The Global Politics of Environment

Environment degradation brings about as much ethical problems as an ecological one. Present day economic activities including careless fast consumption living habits and waste producing ignorant life styles exploits resources unsustainably across space and across time. Shifting the experience of environmental harm which occurs - across time by which future generation will suffer the environmental effects of today’s mad life styles - as well as across space - that is the physical transportation or unintended consequences of polluting other parts of the world.

The conceptualization of ecological foot prints and shadow ecologies also refers to the exploitation of the renewable and non renewable resources and environmental services. The foot print is a conservative measure of how much productive land and water an individual, city, country or humanity requires to produce all resources it consumes and to absorb all the wastes it generates (Wackernagel et al. 2002, p.12). Globally, humanity is outstripping biospheric capacity. It should be noted that not all harm is intentional and deliberate. Rather harm done through unintended consequences and negligence or the failure to take reasonable precautions to prevent the risk of harm to others and future generation.

There seem to be growing commitment to the proposition that humankind is bound together as an ecological community of fate which establishes the basis for moral obligation. The biophysical complexities of the planetary ecosystem help to define it as global commons and a public good, extending the bounds of those with whom we are connected, to whom we owe obligations and against whom we might claim rights. The two themes of obligations and rights are concepts that are central to understanding ethical concerns in global politics.


Sovereign rights for states over resources and environmental policy have been central to the development of international environmental law. Yet a normative framework for state obligations is essential for better environmental governance. So far states have paid less attention to their obligations than to their rights. Along with responsibility and liability comes the issue of whether states have an obligation to inform and consult other states and their citizens with respect to detrimental impact of their activities

Principle about liability or compensation that has comes under the Polluter Pays Principle PPP programme is designed to prevent public subsidization of environmental repair or preventive action. In other words, all costs should be borne by the polluter, so that polluters should not otherwise have an unfair commercial or competitive advantage.

There has also been new concepts such as the common heritage of humankind, intergenerational equity, prior informed consent and environmental rights that must be incorporated into international law, both as principles and as specific provisions designed to give effect to those principles.


The conventional wisdom in the world of business is that consumers have not and will not pay extra for environmental benefits. The consumers are entangled in deeper values related to consumer sovereignty, collective choice behavior, and concern for environmental quality that varies across regions, social groups and even nations. For example vehicle buyers have rarely been offered the choice between products differentiated only by levels of performance on environmental measures. Little is understood and attention paid by car producers about consumer demand for environmental attributes of vehicles.

Hence new norm of behaviour and changes in attitudes, social values and aspirations is necessary to provide conditions for achieving sustainable development - sustainable development requires:
A political system that secures effective citizen participation… an economic system that is able to generate surpluses and technical knowledge on a self reliant and sustained basis, a social system that provides for solutions for the tensions arising from disharmonious development, a production system that respects the obligation to preserve the ecological base for development, a technological system that can search continuously for new solutions, an international system that fosters sustainable patterns of trade and finance and an administrative system that is flexible and has the ;capacity for self correction (WCED, 1987, p. 65).

However there is an argument that poverty cannot be ended by overall economic growth because the costs of growth how approximate or exceed its benefits and because it overlooks social equity (Daly 2002, p. 47).

Poverty reduction is expected to increase people’s ability to invest in environmentally sustainable activities and decrease their propensity to engage in environmentally destructive patterns of behaviour. Self interested reasons are offered for the world’s richer countries to support poverty alleviation because in the global village, someone else’s poverty very soon becomes one’s own problem. Lack of markets for one’s products, illegal immigration, pollution, contagious disease, insecurity, fanaticism, and most important terrorism. (UNGA, 2001, p.13).

