|
|
|
Foreign Policy
Spring 1999
Articles
Much of the world sees Africa as one of two extremes. Either it is a continent beset by genocidal warfare, corrupt leaders, and rampant poverty or it is a region about to enter a democratic and economic renaissance. In reality, Africa is neither on the verge of anarchy nor at the dawn of renewal. Africans have begun confronting their continent’s problems, but they are doing so in a manner that the international community might not always find acceptable.
When a Spanish judge decided to indict former dictator Augusto Pinochet, he created discord in Chile and compelled nations everywhere to reevaluate the delicate tradeoff between justice and political stability. If the globalization of international law is now a fait accompli, will such a legal system truly protect human rights, or will it merely be a matter of powerful countries forcing their values on the weak? Two Chileans who suffered Pinochet’s repression explain why it is not for others to meddle in their country’s affairs.
American-made weapons are the most coveted in the world. But soon, the “Made in America” label may be hard to find. Defense megamergers across borders are creating a handful of global corporations capable of stockpiling the world’s weapons, drawing on high-tech parts and expertise from dozens of countries. Governments are left with two choices: either trust their security to investment bankers or start working together to turn transnational defense mergers into good policy.
American religious conservatives have made it clear that they will no longer limit their political activism to the water’s edge. They are increasingly involved in efforts to influence a wide range of U.S. foreign policies. The very term by which most conservative Protestants identify themselves—“evangelical”—announces their intention to carry their message, as Jesus instructed, “unto all the world.” But is the world ready for the Christian Right?
There is an empty seat at the banquet of economic globalization. While international capital and business feast heartily on open markets and vanishing barriers to trade and investment, labor is nowhere to be found. Who represents labor? Why has it been left behind? The answer is partly structural, partly institutional, and entirely political. If organized labor has any hope of surviving into the next century, it must learn to break with the past and to take advantage of the same global trends that it now opposes.
For nearly a decade, the gurus of the Information Age told us that we were in the midst of a harmonic convergence of free markets, democratization, and a revolution in communications technology. Unfortunately, the flow of reliable information remains confounded by old habits of secrecy and a system that has been rigged by insiders to serve their needs at your expense.
In the latest poll by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, Americans felt so secure, prosperous, and confident that they gave President Bill Clinton a promotion: In the past four years, he has risen from eighth to first place among postwar presidents considered “very successful” in foreign policy. But beneath this public ebullience lie anxieties about everything from the impact of globalization to the threat of terrorist attack.
Book Reviews