REFLEXIONES / REFLECTIONS

ENTREVISTAS / INTERVIEWS
The International System: Hinge Moments and
Structural Long-Term Trends. A Canadian Perspective
Interview with Robert W. Cox
by Daniel Drache and Jos Luis Valds-Ugalde

NOTAS CRTICAS / CRITICAL NOTES

Retos y oportunidades para el transporte

transfronterizo Mxico-Estados Unidos
Ernesto Carmona

APUNTES BIBLIOGRFICOS / BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Diplomacia digital y su vigencia

en las relaciones internacionales
Jos de Jess Lpez Almejo

CRONOLOGA / CHRONOLOGY

Cronologa de Amrica del Norte

(enero-junio de 2009)
Argentino F. Mendoza Chan y Socorro Garca Gonzlez

NORTEAMRICA. Year 4, number 2, July-December 2009

The International System:

Hinge Moments and Structural Long-Term
Trends. A Canadian Perspective
Interview with Robert W. Cox1
BY DANIEL DRACHE AND
JOS LUIS VALDS-UGALDE*

How did you become a historical materialist? You began life in

Montreal in an Anglo-Canadian family. When you look back
CA
RI
over the years, how did you come to this very large, rich, and
diverse theoretical viewpoint?
NOR

TE

RC: When I was at McGill University studying history, I was not only
studying history in the sense of certain times and places medieval,
modern, European, or Canadian, and so forth but I also began to think
about what the nature of history is. In that regard, one of the things I read
was a book called The Idea of History, a collection of lectures and papers
by R.G. Collingwood put together and published after Collingwood died.
It is a rather coherent collection and it showed me a way of thinking
about the nature of history as a form of knowledge. And that stuck with
me pretty well through my life. I keep going back to it.
Robert Cox co-founded International Political Economy along with the late Susan Strange in the
late 1980s and has been one of the most influential critical political economists of the last 40
years. He has made many important contributions to the field, including his original and innovative reintroduction to the thought and importance of Antonio Gramscis pivotal concept of
hegemony. Hegemony has not only entered into the vocabulary of social science as an important
signifier of power dynamics, but also into popular parlance and the media. Cox had a very distinguished career at the International Labour Organization (ILO) as research director in its early
years, at Columbia University in the Department of Political Science, and in the York University
Department of Political Science, from which he retired in 1992. He is one of Canadas research
giants, equal in stature to Marshall McLuhan, Harold Innis, C.B. Macpherson and Northrup Frye.
* Daniel Drache is associate director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies and professor of political science at York University, Toronto. drache@yorku.ca. Jos Luis Valds-Ugalde
is researcher of the UNAM Center for Research on North America (CISAN-UNAM). He is also a
visiting professor at the Division of International Studies of the Center for Research and
Teaching of Economics (CIDE). jlvaldes@servidor.unam.mx
Agradecemos la colaboracin de Juan Carlos Tarriba Enciso y Alfredo lvarez Padilla, quienes transcribieron esta entrevista.

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DANIEL DRACHE AND JOS LUIS VALDS-UGALDE

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Vico conceived
history as a cyclical
process and the
organic way
societies evolve
from birth to
maturity and
decline with the
possibility of
rebirth. It was a
very different
concept from the
Enlightenment
view of progress.