References:

Morrison, Z., 2003, Cultural justice and addressing social exclusion - Urban Renaissance? Geo forum, vol 34

Wackeragel, M., 2002, Ecological foot print of nations; Nov 2002

WCED (world commission on environment and development), 1987, our common future, Oxford: Oxford university Press

UNGA (United Nation General Assembly), report of the high level panel on financing for development

THE SEARCH FOR POWER

Man has long sought to control power as well as energy. His own body is very limited in power, the rate at which it can do work, either in brief bursts, or for a sustained period of time. When he discovered the principles of momentum, leverage, tension, and the wedge, man could throw, pry, propel and split with a directed force for greater than the capacity of his own muscles. For most of his evolutionary history, his own body was the only engine man had. The invention of coke and the invention of the steam engine had synergistic consequences: from them sprang the complex of coal pits, railroads, and steel mills that were the structural frame work of the industrial revolution. Through the efforts of Newton and many of his successors, we know a great deal about how the forces of nature act, how to measure them, and how to predict what will happen if a certain conjunction of phenomena occurs. That is all we need to know to construct an industrial society and a technological world.
The English brewer, James Prescott Joule, devised Joule produced heat from work and found that the same amount of work no matter how performed, always yielded an equal amount of heat which went on to the first law of thermodynamics: that energy can neither be created nor destroyed in any observable process.

The terms renewable (income) and non-renewable (fund), used to describe energy resources, reflect man’s time perception. A resource is renewable if it can be grown or replenished at a rate meaningful to man. Renewable energy resources include food, solar radiation, fuel, wood, water power and wind power. A resource is non renewable if its rate of formation is so slow as to be meaningless in terms of the human life span. Coal, petroleum, and natural gas are formed over periods of hundred of thousands of years. These resources are for all practical purposes not renewable. The economic limit to exploitation of a non renewable resource further implies a time limit determined by the rate at which the resource is consumed. Technology can and has greatly extended the limits of both renewable resources, but such extensions are temporary and tend to benefit only some of the earth’s people.

In striking contrast to the dynamic, delicately adjusted energy system of the biosphere is the almost static energy system of rocks and minerals, where geochemical concentrations effected over millions of years wait man’s exploitation. The opening of large mines does change the energy system in a small area of the outermost part of the earth’s crust, but generally little energy is transferred and the mineral resource is not destroyed. Although for 99.9% of his existence as a genus, man used only renewable resources for his energy needs, now only about 10% of the world’s energy consumption comes from renewable sources; about two-thirds of that is food for humans and feed for animals; about 25% is wood, refuse of vegetable origin, and excrement used as fuel; the remainder is hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal, and wind power.

Although one could maintain that most forms of energy used by man (except nuclear, tidal, and geothermal) are of solar origin, the term solar energy usually refers only to useful heat and power obtained directly from the sun’s radiation. Solar radiation can be controlled by man for two purposes: to produce useful heat and to produce electric power. In a properly designed world more than 20% of mankind’s energy needs could be provided by solar heating. Other than social inertia, there appear to be no serious barriers to much greater use of solar heating and cooling. Buildings need to be specially sited, designed, and constructed, and the solar energy units need to be standardized and mass produced to be economic alternatives to present space heating and cooling systems.

Solar power is quite a different matter. It is technically feasible to convert solar radiation to electricity but existing technology is expensive and inefficient. Solar power enthusiasts are optimistic in their predictions of lowered cost. They gain eager follower because of the appeal of a pollution free completely renewable source of electricity in face of the mounting problems of pollution, risk, and ecological disturbance that accompany our increased reliance on fossil and fissile fuels.


SCIENCE SAVES THE OIL INDUSTRY

The drilling side of the oil business explaining the impact of recent technological advances in oil exploration and production through fancy charts and slides, potted histories, and personal anecdotes, they claim that oil business has been radically transformed. The technological changes now sweeping through the oil business promise to transform it almost beyond recognition. So much oil is pumped out of the floating sea platforms that it more than paid for itself in their first years of operation. With the help of advanced robotics and seismic know how, they drill elaborate multidirectional wells that twisted and turned their ways around obstacles beneath the ocean floor to hit giant pockets of oil.
The pace of innovation in petroleum is not really surprising when you consider t he economic prize. The global economy is utterly dependent on this filth, geographically concentrated and geopolitically risky hydrocarbon to run its planes, buses, and cars. This industry receives enormous subsidies and disguised incentives ranging from the under taxation of gasoline in many countries to the west’s military presence in the middle east, to free dredging of canals by America’s Army Corps of Engineers for the safe passage of oil tankers. All of these perversions of the market reinforce the petroleum economy and reduce the financial risk that the oil sector must absorb.

