The Agonistic Consociation
by Mohammed Ben Jelloun

Paper presented for the Sixth Essex Graduate Conference in Political Theory,
May 13th – 14th, 2005: Difference, Borders, Others
– the panel Agonistic versus Deliberative Forms of Democratic Theory.

Essex is great, but is a kind of intellectual ghetto. Essex agonists need engage with other theorists than Gramsci and Habermas; theorists outside the Essexian arena – postcolonial, communitarian, and International Relationist. They need first of all engage with real and concret anti-hegemonial struggles, to flesh out their views. Policy recommendations from the Essex democrats will be highly appreciated in places like the Middle East, places where they may freely contest with aggregative-consociational, Habermasian-consociational, and Rawlsian-consociational recommendations. As for my definition of the agonistic consociation, this is meant above all to being relevant for postcolonial and post-occupation Iraq. It is meant as a complementary clarification for my recent contribution on the prospects for democracy and self-determination in Iraq:
What's Consociational Patriotism? From Lebanon to Iraq.

ABSTRACT: The agonistic state is a non-aggressive yet patriotic, self-determining and self-overcoming state. Following Ch. Mouffe’s definition of democratic politics, the agonistic state too may be seen as one that wishes to turn enemy states to adversaries. Internally the agonistic state is an arena for participating patriotic citizens who, while promoting a common cultural identity, are open to internal dissensus. However, contrarily to Mouffe, the agonistic state need neither be liberal nor secular (and neither conservative nor theocratic); it could be instead communitarian or a non-aggressive "decent hierarchy," in Rawls’s meaning (The Law of Peoples), provided only it insures for its citizens/members specifically agonistic rights. In such a post-liberal state agonistic-democratic rights are different from conventional liberal-democratic rights of individuals and Rawlsian minimal "human rights" of community members. Agonistic rights are basically individuation rights and duties in matters of identity interpretation and cultural meaning; (a) rights to critical contestation of monopoly and/or "herd" restrictions and (b) duties of moral integrity and innovative competition. However, everyday life agonistic states must respond to structures of deeply divided and plural societies. And most of the time the agonistic state must melt in and become some sort of consociation or federation of competing social segments and communities, instead of being a unitary society of competing individuals in the first place. A consociation may be said then to be agonistic when its institutions provide a participation arena for contending patriotic social segments/communities. It is agonistic too when its social segments/communities actually show patriotism and loyalty to the institutions of their arena-like consociation, while respectively promoting distinct national projects and cultural meanings. Agonistic consociations present advantages above the conventional consociational democratic ones, advantages such as highly participating citizenry with elites participating at national level and community members at local levels. Also, they may offer a type of proportionality and a degree of segmental autonomy that are informed by common patriotic and particular cultural passion, instead of being so by mere "bargain" (Lijphart) or "deliberation" (Rawls) – thus yielding less than maximal parity in communal representation and less than maximal communal protection. Messianic belief communities and confessional solidarities are particularly valuable agonal assets; on the contrary ethnic and territorial solidarities rather encourage conventional liberal plurality and "museumized" entrenchment. Lastly, agonal relationships are more likely in consociational states than federal states and more likely in confessional consociations than ethnic ones. Download PDF: The Agonistic Consociation

~

Wilsonian or Straussian post-Cold War idealism?
by Mohammed Ben Jelloun

(Excerpts) "Is post-Cold War idealism about the familiar Wilsonianism of the inter-war years coming back? Is it really about the Wilsonianism prematurely greeted by Charles W. Kegley (Kegley, 1993) and then re-greeted by John Lewis Gaddis only two years ago, when he considered there was compellingly realistic reason then “to complete the idealistic task Woodrow Wilson began more than eight decades ago”? I personally suspect something Straussian Francis Fukuyama announced by the end of the Cold War--the end of (modernistic!) history, the “Last Man” (title reference), the future crusades against the “still-historical” world, and the author’s irony above all? Fukuyama’s hardly veiled Straussian discourse may well have been an opening address."

/.../

"Starting from present-day situation in Iraq, one may wonder whether more reflection really needs to be devoted to the Wilsonian influence upon the US foreign policy idealism being embraced since the end of the Cold War--I personally doubt it very much. Searching for the bigger picture behind US foreign policy goals, turning to masters in suspicion, I found that Nietzsche’s modernity diagnosis made sense not only of the lies about weapons of mass destruction and human treatments, but the entire discourse of invading Iraq. It made sense also of Professor Shadia B. Drury’s much controversed findings about the Straussians and the neo-conservatives. And it made sense of the idealist rhetoric of the whole post-Cold War foreign policy discourse.

Appreciating the answers, however, requires that a connection be made between post-Cold War US foreign policy discourse and postmodernity as such, a connection thus contrasting with the modernity of the Cold War and pre-Cold War discourses. It requires, secondly, that post-Cold War US foreign policy discourse be viewed as expressing postmodernity’s nihilistic ironism, considering thereby the Cold War and pre-Cold War discourses two expressions for modernity’s metaphysical heroism.

Thirdly, implications in the above-mentioned assumptions should be acknowledged, namely that a dramatic reversal in traditional idealist/realist foreign policy rhetoric must have occurred and that qualitatively different idealist and realist schools of thought must be prevailing by now. That is, while Cold-War realism merely corrected pre-Cold War Wilsonianism or more accurately supplemented its metaphysical heroism, in the post-Cold War Wilsonian idealism is merely simulation concealing nihilistic ironic realism--before power politics was in the service of moralism, now idealism is in the service of realism."

/.../

ABSTRACT: Credulous and self-deceiving idealism is unlikely in a postmodern era: post-Cold War “Wilsonianism” is nihilistic ironism and Straussian imposture. Post-Gulf War emerging “hard Wilsonianism” and disappearing Kissingerianism meant not only that qualitatively different idealist and realist schools of thought were going to prevail, but also that a dramatic reversal in traditional idealist/realist foreign policy rhetoric and discourse has occurred. That is, while Cold-War realism merely supplemented the metaphysical heroism of pre-Cold War Wilsonianism, post-Cold War “Wilsonian” moralism is merely simulation concealing nihilistic ironic power politics--from now on idealism is in the service of realism. Hence, (A) Clinton Administration’s abandonment of classical Wilsonian doctrine and  relapse into a neo-conservative-like foreign policy; (B) the Democratic-Republican enduring foreign policy “consensus” since the mid 1990s, and the enduring truthfulness to the strategic path charted by Wolfowitz and his collaborators since 1992; (C) the similar style of manipulating the public in the Kosovo and Iraq interventions. Bushian and Clintonian “Wilsonianisms” are rhetorical modes, moves in a Straussian discourse. Read more

~

~