventions have gone through a series of distinct paradigms—each allowing for its own oppositional discourse. This possibility seems to be diminishing with the rise of resilience thinking. In the early 1990s, liberal internationalist framings drove intervention by prioritising individual human rights over state rights to non-interference. Here, it was possible to oppose intervention as illegal boundary violation and unaccountable foreign rule. Neo-liberal approaches circumvented the legal problematic by conflating sovereignty with the capacity for good governance. However, they depended on a strong sociocultural dichotomy, giving rise to accusations of neo-colonialism. In contrast, the resilience discourse emphasises the positive, transformative aspects of local agency, rather than seeing it as deficient and needing paternal guidance. This paper argues that by claiming to merely plus up already existing social practices, international policy engagement in the Global South becomes difficult to conceive as boundary transgression or hierarchical imposition. These insights are drawn out with reference to the Merida Initiative, a US-Mexican security agreement signed in 2007.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) [Research Project C3, Collaborative Research Center 700 ‘Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood’ (2010–2013)]. I would like to thank David Chandler, Pol Bargués-Pedreny and the participants of the workshop ‘Beyond Liberal Peace?’ organised by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) in April 2016 for commenting on the first draft. Hans-Martin Jäger discussed the paper at the ISA Annual Convention 2016 in Atlanta. Part of the investigation was conducted in the Research Project “Transnational Security Governance” at the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood’ (Free University Berlin) between 2010 and 2013. The revisions took place at the Institute for Development and Peace (University of Duisburg-Essen).
Notes
1. US Congress, Drug Cartels and US National Security, 57; International Crisis Group, Back from the Brink; International Institute for Strategic Studies, ‘Spiralling Drug Violence in Mexico’; Human Rights Watch, Neither Rights Nor Security.
2. Office of the Spokesman, US Department of State, Joint Statement on the Merida Initiative.
3. Foucault, Birth of Biopolitics, 2.
4. Finkenbusch, Rethinking Neo-Institutional Statebuilding.
5. Chandler, International Statebuilding, 43–64; Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War.
6. Murray Li, Will to Improve.
7. Davis, Urban Resilience, 29, 30.
8. Ibid., 13.
9. Ibid., 29.
10. Ibid.
11. See also Chandler, Resilience: The Governance of Complexity, 7, 28–29, 50; Chandler, ‘Beyond Neoliberalism’, 48–51.
12. Hernández, ‘When Cooperation and Intervention Meet’, 66.
13. Velázquez, cited in Hernández, ‘Recuperar El País’. Milenio, 6 July 2010 [author’s translation].
14. Clinton, Remarks With Mexican Foreign Secretary.
15. Hernández, ‘When Cooperation and Intervention Meet’, 65, 69.
16. Velázquez and Schiavon, ‘Iniciativa Mérida’, 96, 97–98 [author’s translation].
17. Hristoulas, ‘Algo Nuevo, Algo Viejo’, 38 [author’s translation].
18. Former Senator Labastida (PRI), cited in ‘Zafarse’ de La Iniciativa Mérida, Pide Labastida Al Gobierno’. El Universal, 14 October 2010 [author’s translation].
19. Partido de la Revolución Democrática.
20. Jorge Ramos Pérez, ‘Llama PRD a Eliminar Elementos Que Afecten Soberanía En “Iniciativa Mérida”’. El Universal, 29 October 2007 [author’s translation].
21. ‘Rechazan Diputados Condiciones Para Iniciativa Mérida’. El Informador, 23 May 2008 [author’s translation].
22. Olson, Evolving Mérida Initiative, 6–7.
23. US Embassy Mexico City, ‘Mexican Government Reaches Out’. The potential presence of armed US military personnel on Mexican territory was another sensitive issue couched in terms of the danger to national sovereignty (Olson, Evolving Mérida Initiative, 6).
24. Cited in Hawley, ‘Mexico’s Drug Control Initiative Reflects More Trust’. USA Today, 29 October 2007.
25. In US Congress, Antidrug Package for Mexico, 27.
26. In ibid.
27. US Embassy Mexico City, ‘US-Mexico Relations’.
28. It should be noted that despite Merida’s new shared responsibility discourse, the classic liberal framing of sovereignty still persists on the Mexican side and that the shift towards capacity may be reversible. It remains to be seen how the recent change in administration in the United States will affect this process.