Collingwood began with the study of Giambattista Vico who lived in

the eighteenth century in Naples. He was a counterpoint to the Enlightenment. Ren Descartes, the great father of modern science, theorized
the method of modern science based on the separation of the observer
from the observed. Vico was more aware of the unity of observer and
observed, of how the individual was creating the world through his
thought and actions.
Later, when I began to study Marxism, I was constantly comparing
the Marxist theory of history with Vicos. Karl Marx thought in terms of
a progressive history, history leading toward an ideal end, an end that
was going to result in a communist society. Vico was concerned with history as a cyclical process and the organic way societies evolve from birth
to maturity and decline with the possibility of rebirth and a new cycle
beginning. It was a very different concept of history from the Enlightenment view of progress toward some ultimate goal.
As an innate pessimist, I found Vicos conception more compatible
with what I understood about the world. So, when I came to reflect upon
Marxism, I thought that Antonio Gramsci approached it from perhaps a
more subjective a more Vician point of view. This was the point of view
of ideas, motivations, and the creation of the collective will to change, something that Gramsci derived from Georges Sorel. Sorel is another person I
keep returning to who influenced my thinking, especially his idea of the
social myth and the way an idea is inserted into the collective consciousness and becomes a powerful force for change.
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So, it is a big leap from Collingwood the liberal to Gramsci the

materialist. How did it happen?

RC: Collingwood was in the idealist tradition in England derived from

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, but he didnt accept all the implications
of Hegel. Collingwood was thinking of history as something that you
could approach from the inside. In other words, he emphasized the motivations and thoughts of the people who made history rather than just
looking at it from the outside, observing events, classifying them and so
forth. For him history was the inside story. He tried to give it life by putting the inside outside so to speak.
I think Gramsci was more in tune with that approach, within the sphere
of Marxism. Marxism is a broad category of thinking. Marx for example

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in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon looked at the great tableau

from an historical point of view, but if you look at Capital, it is a much
more analytical, outside view of the changes to the structure of production. I became much more sympathetic to the Gramscian point of view
because it sees history from both the inside and the outside.

This inside/outside distinction sounds correct, but it sounds

abstract in a certain way, because perhaps the more conventionCA
RI
al view of Marxism is system, structure and actor, in which the
proletariat fulfills its historical mission.
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RC: I call myself a historical materialist in the sense in which Gramsci

understood that term. The other more deterministic kind of Marxism,
Gramsci called historical economism. He made the distinction between
historical economism and historical materialism: historical materialism
embodied the need to arouse subjectivity as part of the process of transforming the objective world whereas historical economism did not; it
just relied upon the objective economic process.
Now, the other thing I always feel is that any theory has to be understood in its historical context. There are no theories about humanity that
are absolute truths. There are relative truths, truth within a certain framework. The person who best described the way in which frameworks
change and succeed one another was Fernand Braudel, the eminent
French historian, who came back from a prison camp after World War II.
Braudel co-founded the Annales School of French history. He wrote about
historical structures as something that arise out of certain historical crises
and may exist for a long time. Historical structures include the shape of the
economy, the nature of political systems, and the cultures of people. All
of these structures have a certain duration in time, but are gradually
transformed, or even possibly suddenly transformed, into another structure.
I think of Marxism in that sense: as a theory in which the proletariat
became the force for change. Particularly if you take England as the case
with which he was most familiar and the country in which he lived. It
was the time when the proletariat was being created, the rural peasantry
was forced off the land into the cities, and industry was becoming dominant. Capital was transformative in making the changes that would revolutionize English society, and all of these conditions would lead Marx
to define his theory.

167

I call myself
a historical
materialist in the
sense in which
Gramsci
understood that.
Historical
materialism
embodied the
need to arouse
subjectivity as part
of the process of
transforming the
objective world,
whereas historical
economism did not.

DANIEL DRACHE AND JOS LUIS VALDS-UGALDE

NORTEAMRICA

What I like to say

is, let theories
arise out of your
understanding
of the world rather
than shoehorn
the world into
a framework
predetermined
by theory.

You have to consider the implications of structural change that followed on such a vast scale. In England and Europe the working class
eventually achieved a certain position with respect to the State; States
changed themselves and became more democratic. When you look at the
rest of the world as people became more conscious of their place in global
society, Marxist theory was beginning to penetrate more widely as an
explanation of what was happening. Industrialization was beginning in
poor countries and a proletariat was created there. But when you look at
proletariats in poor countries, they were rather privileged in relation to
the great mass of people still living in rural areas. The power relationship
was different from that in the Industrial Revolution in England. And furthermore, in the more industrialized countries, the proletariat became a well
organized, well established force; but other influential forces also began to
appear such as feminism and environmentalism. People in these movements became actively concerned with change in other ways. On balance,
Marxist theory, while still having certain validity, has to be integrated
into the larger framework of the newly emerging historical structures.
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Graduate students are still reading Cox. What is Coxs message

to theorists in international political economy when you look at how
the world has changed since you began your theoretical work?

