| Review of: | After the Neocons: America at the Crossroads by Francis Fukuyama |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Richard Mullender |
| Reviewed in: | The Political Quarterly |
| Date accepted online: | 02/11/2007 |
| Published in print: | Volume 78, Issue 1, Pages 182-196 |
Book Reviews: Neo-conservatism in a refractory world
In 1989, Francis Fukuyama proclaimed 'the end of history'. In doing so, he gave expression to the Hegelian political philosophy that informed his thinking. For, like Hegel, he believed that humankind could, through the exercise of reason, fashion institutions that accommodate the interests of all people justly. And, like Hegel, he saw in the world about him the outlines of these institutions. They were liberal, democratic, wedded to the free market, and bore a marked resemblance to those that shape practical life in the USA. Unfortunately for Fukuyama, his argument sounded a note reminiscent of David Lodge's fictive academic, Professor Morris Zapp. For Zapp aspired to say the last word on his subject and thus bring debate to 'a definitive stop'. This seemed (at least to his critics) what Fukuyama had in mind. Even if it was not, Fukuyama's subsequent writings (he has written on,
So too is the neo-conservative political philosophy that is widely assumed to inform the thinking of George W. Bush's administration. This gives Fukuyama his entrée. He offers a detailed history of neo-conservatism that traces its origins back to New York in the years immediately before US entry into the Second World War. In the late 1930s, neoconservative thought began to take shape (at City College, New York) in the writings of,
The last of these themes occupies a place of prominence in the writing of Leo Strauss, the political philosopher who, on Fukuyama's account, has played a particularly prominent role in shaping neo-conservative thought. Fukuyama emphasises the influence that the writings of Plato and Aristotle had on Strauss. From those writings, Strauss drew the lesson that a regime is not simply a set of 'visible formal institutions'. Rather, it is 'a way of life in which formal political institutions and informal habits constantly shape one another'. Moreover, Strauss (like Plato, Aristotle and, before them, Socrates) pursued the theme that regimes play a significant part in forming the character of those who live within them. This being so, those who are not immersed in the habits, mores and traditions of a people shaped by a particular regime are not well placed to bring about 'regime change'. Fukuyama identifies this point as relevant to the 'administrators of America's overseas empire'. This is because '[t]hey have tended to bring American experience to foreign lands, rather than seeing institutions emerging out of the habits and experience of local peoples'.
In light of these points, Fukuyama emphasises that there is 'no Straussian belief in the universality of American experience'. He also emphasises that Strauss did not regard democracy as a 'default regime' to which societies return when relieved from the burden of dictatorship. These points have obvious relevance to the Bush administration and the continuing imbroglio in Iraq. Bush and his colleagues assumed that democracy would flourish in post-Saddam Iraq. In doing so, they were singularly inattentive to the habits, mores and traditions of the Iraqis (or, rather, those of Iraq's constituent communities). The upshot is that the Bush administration is now-contrary to a central neo-conservative tenet-engaged in a huge social engineering project.
Fukuyama does not find this surprising. For 'if you were to ask Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or President Bush to explain who Leo Strauss was, you would probably draw blank stares'. Having suggested that Bush and his colleagues have-at best-a rather loose grip on neo-conservative political philosophy, Fukuyama also levels the charge of intellectual sloppiness at them. This is because they have 'conflated the threat of nuclear terrorism with the rogue state/proliferation problem'. Fukuyama also suggests that complacency may have clouded the thinking of Bush and his colleagues. For two of the regime's most influential advisers (William Kristol and Robert Kagan) have identified 'American foreign policy as infused with an unusually high degree of morality.' Fukuyama concludes by eschewing the idea that the USA can (assisted where necessary by 'coalitions of the willing') establish a benevolent hegemony. And, having thus distanced himself from the 'Wilsonianism on steroids' of the Bush administration, he advocates 'realistic Wilsonianism'. He explains that this latter approach to international relations would involve heavy emphasis on multilateralism and extensive use of 'soft power' (the 'ability to set an example, to train and educate, to support with advice and money'). It would also place much less reliance on the military. This is a dramatic shift of position for a commentator who called for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in 1997 and, again, in 2001 (following 9/11). But it is no less dramatic than his criticism of Madeleine Albright (when Secretary of State in the Clinton administration) for describing Americans as able to 'see further' than other people. For, when Fukuyama announced in the late 1980s that humankind had reached the end of history, he surely claimed to be able to see further than those around him.