| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Ernst Haas Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 4 of 5
You write, and again I'm quoting you, "I hold that human collectivities are able to learn, to change their institutions and practices to make things better for themselves. And I hold that this learning occurs by humankind's thinking analytically and searching for causal patterns, modes of thinking associated with the Enlightenment."
Right. That's it.
And that's really the standard that you bring to your study of nationalism? Is that correct?
No.
Okay.
That's not correct.
Okay.
The way I study nationalism involves phases, historical phases. First, how come a given country becomes a nation? They're not born nations. It happens. What's the process through which a given body of people decide to call themselves a nation? We have standard historical patterns that explain this, and one part of my new book explores these patterns. That's step one. How does a country become a nation state?
Second question: which body of beliefs will gain victory in that country and shape the beliefs of all, or at least most of the people who live in it? What's the content of that body of beliefs? Well, there's seven or eight different belief systems that have all had the fortune of unifying countries as nation states.
Third question: what kind of trouble will those beliefs lead the country into? Wars, rebellions, secessions, depressions, you name it.
Fourth question: what lessons do the members of that country derive from the deep doo-doo they got themselves into as a result of their beliefs? That's where the learning comes in.
And for you is that an ideal?
You know, I'm ambivalent about that. I don't think the nation state is necessarily a bad thing. It depends on what kind of nation state you're talking about. They're not all equally good or equally bad. And to say flatly, "Get rid of the nation state and supplant with something else," I don't want to go that far.
You're writing now about this world around us today. First you quote Stanley Hoffmann who says, "The vessel of sovereign statehood is leaky."
Then you go on to write:
The pumps still work from time to time, but not consistently. The captain is not sure whether to beach the vessel or join a fleet of similarly damaged ships sailing under negotiated orders. International organizations merely reflect these uncertainties. Interdependence cannot be managed unless the most important captains experience turbulence in similar ways and draw similar inferences.
So that's where hope lies. Not in the sense that multilateralism is the ideal necessarily, but in terms of dealing with those problems that require a multilateral solution.
Exactly.
Right.
I agree with every word you said. Particularly the points where you quote me.
You said earlier that these insights on learning don't apply to the struggle for human rights. How would you assess what's going on there? What is the conceptual framework by which you see this dispersal in human rights, or do you see that? Am I presuming something?
It depends whether you ask me on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
I see.
There is no doubt that there is a much greater, almost, but not quite universal concern with human rights now as compared to ten, twenty, thirty, forty years ago. No question about that. Whether this will result eventually in a uniform, global culture of respect for the same human rights, I'm not at all sure. And on that I disagree with the many advocacy organizations who are active in the field of human rights.
One of the reasons why I use science, or scientific knowledge, as a conceptual anchor for thinking about international politics is because of the universality of science. Scientific reasoning is universal. If you're going to do science, there's only one way to do it, and nobody really disputes that. Therefore, at least hypothetically, there is some justification for thinking that any kind of different thought about causality that has some degree of kinship to scientific reasoning has a greater chance of being truly universal than a body of reasoning which is not, by definition, universal. Okay: thinking about human rights is not, by definition, universal. It's a Western way of thinking, which has penetrated the non-Western world very unevenly. And whether it will continue to penetrate it is an open question and not assured as far as I'm concerned.
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