29. Ricardo Macouzet, in Instituto para la Seguridad y la Democracia, Iniciativa Mérida [author’s translation].
30. Ibid.
31. Benítez, ‘México: Seguridad Nacional, Defensa Y Nuevos Desafíos’, 185 [author’s translation]; Benítez, ‘The Geopolitics of Insecurity in Mexico-United States Relations’, 37.
32. Benítez, in Instituto para la Seguridad y la Democracia, Iniciativa Mérida [author’s translation].
33. Prado, ‘Iniciativa Mérida: ¿Nuevo Paradigma?’, 199 [author’s translation]; similarly, Benítez, ‘Presentación’, 6.
34. Benítez, ‘México: Seguridad Nacional, Defensa Y Nuevos Desafíos’, 187, 188 [author’s translation].
35. Cunliffe, ‘Sovereignty and the Politics of Responsibility’, 46; Cunliffe, ‘State-Building. Power without Responsibility’, 65.
36. Jones, Pascual, and Stedman, ‘Changing How We Address Global And National Security’. The Huffington Post, 16 March 2009.
37. Ibid., 2.
38. Krasner, ‘The Case for Shared Sovereignty’, 81.
39. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Cooperación Internacional [author’s translation]; see also Espinosa, Posicionamiento de La Embajadora Patricia Espinosa.
40. Chandler, International Statebuilding, 64.
41. Ibid., 64.
42. Chandler, ‘Resilience and Human Security’, 216, 218.
43. Zaum, Sovereignty Paradox, 4; see also Chesterman, You, The People.
44. In this article, the term neo-liberal refers to those governmental strategies that pursue a market-based social order by focusing on the socio-institutional framework necessary for individual subjects to act productively and responsibly. As Michel Foucault writes, neo-liberalism redesigns the milieu in which decision-making subjects are embedded to the extent that it is not a natural environment (Society Must Be Defended, 245). In contrast, the term ‘liberal’ refers to the ‘political philosophy of universal rights derived from rational and self-interested selves and associated forms of state’ (Harrison, World Bank in Africa, 44).
45. Zaum, Sovereignty Paradox, 4, 5.
46. Ibid., 5.
47. Woodward, ‘Do the Root Causes of Civil War Matter?’, 145.
48. Foucault, Birth of Biopolitics, 133.
49. Ibid.; Finkenbusch, Rethinking Neo-Institutional Statebuilding.
50. Rose, Powers of Freedom, 28.
51. Cunliffe, ‘Sovereignty and the Politics of Responsibility’, 54.
52. Chandler, International Statebuilding, 64.
53. Rose, Powers of Freedom, 28.
54. Godson, ‘Transnational Crime, Corruption, and Security’, 272.
55. Dobriansky, Promoting a Culture of Lawfulness.
56. Ibid.; Godson, ‘Transnational Crime, Corruption, and Security’, 271.
57. Turner, Crisis in Mexico, 24; Dobriansky, Promoting a Culture of Lawfulness; see also México Unido Contra la Delincuencia, Desarollo de Una Cultura de La Legalidad En México, 4.
58. National Strategy Information Center, Developing Support for the Rule of Law; Godson, Guide to Developing a Culture of Lawfulness, 3.
59. US Embassy Mexico City, Culture of Lawfulness.
60. Godson and Kenney, ‘Fostering a Culture of Lawfulness on the Mexico-US Border’, 454; México Unido Contra la Delincuencia, Desarollo de Una Cultura de La Legalidad En México, 4 [author’s translation]; for a critique, see Pupavac, ‘Human Security’.
61. National Strategy Information Center, ‘Building a Culture of Lawfulness’, 10. Merida´s CoL programme has trained almost 700,000 Mexican school children in 2011–2012 (US Embassy Mexico City, Culture of Lawfulness).
62. Williams, ‘Civil Society and the Liberal Project’, 9.
63. Ibid.
64. Zanotti, ‘Governmentalizing the Post-Cold War International Regime’, 481.
65. Chesterman, You, The People, 2.
66. Zanotti, ‘Governmentalizing the Post-Cold War International Regime’, 481; prominently, Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War.
67. Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy, 193.
