The rise of ‘herbivorous powers’?
Listen to a discussion of the poll results with Robert Kagan, Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard:
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Mary Robinson called global public opinion the "second superpower". She may have been exaggerating its impact on the Gulf, but she was right to point to the legitimacy of power as an increasingly important factor in world politics.
Even in the many places where citizens cannot vote in free and fair elections, governments are constantly "polling' the public to understand their aspirations and pre-empt them. Who will gain and who will lose from the emergence of a global public opinion? Which of the current great powers will succeed in capturing publics' imagination?
The results of the ECFR/Gallup International survey - the world's largest survey this year based on the interviews of 57,000 people from 52 countries - shows that the world is increasingly hostile to military power, and drawn to new "herbivorous" centres of powers.
Of all the great powers, it is the European Union whose influence is most desired by world citizens. More than a third of respondents (35%) see an increase in its power as key to the development of a better world, whilst only 20% want to see its power decline. India, South Africa, and Brazil also polled well (27%, 26%, and 23% wanted their power to rise, while 20%, 18%, 17% wanted it to decline).
On the other hand, the US, Iran, Russia and China all provoke more negative than positive reactions. Whilst 23% and 24% of respondents respectively would like Russia's and China's importance to increase, 29% and 32% believe the world would benefit from a decline in their power. The influence of Iran and the US are the most resisted by world citizens. Although 26% of respondents declare that US should grow, 37% think the opposite. In the case of Iran, 39% would like to see its influence decline, while only 14% are in favour of rising. The negative perceptions of Russia, China and Iran seem to be connected with the fact that they are perceived not so much as rising economic or political powers as military powers.
The distinctive characteristic of the new world order seems to be that it will be determined not simply by the balance of ‘hard power' (the ability to use economic or military power to coerce or bribe countries to support you), but by the balance of what the American academic Joseph Nye has called "soft power"- the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion and payment, arising from the appeal of your culture, political ideals, and policies. Paradoxically nothing seems to erode soft power as much as the possession of military power.
Each continent has a different approach to power. Respondents in Africa and Latin America marked two extreme positions. On the one hand, a majority of Africans welcome the increase of almost all of the rival centres of power (there is support for more power to the US, the EU and China).
Africa's biggest fear seems to be the danger of being abandoned by the powerful. Latin Americans, on the other hand, seem more worried by an excess of interest from great powers, than their indifference. Public opinion in the region is at best skeptical, and often hostile, to the increase of the global influence of the powers that are outsiders to the region.
The European Union is unique among the big four powers (the other three being US, China and Russia) in that no one wants to balance its rise. It is striking that a continent with a military budget second only to the United States, and the biggest number of peace-keeping forces serving in the world seems to be perceived as a non-military power.
This shows that it is misguided for EU policy-makers to obsess about achieving ‘greater visibility' for EU power. The fact that European peace-keepers tend to wear a NATO or a national flag rather than a European one helps to make the EU seem less threatening.
Even former European colonies support an increase in EU power, demonstrating that the colonial legacy of EU member states is declining in importance. What is more, unlike the United States, the EU is highly appreciated in its own neighborhood. The paradox of the EU's power is that it strength is also rooted in its perceived weakness.
The fact that nobody is interested in balancing the EU may stem - at least in part - from a perception that the EU is unlikely to get its act together.
Has Europe benefited from the collapse in American soft power in the wake of the Iraq war? The findings of the survey demonstrate that while in Europe - and in Western Europe in particular - the EU's stress on multilateralism and distaste of power politics is perceived as an alternative to America's unilateralism, in many parts of the world the EU and the US are perceived not so much as alternatives as twins. The dynamics differ from region to region, but there seems to be a hardening anti-Western block in global public opinion.