Experts are convince that there are few “elephant” giant fields left to be discovered on land. Even the discoveries in countries surrounding the Caspian Sea, often talked up by journalists and security experts as the next Great Game of geopolitics, do not add up to a herd of elephants. Within the context of the Mediterranean market, the Russian black sea ports are an important outlet for both crude oil and oil products into the region. Should the Russian oil industry rebound and its export infrastructure expand, then that would have a major impact on regional balances. To the disappointment of oil majors, there simply is not enough oil in the Caspian (compared to the enormous woolly-mammoth fields of the Middle East) to make a big difference in the global energy equation. Just about the only virgin territory left is under the ocean. Underwater drilling is , in itself, nothing new. After all, the north sea and near shores of t he Gulf of Mexico have for decades been important oil producing regions. Until recently, however, many geologists were convinced that offshore oil would be restricted to shallower waters. The sorts of rock conducive to oil accumulation, they argued, would be found only in ancient river deltas and other formations close to shore. Veterans of the oil business recall that the notion of finding oil under thousands of feet of water was ridiculed until just a few years ago. Now oil majors are betting that enormous amounts of oil are trapped under the deep waters of Brazil, West Africa, and of course, the Gulf of Mexico. As you fly out by helicopter from New Orleans to Ursa, the entire history of America’s offshore exploration unfolds below you in a scene, alive and crowded.


NUCLEAR ENERGY AND NUCLEAR REACTIONS

When coal, oil and natural gas are burned their hydrocarbons react with the oxygen in air to yield carbon dioxide and water. In the process energy is released. The source of this energy is the rearrangement of the chemical bonds of the various compounds involved in the reactions. Chemical bonds involve the outermost electrons of atoms. Nuclear energy results from rearrangements of the components of the nuclei of atoms, and because the forces between these are very much greater than those between the outer electrons of the atom, the energy released in nuclear reactions is very much greater than that in chemical reactions. Typically 100 million times more energy is released in a nuclear reaction than in a chemical reaction.

Nucleons stay together as a nucleus because the nuclear strong force of attraction is dominant in stable nuclei. Therefore, to dismember a nucleus into separate protons and neutrons work has to be done against this force. The amount of work that is necessary is called the binding energy of the nucleus. An alternative way of looking at this is to say that he total energy of a group of nucleons bound together as a nucleus is less than their total energy when they are separated. A mechanical analogy might compare the nucleons in the nucleus with marbles in the bottom of a bowl. The marbles remain together in the bowl unless kinetic energy is supplied to them, by stirring for example, when they may be able, while moving around, to fall over the upper edge of the bowl. In the same way, energy supplied to nucleons may cause the nucleus to disrupt.

Three categories of radioactive waste materials are recognized, as low, intermediate and high level wastes. When nuclear wastes are discussed it is usually the high level category of waste, which is viewed as presenting the most difficulties. About 30 tonnes of spent fuel are removed from a 1000 Mwe reactor each year and the high level wastes constitutes about 1 tonne of this. The total volume of material is small but it consists of high activity, high heat output isotopes. These result from the irradiation of the fuel itself and fall into two broad groups, the fission products and the actinides ( the heavy elements formed in the fuel by various neutron capture and radioactive decay reactions).

Nuclear power stations, for most of their history, have been seen by their operator as providing electricity more cheaply than stations fuelled by coal, oil and gas. Recently the claims have been reversed. This has been particularly so in the UK in the build up to and aftermath of electricity privatization. The reversal is partly due to changes in the accounting practices and procedures used, partly to the increased cost of constructing modern nuclear reactors to standards which satisfy the latest regulations, and partly to the recognition of higher downstream cost associated with fuel reprocessing, decommissioning and management of radioactive wastes.