68. Murray Li, Will to Improve, 4.
69. Ibid., 281–282.
70. Ibid., 275; Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War, 167.
71. See, for example, Duffield and Hewitt, Empire, Development and Colonialism.
72. US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Comités Comunitarios; US Agency for International Development, Country Development Cooperation Strategy, 17. The notion of ‘community resilience’ first appeared in US-Mexican security relations as part of the Merida Initiative (Olson et al., ‘Building Resilient Communities in Mexico’, 13).
73. US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Comités Comunitarios, 79, [emphasis added, author’s translation].
74. US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Niños Y Jóvenes Resilientes, 11 [author’s translation].
75. US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Comités Comunitarios, 57 [author’s translation].
76. US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Guía, 7 [author’s translation]; see also US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Conceptos Y Estrategias, 6.
77. Davis, Urban Resilience; see also Davis and Tirman, A Toolkit for Urban Resilience.
78. Davis, Urban Resilience, 29.
79. Ibid., 29, 30.
80. Ibid., 115; Davis and Tirman, A Toolkit for Urban Resilience, 6.
81. Davis, Urban Resilience, 30.
82. Ibid., 37.
83. Ibid., 29 [emphasis in original].
84. See Chandler, Resilience: The Governance of Complexity, 12–13.
85. National Strategy Information Center, ‘Building a Culture of Lawfulness’.
86. US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Comités Comunitarios, 11, 14 [author’s translation]; see also US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Conceptos Y Estrategias, 38.
87. US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Comités Comunitarios, 14 [author’s translation].
88. Davis, Urban Resilience, 100, 29, see also 97.
89. Ibid., 29.
90. Ibid., 37.
91. Ibid., 30.
92. Bargués-Pedreny, ‘Realising the Post-Modern Dream’, 120.
93. Davis, Urban Resilience, 29.
94. Ibid., 103–104.
95. Ibid., 13.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid., 52 [emphasis added].
98. Bargués-Pedreny, ‘Realising the Post-Modern Dream’, 123.
99. Davis, Urban Resilience, 29.
100. Ibid., 31.
101. Ibid., 30.
102. Interview with Eric Olson, Wilson Center, Washington, DC, 16 February 2017.
103. Davis, Urban Resilience, 100.
104. Shirk et al., Building Resilient Communities in Mexico.
105. Olson et al., ‘Building Resilient Communities in Mexico’, 15, 22; see also Shirk et al., ‘Conclusion’.
106. Acevedo, ‘Stepping Up the Merida Initiative’, 254.
107. Ibid.
108. Joseph, ‘Resilience as Embedded Neoliberalism’, 1; see also Walker and Cooper, ‘Genealogies of Resilience’.
109. US Embassy Mexico City, Culture of Lawfulness; Joseph, ‘Resilience as Embedded Neoliberalism’.
110. Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy; Murray Li, Will to Improve; Williams, World Bank and Social Transformation.
111. Williams, ‘Governance and the Discipline of Development’, 164–165; Zanotti, ‘Governmentalizing the Post-Cold War International Regime’, 480.
112. Davis, Urban Resilience, 13.
113. Shirk et al., Building Resilient Communities in Mexico.
114. Chandler, ‘Resilience and Human Security’, 216.
115. Godson and Kenney, ‘Fostering a Culture of Lawfulness on the Mexico-US Border’, 524. The NSIC has been disbanded (personal communication with Roy Godson, 3 March 2017).
116. Bargués-Pedreny, ‘Realising the Post-Modern Dream’, 119; Finkenbusch, Rethinking Neo-Institutional Statebuilding.
117. Davis, Urban Resilience, 29.
118. Ibid., 31.
119. Ibid., 100.
120. Ibid., 97.
121. Ibid., 102.
122. Ibid., 29.
123. International Crisis Group, Back from the Brink, ii; Davis, Urban Resilience, 101.
124. Davis, Urban Resilience, 117.
125. Ibid., 102.
126. Ibid., 104.
127. US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Conceptos Y Estrategias, 34 [emphasis added, author’s translation].
128. US Agency of International Development and Secretaría de Gobernación, Comités Comunitarios, 61 [author’s translation].
129. See also Chandler, ‘Reconceptualizing International Intervention’, 80.
130. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
131. Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy; Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War; Williams, World Bank and Social Transformation.
132. Davis, Urban Resilience, 29.
133. Finkenbusch, Rethinking Neo-Institutional Statebuilding.
134. Davis, Urban Resilience, 30.