Foreign policy debates in recent years have centred on the question of how to deal with the ‘unipolar moment' - how to balance American power? But this survey reveals that in many parts of the world, a new question is being asked: how can America balance the rise of the newly emerging global powers that threaten their neighbors? It is not by accident that in Asia - the new battlefield of the titans there is a great appetite for an increase in America's power. It is also intriguing to see that while the American public is openly hostile to the increase of Russia's influence in the world; the Russian public is much more positive in its view of America.
This poll shows that the multi-polar world might lead to a resurgence of American influence - not as a model to the world, but as a buttressing force against new pretenders to regional dominance.
Download the Policy Brief: New World Order: The balance of soft power and the rise of herbivorous powers (by Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard) published on 24 October, 2007.
Download the Love and Hate maps.
View the results using Google Earth
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Looks like we are heading towards one world. Everything speaks for it. The media is hammering one world images, everybody talks against national sovereignty, everything is being harmonized globally. Natural process? Accident? I don’t think so.
I support international co-operation and culture-exchange but there’s something really disturbing about the way this is done. Our global world is not being build by honest collaboration but with economic pressure and depedance. And with the media, which has turned out to be alarmingly controlled here in Europe (google secret demonstration of 200.000 in Lisbon). Also we are being bobed with different kinds of global threats that conveniently demand this process.
I mean, people here don’t have a clue what’s really going on. The brave new world is being forced and any voices of opposition are silenced.
The current developement is making a world that we can soon call as the control grid. More databases and surveillance plus the rapidly increasing trend to ristrict individual freedom. Basic structures of a working free societies are being destroyed but as long as the media tells it is not happening, it is not happening.
Just a couple of generations ago, people fought to get independence and self-suffience to avoid tyranny and despotism and to create regions where they can live as they themselves choose. Now all of a sudden, this image is seen as a threat. Why?
If you are a reasonable human being, you understand that the centralization of power has always lead to declining of individual rights, to the corruption of the system and to the corruption of the human soul. So I’m asking, what is the logic behind this drive for bigger and bigger harmonized regions? It does not make any sense whatsoever from the citizens point of view.
We need a world with variety of cultures and habits so we can find out ourselves our best ways to live. After everything has become totally controlled and unified, it will inevitably dumb the population of the world down and dehumanize this species to a level of animal slaves.
This world has a very disturbing Orwellian sound in it. The thing is that it’s happening here but because the EU has such an image that it seems like a bit naive and insuffient, nobody seems to notice it.
The international bankers, corporations, political elite and other international criminal organisations are doing a good job. For themselves.
Lots to say. I posted some reflections of Mikhail Gorbachev in my Blog:
http://voyager.zaadz.com/blog/2007/10/a_new_world_political_architecture
BTW: Cosmos Journal is a great contributor for issues connected with Global Players and themes relevant for ECFR. The emrging multipolar word has many faces, facettes and layers.
To the first chap; I appreciate that you may feel that there is a significant amount of decision-making being done above your head, and that the world is changing around you in ways that you are in control of, but it really is too much to speak about rising tyranny, an Orwellian twist to the world, and the solely self-interested gains of ‘the international bankers’ (I suppose that you believe that the Rothschilds still run the financial system).
My friend, it is an immensely complex job to ensure that global stability and prosperity is maintained and augmented; the technocrats, even if they speak in arcane language and meet away from prying eyes (such as in public think tanks and fora for experts, usually with a number of journalists in tow), are dealing with issues that if they get wrong, may lead to great power conflict involving (10’s or 100’s of) millions dying, economic collapse or all sorts of nasty afflications.
The fact is globalisation has been extremely beneficial for about 4 billion people being pulled out of poverty in the recent decades (although it is a bitter victory considering the billion or so still mired in it). We haven’t had a great power war in 60 years, nor have there been any serious threats to our species (climate change of course is a major threat, and is in urgent need of action, although given your likely sources of perspective, I fear that you might think its a hoax perpetrated by an elite determined to reduce population levels).