RC: The message is to be keenly aware of what is going on in the world

today without trying to fit that into some pre-existing theory. What I like
to say is, let theories arise out of your understanding of the world rather
than shoehorn the world into a framework predetermined by theory. So,
I would not like to prescribe any kind of theoretical message in the sense
of preferring one theory over any other. I published an article in Millennium, in 1981,2 making the case that you need to look at three main areas:
the material conditions of existence, the prevailing ideas, and the existing
institutions to see how they interrelate. That kind of framework, I suppose,
has a pretty broad and general application. The important message is to
look at those three areas in concrete terms and not to presume that there
is any determinism between them. Study how that interrelationship is
working out, and when you see the nature of the structure that emerges
2 Robert

Cox, Social Forces, States and World Order: Beyond International Relations Theory,
Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 1981.

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then you look for the points where conflict is imminent or latent, see how
that conflict could arise and could provoke a certain pattern of change.
Now, for example, we are leaving behind a world defined by Pax Americana in which the United States was in the dominant role, and entering
a world where this countrys role will be less determining. It is important
to examine how the United States can adjust to a more plural world
without this creating a great international crisis, conflict, or war. In addition, it is important to see what sort of power structure emerges and how
it could emerge in a relatively peaceful way rather than through a conflict in which nuclear weapons would be totally destructive.
When you talk about new historical structures at the global level,
how badly bruised is the Washington Consensus as the framing
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document for global public policy? In the crisis, is global capitalism regrouping to take command again?
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RC: Yes, I think the Washington Consensus is a matter of history now. It

was based on consensus around a certain economic doctrine called neoliberalism, which was considered to be of universal applicability. Anyone
joining in that consensus would join it according to the basic rules laid
down: free trade, free movement of capital, and deregulation. It seems to
me, especially after the financial crisis of the last year, one has to be skeptical about accepting the rules of a system that could break down in the
way it did. Those who accepted the rules could not see it breaking down
the way it happened.
Now there is an incentive for global South economic groupings to
challenge U.S. hegemony. China is moving in the direction of broadening its role as the economic center of Asia; Europe is already creating its
own economic entity. The experience of the 2009 financial crisis will help
embolden countries to assert their new found influence. The big question
is the relation between the United States and China; the United States is
so indebted to China, its primary creditor. There is incentive for the two
countries to find a way of working together, but I think, from the Chinese
point of view, that would probably not mean working together in the sense
of going back to the Washington Consensus. China and the South want
to create a new arrangement; maybe theyll call it a Beijing Consensus,
whereby regional groupings can live together, trade, and have more diplomatic relations that are not destructive.

169

It is important
to examine how
the United States
can adjust to
a more plural
world without
this creating
a great international
crisis, conflict,
or war.

DANIEL DRACHE AND JOS LUIS VALDS-UGALDE

NORTEAMRICA

NOR

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A

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This is a
transitional
situation where
both the United
States and other
powers are
learning to create
new modalities
of coexistence,
rather than a world
order led by one
superpower.

Do you think that black September delivered a knockout blow to

global neoliberalism?

