The BROTHERWISE DISPATCH, VOL.2, ISSUE#11, MARCH-MAY/2014
Our central hypothesis is that a new form of sovereignty is emerging today, at the global level, a decentered form, in a web of sovereignty that we call Empire. In our analysis, this new imperial sovereignty is fundamentally different from the imperialisms which in modernity initially developed in Europe, the United States and Japan. Modern imperialism was founded on the sovereignty of the dominant nation-state and it implied the extension of that national sovereignty over foreign subject territories. Many imperial nations had global aspirations, but each of them was able to dominate only a part of the world. These imperialist powers of modernity ended up in conflict with each other, and the outcome was horrific world wars and numerous other atrocities.
We are in a position to identify three central characteristics of the modern age of imperialism which have now changed. First, the structure of imperial sovereignty, which was substantially based on the nation-state. Secondly, when a sovereign national power was extended to foreign territories, a clear division was created between the dominant subject and the dominated subject – be it a territory or a nation – and between inside and outside. Finally, in modernity there was not one single imperialist nation, but several, and, moreover, imperialism always implied competition between imperialist nations and an ever-present potential for conflict.
The Empire which is emerging today, in contrast with the imperialism of modernity, is not based on national sovereignty; it is truly global in the sense that it obscures all distinction between the inner and the outside. However, to say that Empire is not founded on national sovereignty does not mean arguing that nation-states are no longer important. The nation-state certainly remains important – some, obviously, more important than others. The power of Empire implies nation-states, but it extends far beyond their prerogatives. Imperial sovereignty is founded on a mixed constitution. As a first approximation we could say that imperial sovereignty is defined by a constant collaboration in the world between monarchic forces and aristocratic forces. One could think, for example, of the Pentagon as a monarchic power within the global military dimension: the Pentagon often acts on the basis of unilateral decisions. Or think of the United States government, which assumes a monarchic role globally when it governs de facto international political and economic transactions. Secondly, among the global aristocratic forces we would include, beyond the US, the other dominant nation-states, and also the forces which are not states, such as the principal capitalist multinationals, international institutions such as the United Nations, supranational economic institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and a series of other powers. The monarchic forces cannot even govern this Empire on their own, but must constantly work with the various global aristocracies. That means, in other words, that no nation-state can govern this Empire unilaterally, not even the most powerful nation-state, not even the United States.
The notion of a mixed constitution, which involves collaboration between monarchic and aristocratic global forces, is a good introduction to the concept of imperial sovereignty. A more articulate and innovative conceptual approach, which in some ways defines the concept better, is to consider Empire as a network of power and imperial sovereignty as a form of distributed network. A distributed network does not have a centre; rather, it presents a number of nodes which can connect each other in various ways. In this conception, the dominant nation-states, the bigger capitalist multinationals, the supranational institutions and the other global powers would be simply many nodes in the network of imperial sovereignty, and these nodes would work together in different combinations and at different moments.
The network model clarifies our previous statement, namely that the distinction between inside and outside tends to become obfuscated in Empire; there are, obviously, external elements in every distributed network, but every node of the network can potentially be included, so that the border between inside and outside becomes undefined.
We shall dwell on this point in order to avoid certain misunderstandings which can easily occur. First, we should note that, when we say that national sovereignty is not at the base of the Empire, as it was for imperialism of modernity, this – again – does not mean that the nation-state is no longer important. In the debate about globalization, too, often this fact is seen as an alternative, an equation: on the one hand people say that, since the nation-state is still effective, there is no globalization. We say that this is a false alternative. The dominant nation-states are still powerful, but they are not the ultimate power. The network structure of the global Empire includes the dominant nation-states, as we have said, together with numerous other powers. In the second place, when we say that Empire is not characterized by conflicts and intra-imperialist wars, this does not mean that there are no longer conflicts between the principal nations. It means, rather, that the conflicts and contradictions between the various nodes of the imperial network are internal to the imperial structure itself. At the same time, when we say that there is no longer an outside of Empire or, more precisely, that the distinction between the inside and the outside is constantly obfuscated, we do not mean that there is no longer hierarchy and subordination in the world, that there is no longer a division between those who have power and those who do not. On the contrary, Empire functions by means of a proliferation of hierarchies and through the divisions internal to its structure. However, these lines of division cannot be understood in terms of national borders or global lines which divide the North from the South, the East from the West, the First World from the Third World, and so on. The lines of hierarchy and exploitation are much more complex and interlacing, and they run through every national and local space. If we want to describe imperial sovereignty as a network, then we must remember that the net is in no sense homogeneous but what is developing is a dramatic conflict and a hierarchy between various nodes.
We hope it is clear that this network structure of Empire is perfectly in accord with the needs of the global market and with the productive circuits of global capital. Capital always needs this kind of inclusion between its spheres of production and consumption; this inclusion must always work through the existing hierarchies and in fact it generates new divisions of power and well-being. In this sense Empire could appear as the political form best suited to the neo-liberal global regime.
Now we would like to move on to the more serious objection to our notion of Empire: that the unilateral actions of the United States, in its ‘war on terror’ and in particular its invasion of Iraq, refute our hypothesis. According to this argument, the United States shows that imperialism is very much alive and kicking! The war in Iraq, however, in our view, demonstrates exactly the opposite. It is true that the rulers of the White House nurture imperialist ambitions and have constructed a plan for the US to govern the global system unilaterally. The American doctrine of security and preventive attack, the exemption of the United States from international law and international agreements and, finally, the arrogance of American leaders in dealing with all other nations are all part of this imperialist project. Indeed, American unilateralism wants to break the ongoing collaboration between monarchic and aristocratic forces which, as we have said, characterizes Empire, and seeks to assert the autonomy of the global monarch.
Today, however, more than a year since the invasion of Iraq and the ‘taking of Baghdad’, the projects of these would-be imperialists are not working. It is increasing clear that, despite the huge asymmetry in military armaments, the United States is not in a position to maintain global order unilaterally. (Clearly military force on its own is not sufficient to maintain order.)
In Iraq, on the contrary, the imperialist projects of the US have generated only chaos and had increased the areas of so-called ‘disorder’. In other words, with this negative experience, the aspiring imperialists of the White House are substantiating our hypotheses on Empire: their failures demonstrate that, today, an imperialist regime cannot exist. Only Empire – which is a decentered form of power network, characterized by an ongoing collaboration between the monarchic and aristocratic elements of global power – is capable of maintaining the hierarchies of global order.
Finally, before leaving the question of Empire, we want to clarify another specificity of our thinking. Today, we see Empire not as an accomplished fact but as a tendency. This method, of the tendency, is also a characteristic of the writings of Marx. Halfway through the nineteenth century, when capitalist production extended to only part of the British economy, to a still smaller slice of the European economy, and to a tiny fraction of the global economy, Marx recognized capital as a tendency projected towards the future, and thus he analyzed a society which was entirely capitalist. Our reasoning on Empire is similar. Empire is the only form through which global capital and its neo-liberal regime can maintain and guarantee their global order, and this fact makes the imperial tendency a necessity. It is interesting to ask what was the date that inaugurated this transition from imperialism to Empire – perhaps it was the social movements in China in 1989, perhaps it the collapse of the Soviet system, perhaps the defeat of the United States in Vietnam, perhaps the global chain of revolts in 1968. In any case, Empire is not fully realized today, but we say that it is the emergent form of the power we shall have to confront tomorrow. It would be a good idea to analyze it today, so as to be in a position to fight it tomorrow.
Excerpted from Antonio Negri, Empire and Beyond, (Polity Press, 2008) pp.123-7.
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