The world is a damn sight more complex than such a reactionary viewpoint legitimates; there are thousands of people who feel the same way about you over oppression, poverty, freedom of speech, human rights and other such issues which are a blight to our species, and what’s more, many of them have actually put the effort in and are working to ameliorate these problems, (forgive my presumption) unlike yourself, whom I imagine spend too much time reading about how people are out to control your life and not enough time actually putting your beliefs into practice.
Ask yourself, do you really think that a world run by people who believe the same as you would be a) workable, and b) more benevolent? Liberal democracy, in spite of its flaws, is incomparably better than fascism, communism, Sharia or any such alternative political economy. You just don’t realise, sitting pretty in Finalnd, how bloody good you have it. So stop your whining, imagine that your views actually mattered - that people’s prosperity, safety and dreams depended on your opinions, as they do for those actually in power - and then come back and see if you still buy into outdated and conspiratorial views, which, frankly, given the challenges faced by the world in the 21st century, such as climate change, financial stability, deepening economic interdependence and prosperity, and the prevention of great power conflict (and I do buy into the ‘conspiracy theory’ of what you may know as ‘peak oil’, or the threat of looming liquid fuel shortages).
Finding our ‘own best ways to live’? Sorry, its not exactly simple to organise 9 billion people on a planet of collapsing ecosystems and democratic polities, where one cannot simply make decisions from on high, as one would be crucified in the polls. Get real, get smart, and get away from the narcissistic view that your own personal freedom is all that matters. There are a lot more people than just you.
Oh, and by the way, well done ECFR on the survey (and innovative use of Google Earth) - you’ll be putting the CFR to shame with your success soon enough!
To Rory J. Brown
The world is immensely complex and is growing complexer as we speak. It’s also out of order and unhandable. Certainly by a centralised power, no matter how much smart people you put in there, at some point you will get people who like to make things simpler by decreeing their power upon others.
The world is made by the people and belongs to the people (or the people belong to the world) and according to this principle we should make the policies needed. Not to increase power on the global scale and keep holding on to the increasing growth paradigm that never can be accomplished in a sustainable, or humane way. Now you see a schizofrenic world running to produce more for less money and more profit, while on the other side we are trying to reduce the environmental footprint and pollution of this ever growing energy guzzling global machinery.
People and all living things have a natural saturation level. When a person is grown up, he doesn’t grow further physicaly, but he keeps growing in knowledge, experience, wisdom (non-material things). As we are proceeding to a world where energy and resources are steadily declining and the Earth is showing us the limits of our growth desires everywhere, we should stand still for a moment and reflect on where we want to go as a species on this tiny planet.
If work is done to keep an economy running, people are serfs to the economy. If we reached our limit of growth we need to change the economy to serve the people. Immaterial exchange in the form of knowledge, experience and wisdom are the future and we cannot create a knowledge economy on the same principles as a growth economy. Growing knowledge, experience and wisdom knows a different kind of calculating. By sharing knowledge, experience and wisdom you multiply it.
I would suggest, instead of talking down to people in the arrogant fashion you showed above, you better start listening to people. That’s where all the conspiracies come from. Some elitist brainiacs who think they know everything and look down on the people who just want to live a simpel and peaceful life in freedom of Governments meddling with their lives to make them do things they do not like and that do not lie in their nature to do.
Having an analysing brain doesn’t say anything about your potential to understand what’s going on in the world.
Kudos to Marc. You have put it exactly how I feel.
Nevertheless I also observe the rising danger of an Orwellian surveillance society. All around the world you can see the emergence of the foundation for such
a system. Be it an overall masterplan or just a sign of our time, but politicians everywhere try to get a grip on our lives. They want to know when we are where and what we are doing there. And all the time when our freedoms get cruizified a little bit more, when we loose another piece of the most sacred of all human rights - the right to live our lifes how we want - they present the almighty sword of Damokles of international terrorism.
This world is highly unstable. There are several ways to achieve equilibrium, all of which involve violence as the human nature isn’t ready for peaceful cooperation.
Forgive me my crude language, but I say To hell with stability. As Thermodynamics show, equilibrium means death.