RC: It is likely only the beginning of the end. We need to think in terms
of the future, and not of the future as just a continuity of the present. The
unwinding of global capitalism is complex and quite indeterminate.
This is a transitional situation where both the United States and other
powers are learning to create new modalities of coexistence, rather than
a world order led by one superpower. I think the United States will have
a big problem adjusting to this new plural world. For instance, President
Barack Obama began his administration with a vision of change, change
both within the United States and of the U.S. role in the world, but he has
failed to make good his words. One year later, he is confronted with many
difficulties impeding that change: the Senate on the question of healthcare and on foreign relations with respect to Israels opposition to the
Palestinian desire for a homeland in which the Palestinian state could
coexist with Israel in a peaceful way. These impediments are the result
of very powerful interests within the United States, and so the process of
change is going to be difficult with domestic politics so polarized. Change
will also be hard for the U.S. relationship to the world as a whole; one of
the major problems is how other powers can relate to the United States
in a more consensual relationship rather than one of leadership and followership.
Do you think Obama has been taken prisoner by the system?
How do you explain this transformation from a renewal candiCA
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date, in the best tradition of American liberalism, to a rather disappointing politician?
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RC: At first, Obama seemed promising. He aroused a lot of support, particularly from young people in the United States who backed his candidacy. They were overjoyed in seeing him as an antiwar candidate. People
had great hopes about all the things he would be able to do. Once in power,
Obama found out that as the President of the United States he is not as
powerful a person as one might have imagined. The system imposes limits and very powerful constraints. Americans see that he is not accomplishing the things that he set out to accomplish and disillusionment sets
in. Another factor is that he inherited many policies from the Bush admin-

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istration and the previous Clinton administration. You look at the different areas, and particularly in foreign policy, there has not been much
change. What has happened is probably more acceptable to some of the
people who were already Bush people and disappointing to those people who looked for significant change.
I am not sure how that will play out. There is no other candidate or opposition party that could muster support against Obama in favor of
somebody else; but the Republican right has certainly mustered a lot
of strength to oppose his policies. It seems now very doubtful that his
watered down bill on health care will pass.

Despite a Democratic majority, how does the current congressional paralysis affect U.S. foreign policy? It seems to be creating
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an opening for other countries to become members of the global
leaders elite club.
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RC: What we see is that Washington, the dominant global military power,
cannot do what it used to, but it can still make an awful lot of trouble and
do a lot of damage. Remember that the Russians could not control and were
finally pushed out of Afghanistan, and they were powerful militarily
also. The Americans want to be in Afghanistan, too, and the United
States remains the worlds unrivalled military power, but it cannot create the new world order it is so desperately attempting to impose. It cannot achieve the political goals that the United States is supposed to have.
In a sense, the rest of the world is playing the role of Gandhi, saying that
non-violence is probably our best weapon. Regime change and violence is what will undermine the U.S. position and deny it the support of
the rest of the world. I think that the United States is beginning to recognize that they are going to have to adjust to a different position in the
world, a position that would be one of collegiality with other powers,
rather than one of military might.
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A

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So, is this the new structure, that of soft power?

CA

RC: Joe Nye introduced the idea of soft power, and what he meant was
that the United States was attractive because many people would like to
live like Americans. A lot of the ideas that come from America and even

171

The system
imposes limits
and very powerful
constraints.
Americans see
that Obama is not
accomplishing the
things that he set
out to accomplish
and disillusionment sets in.

DANIEL DRACHE AND JOS LUIS VALDS-UGALDE

NORTEAMRICA

the styles and the movies that come from America create a favorable
impression. The problem is that while soft power may rest on the idea
that people desire to be like Americans, it is being overwhelmed by reactions to U.S.-led wars and use of military power. So American soft power
is no longer the force that it once was; some people have grabbed on to
that term and use it very broadly in a way that doesnt really have a very
specific meaning.
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A

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Hegemonic
thinking is not
about one military
superpower; it is
about the way
people think about
the structure of
the world and
the way in which
things are done
in a certain manner
as being normal.

Should we still think about terms like hegemony, or is there a

need to take account of new non-state forms of power?

