Successful states, failed theories

In "The Failure of Political Theology", a review essay for Mute of Forrest Hylton's Evil Hour in Colombia and Achille Mbembe's On the Postcolony, Angela Mitropoulos (aka s0metim3s of the archive) skewers the assumptions of "failed state" theory.

She points out, on the one hand, that the notion of "failed states" presupposes the norm of the "successful" state as a more or less harmonious instance of the social contract at work.  This is a presupposition shared by liberalism and by Gramscian hegemony theory alike.  And obviously enough I thoroughly agree with her assessment of hegemony theory as no more than "a variant of social contract theory with Marxian pretensions."  Indeed, as Mitropoulos's reading of Hylton's book shows, if anything so-called progressives are more wedded to the social contract (and so to the repression of the state's founding and ongoing violences) than are liberals.  The (populist) demand to refound the state by means of an organic representation of subaltern classes is a ruse of the state's feigned self-cancellation.

And on the other hand, I also appreciate her critique of Mbembe's book, in which she argues first that he falls into replicating the line drawn between European normativity and Third World (in this case, African) exceptionality.  We are all postcolonial, and perhaps always have been: the subaltern excess and territorial failure so evident in the South can equally be found everywhere in the North.  Second, Mitropoulos also insists that such failure should be taken less as a cause for lament than as a whole new set of possibilities for thinking a new (suitably posthegemonic) politics, no longer tied to the nation, to representation, or to the contract.

It's also worth pointing out that the maps of "failed states" that accompanies the article are in turns laughable and bizarre, demonstrating the manifest bankruptcy of the concept.  Or perhaps, the tension (as well as the collusion) between its two variants: the military and geopolitical definition that measures strength in terms of robustness, versus the social democratic definition that demands legitimacy through representability, responsiveness, and welfare.

After all, Colombia (Hylton's focus) is by no means a failed state in terms of the first definition: a couple of years ago it overtook Venezuela as the South American country with the longest unbroken democratic tradition.  If anything, the supposed weakness of the Colombian state is a function of its dispersion: in some ways it comes very close to the Gramscian ideal of a fully organic state formation.  The state is both everywhere and (so, apparently) nowhere, its functions dispersed through a complex network of para-state organizations both formal and informal.

So the recent spat between Uribe and Chávez is little more than sibling rivalry, as of course is fitting for two neighboring heads of state of countries that in many ways (geographic, demographic, and even historical) are peas in a pod.  No wonder that the dispute should have centered around protocol rather than ideology, the chain of command rather than command itself.  To describe the differences between the two in terms of "left" and "right," however much this is what the discourse of "left turns" implies, is to miss the fact that sovereigns are inevitably on the same side when it comes to safeguarding the image of a social contract and thus the fact of constituted power.

Cross-posted from Posthegemony.

Comments

[CBR]

Since nobody commented on this, I just wanted to say it's well-put and interesting, AND I agree with the substance of your remarks, but I don't know the primary sources so have nothing useful to add.

This board seems pretty well dead again, notwithstanding the influx of new contributors...

[Jeff Rubard]

Having known one of the primary sources (as a nice guy and a snappy dresser), I would mention that Forrest Hylton was the person I first heard about Antonio Negri from, some years before Empire. So, although I haven't read the book, I think assimilating his views to Robert Kaplan-style Anarchy Watches is probably unfair.

[Jon]

Jeff, thanks for your comment. I haven't read Hylton's book, either. I was inspired by Angela's review rather than the books themselves.

But I think one of the questions is how much the paradigm has really shifted with these recent and much heralded moves to the left in Latin America. There are still many shared assumptions and unlikely bedfellows, demostrating that there is some way to go in the attempt to leave behind either the now bankrupt Washington Consensus or its social democratic avatars.

[Jeff Rubard]

Well, it's possible both my recollection and her impression of the book are right. As far as I heard, Forrest had maintained an autonomist-inspired viewpoint upon removal to New York: but it's certainly possible that he, like many people on the harder end of the left spectrum, has been impressed by the results of Chavez and Morales to the point of rethinking things along more "statist" lines. Now, I think the role Gramsci has played in the 21st-century-socialism movement, as a cudgel for reactionary "civil society", is not totally salutory -- but I also think that the claim of Venezuela and Bolivia to be "democracies of a new type" is pretty strong, and that it would be a sign of empirical sensitivity (as opposed to theoretical lassitude) for him to be tacking that direction.

[Jon]

Well, Negri himself "has been impressed by the results of Chavez and Morales to the point of rethinking things along more 'statist' lines." Though it seems rather to go against the grain of much of his other work, not least that he should (in GlobAL, for instance) be praising so much a Latin American "New Deal" when he quite thoroughly critiqued the "old" New Deal, and the Keynesian politics that sustained it.

I mean, yes, as I make clear in my subsequent comments on the referendum, I'd rather Chávez than the Venezuelan opposition any day of the week. But obviously, that support for Chávez is heavily contingent, and it's worth seeing the possibilities and potential that Chávez (like any sovereign) blocks or ties up.

[Nadaland]

The politics of "Successful" seems sort of context-relative. For the American college-jackoff leftist who dreams of par-tay membership, latin American style communism might seem successful. To those who had their properties--even modest sized properties- seized by the Chavezistas, not so successful.

[Jon]

Hi, Nadaland. Perhaps my subsequent point will help clarify further, but the point was that Venezuela is far from being a "failed state" in the terms proposed by conventional political analysis. To say this is not necessarily to voice support for Chávez, of course. The anti-chavistas, as you yourself indicate, complain precisely about the strength of the state under the Bolivarian revolution.

It's also worth noting that nobody in their right mind would really call Chávez a communist. Again, for better or for worse.