Nuclear power made a very confident entrance into the arena of electricity production. Gradually, however, with growing environmental awareness a nd changing public attitudes to science and technology, concern has grown. It is most evident in the areas of safety, the possible long term consequences of exposure to increased levels of back ground radiation and what is to be done about high level radioactive wastes. Additional concerns are voiced about plutonium production and accumulation, the spread of nuclear power to countries which may not be sufficiently technically advanced to cope with its management, and the political and ethical problems associated with providing security for nuclear plant. The cost of electricity produced by nuclear power has also been queried and the claim that it is cheaper than that produced by its competitors has been contested severely for some years. These changing attitudes have had a widespread influence. They have also been gained support in the wake of the accidents involving the nuclear power stations around the world.

Nuclear power is at a crossroads at the present time. It is able to become one of the least polluting producers of electricity, but it has to overcome a legacy of distrust in a sceptical public. For there to be a resurgence in its fortunes it must re-establish its credibility. Any new major accident to an existing reactor would make this very difficult, where as serious power shortages or large price rises due to the implementation of expensive pollution control procedures with fossil fuel plants would enhance its prospects.

References;

Robert Hill, Phil O’keefe and Colin Snape; 1995, The future of ENERGY USE, Earthscan, London

Rose, D. J., 1986 ; Learning About Energy, MIT, Cambridge

Vaitheeswaran, V. V., POWER TO THE PEOPLE; How the coming energy revolution will transform an industry, change our lives, and maybe even save the planet; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, (2003)

Horsnell, P., The Mediterranean Basin in the World Petroleum Market, 2000, Oxford University Press

Environment - Informing the public

Fear of the unknown is a powerful human emotion. Suppose that a stranger asks you to step into a pitch-black room. Naturally you will feel very reluctant to enter. Not knowing what is inside your mind fills t he void by vividly imagining snakes, an elevator shaft, or any number of other frightening possibilities awaiting you. Your worries quickly dissipate if the light were switched on and you could see that the room was harmless. Providing information to a community is like switching on the light in a dark room.

Persuading people to change their attitude toward waste needs informative process that allows meaningful involvement by the local community. Local citizens should be given operational involvement in the process including meaningful decision-making responsibility. We must treat waste as a resource – a valuable economic commodity. We need to apply education, awareness, and sanitary literacy to achieve a strong waste reduction and recycling ethic. When the public realizes the urgency of the issue they will eventually change their mind set. Japanese were forced by their geography due to shortage of landmass, being a small island, succeeded to achieve about 50% waste recycling compared to UK 17% and US 21% (1995).

In the last century the activities of humans have placed enormous stress on the environment. The exponential growth in population combined with an increasing appetite for fast, easy consumer goods has led to an explosion in the amount of garbage we produce. People in their daily living process produce waste, which should be measured, managed and recycled into the system. Managing waste in a sustainable way, optimising recycling and reuse with growth of the population is significant factor in preserving our environment, and consequently diminishing the risk to public health.

Reusing waste is an area where community groups have led the way. The sector has pioneered many of the services that are wide spread today, including kerbside collection of recyclables. Community groups have been active in the reuse of items, which would otherwise end up as waste, through activities in a broad range such as redistribution of unwanted furniture that would reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

The UK community waste and recycling sector comprises between 850 to 1000 organisations. Most are linked by three main umbrella groups as follows:

- community composting groups
- community recycling network CRN
- furniture reuse network FRN

We need to put waste to good use, through reusing items, recycling composting, using waste as a fuel. Unfortunately ecosystem values are not readily included in financial analyses at present because commonly accepted methods and costs are not available. It is urged that economists undertake the necessary research to rectify this situation. The inability to assign real quantitative costs to environmental factors in waste management facilities does not mean that these factors should be ignored.

Each year we produce over 100 million tonnes of waste from household, commerce and industry. Most of the waste is land filled. We much tackle the quantity of waste produced breaking the link between economic growth and increased waste. Household waste is growing by around 3% each year. Considering the actual growth rate we will need twice as many new management facilities by 2020 as we would if the amount of waste stayed constant. Household waste is a relatively small part of the overall waste stream and just 9 % is recycled and a further 8% has energy recovered from it. The increase of the landfill tax provided waste producers and local authorities with strong incentives to send less waste to land. That is to reduce release of methane it produces and pollution emanated by its transportation.