RC: Lets talk about hegemony briefly. In international relations theory,

hegemony used to mean the political and economic dominance of one
power over others the others would be deferential toward the hegemonic power. In the Gramscian sense, hegemony is much more a matter
of the inside rather than the outside that I spoke of earlier. The distinction is between the way people think and how they understand the
nature and order of the world. They understand a world in which there is
U.S. leadership and there is a Washington Consensus, and think thats
whats natural, thats whats normal. Hegemonic thinking is not about
one military superpower and the exercise of power; it is about the way
people think about the structure of the world and the way in which things
are done in a certain manner as being normal. What shatters this vision of world order they have in their own minds is when it is disrupted
by things like the financial crisis, the excessive use of U.S. military
power, the killing of civilians in the Afghan war: this shatters their mental vision, their normal way of seeing things. What people then perceive
are different centers of power and forces that undermine the received
notion of a hegemonic world.
We are going through that phase now. The natural form of the world,
one defined by American leadership, is no longer one that people around
the world see as natural, as common sense. Theres a different idea of what
the world order could be or might be; in that sense the old concept of
hegemony has disappeared before our eyes.
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M
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If hegemony disappears, does that mean we enter into a period of

political and economic instability? What is the new normality?
No consensus? Constant negotiations? Constant toing and froing?

INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT W. COX

REFLECTIONS INTERVIEWS

RC: Yes, and instability brings with it many problems. It would mean
that there is a continual process of negotiation between major powers. It
could also underline an understanding that violence brought on by a
major war would be disaster for the system as a whole. Therefore, it has
to be avoided by constant adjustment and negotiation. You will never
arrive at a new world order that can be expressed in formula-like terms
the way the Washington Consensus was.
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A

This is really a new era? Is that what you are saying?

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RC: We dont quite know what it will be like, but we have to be alert and
prepared to contemplate the adjustments that will be needed. One of them,
obviously, is the environmental issue. The Copenhagen meeting demonstrated that the world is not yet ready to deal with that effectively. At the
same time, it demonstrated that there is no solution that can be imposed
by a hegemonic power or powers without real negotiations leading to a
substantive agreement to cut CO2 emissions and share the costs. A nonhegemonic world order places responsibility on all countries to work something out that they can agree upon, because they know that not agreeing
to a core set of obligations would lead to a disaster.
The failure of Copenhagen is now being laid at the foot of the
Obama presidency because basically it was his moment to show
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leadership and he failed. Is this part of the unfolding tragedy of
Obama, an iconic figure now fallen from grace?
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RC: It certainly is a big blow in that respect. The roots of the disappointment go deeper and are a product of U.S. domestic politics. The battle
over health care will be the real test. Whether Obama will be able to deal
with the powerful interests that prevent the reform of the U.S. health system is really a scandal when you compare it to the rest of the world. Why
a country as rich, with such experience and so much high technology as
the U.S. is not able to create a system that guarantees health care for its
population bewilders the rest of the world.

173

The Copenhagen
meeting
demonstrated
that the world is
not yet ready
to deal with
the environmental
issue effectively, and
that there is no
solution that can
be imposed by
a hegemonic
power or powers.

DANIEL DRACHE AND JOS LUIS VALDS-UGALDE

NORTEAMRICA

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A

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The EU has
adopted the
Gandhian approach,
minimizing their
military role and
their role in trying
to change the rest
of the world.
Modern Europe is
more self-contained
and distant in its
relationships.

The United States has a rival and a competitor in the euro zone.
Where do you position the European Union in the new configuration globally? What kind of leader is it?

RC: The EU has, without using the term, adopted the Gandhian approach.
They minimize their military role and their role in trying to change the
rest of the world. The EU is probably formed in such a way that its internal structure conforms to the possibilities of a world of coexistence among
many centers of power. But the fact that they are in this sort of Gandhian
mode means that, in its military and economic form, the EU is not yet
influencing other areas of the world. Modern Europe is in a way more
self-contained and distant in its relationships with the rest of the world.
Still, their model is attractive. For example, China is probably more interested in developing strong economic relationships with the EU now, as
well as creating its own economic center in the Asian region. By contrast,
the United States is more and more being perceived as a threatening force,
both militarily and economically, in Asia and other parts of the world;
whereas Europe is perceived as far less threatening.
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CA

So, what youre saying is that Europe, as a non-military power,

has got extra leverage?

