Webb - Beyond the Global Culture War

Other titles in the Global Horizons series

Edited by Richard Falk, Lester Ruiz, and R.B.J. Walker

International Relations and the Problem of Difference

Naeem Inayatullah and David L. Blaney

Methods and Nations: Cultural Governance and the Indigenous Subject

Micjael J. Shapiro

Bait and Switch: Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy

Julie A. Mertus

The Declining World Order: America's Imperial Geopolitics

Richard A. Falk

Human Rights and Private Worings: Constructing Global Civil Society

Alison Brysk

Rethinking Refugees: Beyond States of Emergency

Peter Nyers

The Liberal Way of War: The Martial Face of Global Biopolitics

Michael Dillon nad Julian Reid

(forthcoming)

Adam K. Webb

2006 Adam K. Webb

Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group

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International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-95312-X (Hardcover) 0-415-95313-8 (Softcover)

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-95312-2 (Hardcover) 978-0-415-95313-9 (Softcover)

Library of Congress Card Number 2005015707

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To my mother,

Barbara Wheat,

in appreciation of her love and unflagging support over the years,

often in challenging circumstances.

As with many first books, this one started as a doctoral dissertation, albeit an unorthodox one. Among the politics faculty at Princeton, my principal advisers, Paul Sigmund and Richard Falk, have my enduring gratitude for their unusual willingness to accommodate what was by all accounts a risky project. George Kateb, despite his vigorous disagreements with my perspective, read early drafts with remarkable care and gave valuable advice in a spirit of good humor. I also benefited from discussions with Charles Beitz, Nancy Bermeo, Robert George, Jeffrey Herbst, Stephen Holmes, Anna Seleny, Lynn White, and Deborah Yashar. Fellow politics graduate students who commented on presentations of draft chapters included Corey Brett -schneider, Arang Keshavarzian, Jonathan Krieckhaus, Erik Kuhonta, Joseph Prudhomme, Joseph Sands, Ethan Schoolman, Amy Shuster, Simon Stacey, and Alex Zakaras. Christopher Mackie, often to his amusement, rescued me many a time from various technological perils.

I also want to express appreciation for the comradeship and advice of Diego von Vacano. David Yang put forth spirited insights while debating various aspects of the project with me. Ying Qian responded with encouragement to my first attempts to sketch out the books themes as far back as 1997. Elliot Ratzman seriously engaged the content of the project and gave useful suggestions on its resonance. Stephen Nunez offered inimitable commentary on the implications of my views. Russell Nieli encouraged my pursuit of intellectual paths less trodden nowadays. Yuyu Li and Bo Cui had a refreshing perspective on modernity and its discontents.

The above notwithstanding, I am sure all will gladly be absolved of responsibility for errors or excesses in the final product.

For fellowship funding while writing and revising the book, I am grateful to Princeton University and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

As the manuscript made its way through the review and publication process, I found helpful the comments of Routledge's anonymous reviewer, and particularly appreciated the efforts of Richard Falk and Robert Tempio. Sorche Fairbank of Fairbank Literary Representation showed an impressive commitment to the book and to my broader purposes in undertaking it. I am grateful to Margaret Wood for her skillful polishing of the text and to Lynn Goeller for overseeing the production process.

I especially want to thank Di Hu for her companionship and encouragement during the last year of revisions.

History, it is said, now draws to a close. Socialism collapsed over a decade ago. Globalized markets are everywhere wiping out what lingers of traditional life. Heralds of the end of history hold that liberal modernity has all but won a final victory. Sooner or later, it will complete delivery of the peace and prosperity it promised us. While historical events will still succeed one another, history in the sense of grand clashes of ideas is over.

While antimodern zealots have lashed out lately, by crashing airplanes into skyscrapers and bombing trains and nightclubs, they are easily dismissed. Even after 9/11, none other than Francis Fukuyama, author of the 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man, insisted that History is still going our way. He voiced the sentiments of many enthusiasts of liberal globalization. No one seriously expects the likes of al-Q'idah to bring more than bloodshed and turbulence at the margins. Liberal modernity will continue advancing apace. In the eyes of its beneficiaries, both Western and non-Western, those who resist are just ill-willed and benighted, blind to the futility of their efforts. History has already picked the victors and the vanquished. Probably by 2050, certainly by 2100, such antiliberal manifestos will have joined others on the ashheap of quaint conceits.

Or so we are led to believe. The present global order has certainly forced those who oppose it into retreat. Those traditionally minded folk whom rapid change has cast to the marginsfrom the rusting hinterlands of Siberia, to North African shantytowns, to the remotest hamlets of the Andesmostly just resign themselves to being on the losing side of history. Rather more fortunate souls fall prey to an intoxicating consumer culture. Many progress-minded young people expect this century to finish the job of distributing mobile phones and sneakers and DVDs to the last backwaters of our planet. Embracing a vapid modern self-understanding seems to them the price of prosperity. And at the heights of the new world order, where the modern liberal outlook reigns supreme, still others clink their glasses and smile on history's generosity. In the long term, they think nothing will block the world they want to build.