RC: It has soft power that people will admire and want to emulate. Europe
promises a world in which you have continuous negotiations about the
environment and all the issues that affect the world as a whole. Europe is
a model of power that can work well in this situation. The problem is now
to see whether both the United States and China can conform to that type
of relationship. This would be very difficult for the United States particularly because they would have to withdraw their military presence in many
parts of the world. They would have to stop using Taiwan as sort of threat
against China. They would have to pull out of Georgia and the Caucasus
as a strategic threat against Russia and China. They would have to withdraw as the protector of the right wing in Israel and promote the idea of a
peaceful relationship between Israel and the other countries in the Middle
East. All of this poses trouble for the United States since the whole of their
military and foreign policy establishment has been built up around the idea
that they must be present in those areas of the world. The biggest problem
to this potential world order is the reordering of U.S. goals and objectives.

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So far, we have looked at Obama, at soft power, and the new historical structures at the global level. Lets turn our attention to
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North America. Has NAFTA outlived its usefulness to Washington,
as the Obama administration struggles with both internal gridlock and
mounting external challenges?
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RC: This is an area that I havent studied very closely. The problem with
North America is that NAFTA has created a framework for integration, but
as soon as anything happens that is inconvenient for the United States,
they feel they are not bound by this framework agreement, and they operate on their own by going around it. Ultimately, these institutions are a
faade for powerful sets of interests. Probably, we are working toward
the emergence of a new alternative pattern of relationships in the Americas. It seems to me that there is already some evidence of that.
Latin America is being driven by a change in its social structure, in
Bolivia and Venezuela, for example. The social power structure in those
countries is beginning to change, and the old pattern of just accepting
U.S. dominance no longer prevails. Other alliances are beginning to
emerge. This means there will be a whole restructuring of relationships
in the Americas. This is another thing that the United States is going to
have to gradually come to terms with. The coup in Honduras shows that
they are not ready to do any fundamental re-thinking. I had a sense
while it was happening that Obama was in favor of the elected president
returning, finishing his term and then having elections. But the State
Department, with [Hillary] Clinton in charge, bowed to the right wing
forces on Capital Hill and supported the coup in Honduras. And for
Obama it was a defeat.
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Obamas presidency has had a lot of reversals, defeats, and disappointments so far. What grade would you give Obama after a
little more than a year in office?

RC: I think he has been defeated on just about everything. I think it comes
back to the word hope, which was his word in the election. The problem with hope is that you cannot go on proclaiming it without it turning
into despair. I think he has lost a lot of the support he had, which means
that his power with the popular forces in the United States has diminished
considerably. This diminishes his possibility of taking on the entrenched

175

has created
a framework
for integration,
but as soon
as anything
inconvenient
for the U. S.
happens, they
feel they are not
bound by the
agreement,
and operate
on their own.

NAFTA

DANIEL DRACHE AND JOS LUIS VALDS-UGALDE

NORTEAMRICA

The social power

structure in Latin
American countries
is beginning to
change, and the
old pattern of just
accepting U.S.
dominance no
longer prevails.

forces in the United States. This has repercussions within the United States,
at the level of the Americas, and at the global level.
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Lets go back a bit to what you said about the United States having shifted its view toward NAFTA and the idea of North America.
Can we go into detail about why this might have happened?

RC: I havent really studied it in terms of getting to grips with the issues
within those countries, other than appreciating that many of the Latin
American countries now have a different kind of relationship with the
United States than they had during the era of Roosevelt and even of
Kennedy.

Is this basically because Mexico, faced with the drug war in the North
and an epidemic of transborder trafficking in guns, no longer has
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A
M
the bright future that The Economist once predicted for it and is
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now very close to being a failed State?

RC: It seems that Mexico is very fragile. Criminal organizations are in

some places more powerful than the State and have penetrated into the
State. It is hard for me to say why that has happened and how its happening is related to what has evolved in terms of the relationship with the
United States. That is bound to have had an effect, but whether that in fact
has been detrimental to the development of Mexico or has been something that has contributed solely to the internal situation in Mexico, I
couldnt say.

Canada, Mexico, and the United States are going their separate
ways; they have different agendas they are struggling with. Is that
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really at the core of what troubles North America? Mexico struggles with narcoterrorism; the United States faces economic decline; and
Canada suffers the curse of too many resources and the culture of complacency.
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RC: Canada under its present leadership is so closely tied to the United
States. It would seem to me, that Canadas opportunities lie in increasing
relationships with Asia and Europe, while diminishing, where possible,
dependency upon the United States. This comes from a view of the state

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of economic decline in the U. S. and of the potential damage that can

come from being closely tied to that financial structure. Still, Canada did
better through this last crisis insofar as its banking system was not as
affected by the financial meltdown as the Americans were. Surely, that is
a warning sign that being protected from too close involvement with the
U.S. economy was a good thing. Canadians are missing opportunities.
The future of Canada lies outside of North America in many ways.

When you take stock of the many changes happening in North

America and Europe, where do you position yourself with resCA
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pect to your view of democracy? Are we moving toward a more
democratic order of things? Are we staying in place, or moving backward?
NOR

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RC: Democracy is a word that means a lot of different things to different

people. Im a bit wary of abusing it, just like Im a bit wary of using the
word progress in the sense in which it is often understood. Democracy
can be a failing institution; that is, the people can be the cause of failure
when they do not see the future other than as a continuation of their own
present state of affairs and the improvement of their own present situation. They do not see the need for a change and therefore are unlikely to
support measures necessary for change.
We saw this in Canada with the Liberal Partys green shift that
seemed like a new line of political action and a new era of political policy.
When Stephen Harper defeated Stphane Dion in the election, the green
shift became an embarrassment to the Liberal Party because it failed to
attract electoral support. It was deemed to have been a failure. Harper
was more concerned about the cost of making the changes to the oil sands
and the energy industries than to take practical steps to reduce the destructive effects of pollution. All this business about cap and trade as a
solution is a soft option for the interests that pollute. What they are saying is, Well, well just pay a little more for the opportunity of polluting,
rather than saying, We will change this business once and for all, which
would be more costly for them in the immediate future. The government
calculates that people really do not care about the environment. That is
in conflict with the concept of democracy and with reality.
In Asia, democracy is not so much about the individual; it is about
the community and the community of nations. By democratic, Asians

177

Democracy can be
a failing institution,
and the people
can be the cause
when they do not
see the future
other than as a
continuation of
their own
present state of
affairs and the
improvement of
their own present
situation.

DANIEL DRACHE AND JOS LUIS VALDS-UGALDE

NORTEAMRICA

Canadas
opportunities
lie in increasing
relationships with
Asia and Europe,
while diminishing,
where possible,
dependency upon
the United States.

usually mean including everybody; not everybody in the sense of selfcentered individuals, but in the sense of all communities. This concept of
democracy is in conflict with the American concept, which is based so
much on the individual. So Im very skeptical about the use of that term
in a generalized sense since it can mean very different things. You have
to understand its meaning in different national and cultural situations
and consider what is most beneficial for the people involved, not just as
individuals, but as communities.
NOR

TE
A

M
CA

RI

When you look across the globe, what do you see as the main
threats to the spread of democracy and democratic practice, as it
takes these different forms?

RC: There are certain tests that are applicable. One test is in the area of
human rights: to what extent are people being subjected to violence and
force by a political power? I think it is generally unhelpful when human
rights activists are more concerned with individual rights than with collective rights. I think the human rights issue goes beyond individual rights,
and is more important when it confronts the suppression of certain communities and a certain sets of ideas rather than more specifically individual
kinds of rights. Not that individual rights are unimportant, but there is a
difference of level between property rights and outlawing of torture.
NOR

TE
A

RI

M
CA

Where do we fit China into a view of the spread of democratic

theory and practice?

RC: This is a difficult case with many negatives, but I take a hopefully
positive position. The Chinese Communist Party is a different kind of organization than what exists in other places. The word communist in this
case is a historical residue covering something that has evolved into a
rather unique Chinese party/State. The Chinese were able to avoid the
sort of collapse that happened when the Soviet system broke down, because of the strength of the Chinese party. Particularly after Mao, the party
leadership has been able to recruit and train and socialize a set of leaders
who have a sense of the interest of China as a whole. They also realize that
there is an extraordinary amount of conflict within China, and the elite
leadership has used the party in such a way that messages from the
base can come up to the leadership. So, the leadership is able to respond

178

INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT W. COX

REFLECTIONS INTERVIEWS

to those issues in China, and in that way maintain control of the population, which is always fragile and which is ever uppermost in the mind of
the leadership. I wouldnt use the term democracy, but here is a system
in which the interests and concerns of the base of the society in its completely heterogeneous and varied form can be made known through the
agency of the party to the leadership. So, in a way, it is a kind of system that
allows for the people to voice their concerns, so these concerns can be
uppermost in the minds of the leadership; and the leadership has to take
that into account when they are dealing with other countries, other powers.
Clearly there are areas like Tibet where this has not worked, and
where there is kind of collective resistance to the leadership. There is a huge
problem to resolve here. It shows that there are limitations in that system, but there is a system that exists although it doesnt have a name,
which is contrasted with democracy. Democracy also has many varied forms.
So it is not accurate to think of democracy as one ideal type, and say, well
China is not of that type.

But China has a problem: there are 400 million people online and
an even greater number of mobile phone users, which are mini
CA
RI
computers. The old model was that the party could control the
flow, the socialization of the flow of information. China is in the middle
of the same kind of information revolution in which people redefine
themselves vis--vis the market, the State, and each other.
NOR

TE

RC: Certainly, that is happening in China. Again the question is to what

extent and through what mechanisms can the leadership be attentive to
this access-to-information challenge and deal with it, hopefully intelligently, before there is a collapse of order within China? I think this is what
the Chinese leadership are thinking about all the time; the messages are
coming from below. So, it is a kind of bottom-up system, and not just the
sort of top-down system where the leadership decides and then applies
their decision by force, because they cannot do that any longer. They
know that.
NOR

TE
A

RI

M
CA

So when you look at the United States and at the G2 with China,
two great rivals, two great competitors, what kind of report card
would you give the current Chinese leadership and Obama?

179

The Chinese
were able to
avoid the sort
of collapse that
happened when
the Soviet system
broke down,
because of the
strength of
the Chinese party.

DANIEL DRACHE AND JOS LUIS VALDS-UGALDE

NORTEAMRICA

The Chinese
leadership have
been very pragmatic
in their approach
to the U. S.;
they are offering
the possibility of a
cooperative
relationship,
provided they are
recognized and
accepted for what
they are.

RC: To compare the two, the Chinese come out on top. The significance
of Obama is that he has reversed the totally anti-Chinese views of the
previous administration. Initially, he has approached China with a view
to cooperation rather than conflict. That was a big change. The Chinese
leadership have been very pragmatic in their approach to the United States;
they have been non-ideological in the sense that they are not offering
some solution to the worlds problems. Instead, what they are offering is
the possibility of a cooperative relationship, provided they are recognized
and accepted for what they are, and are not considered to be a country that
will have regime change forced upon it. Recognize China, respect it and
deal with it. I think that is the position of China. On a personal level,
Obama is coming to that view, but there are still a lot of forces within the
United States that will not find that acceptable, forces that are building
anti-Chinese sentiment in America.

180