Tactics in shaping mind-set

The ethics of tactics that raise emotions must be questioned. The creation of a hostile, emotionally charged atmosphere infringes on the right of community members to obtain information and make their own decisions. A factor that is seldom discussed or considered is that trust works in both directions. The missing component is a mechanism, which keeps the atmosphere calm, thus allowing objective dialogue to take place. It is only in such a calm setting that he desires of the community can be considered and informed decisions made. The natural susceptibility of humans particularly in a group to emotional rather than rational behaviour contributes to the unproductive discussions and sittings. It is common at information meetings that activist organise their members into one area where they boo and disrupt proponent speakers who may take a stance that does not agree with theirs. This is very intimidating and fosters a mob togetherness and virtually ensures that citizens will side with their view.

The key step in building an equitable relationship in sitting process is ensuring that the opponents also act in a fair and equitable fashion – in other words, that there is fairness and respect in both directions. Situations should not be allowed to develop where small but well organized and vocal opposition groups use distorted facts and polemic to stampede the potential host community into dropping out of the sitting process. It is essential that issues are thoroughly debated and false statements, distortions, and sensationalism should not be tolerated.

In summary, for meaningful discussion, governing norms need to be established that guide the conduct of involved parties and allow for an objective factual debate in a non-emotional setting.

The Attitude of Respect for Nature

Why should moral agents regard wild living things in the natural world as possessing inherent worth? To answer this question we must first take into account the fact that when rational autonomous agents subscribe to the principles of moral consideration and intrinsic value and so concieve of wild living things as having that kind of worth, such agents are adopting a certain ultimate moral attitude toward the natural world. This is the attitude called “respect for nature”. It parallels the atitude of respect for persons in human ethics. When we adopt the attitude of respect for person as the proper attitude to take toward all persons, as persons; we consider the fulfillment of the basic interest of each individual to have intrinsic value. We thereby make a moral commitment to live a certain kind of life in relation to other persons. We place ourselves under the direction of a system of standards and rules that we consider validly binding on all moral agents as such. Similarly when we adopt the attitiude of respect for nature as an ultimate oral attitude we make a commitment to live by certain normative principles. These principles constitute the rules of conduct and standards of character that are to govern our treatment of the natural world. This is first an ultimate commitment because it is not derived from any higher norm. the attitude of respect for nature is not grounded on some other, more general, or more fundamental attitutde. It sets the total framework for our responsibilities toward the natural world. It can be justified, but its justification cannot consist in referring to a more general attitude or a more basic normative principle. Second the commitment is a moral one because it is understood to be a disinterested matter of principle. It is this feature that distinguishes the attitude of respect for nature from the set of feelings and dispositions that compromise the love of nature. The latter stems from one’s personal interest in and response to the natural world. Like the affectionate feelings we have toward certain individual human beings, that is when one’s love of nature is that particular way one feels about the natural environment and its wild inhabitants. Just as our love for an individual person differes from our respect for all persons, as such, so love of nature differes from respect for nature. Respect for nature is an attitude we believe all moral agents ought to have simply as moral agents, regardless of whether or not they also love nature. Indeed, we have not truly taken the attitude of respect for nature ourselves unless we believe this. To put it in a Kantian way, to adopt the attitude of respect for nature is to take a stance that one wills it to be a universal law for all rational beings. It is to hold that stance categorically, as being validly applicable to every moral agent without exception, irrespective of whatever personal feelings toward nature such an agent might have or might lack. Although the attitude of respect for nature is in this sense a dis-interested and universalizable attitude, anyone who does adopt it has certain steady, more or less permanent dispositions. The logical connection between the attitude of respect for natue and the duties of a life centered system of environmental ethics can be made clear. Insofar as one sincerely takes that attitude and so has a few sets of dispositions, one will at the same time be disposed to comply with certain rules of duty such as non maleficence and non interference and with standards of character such as fairness and benevolence that determine the obligations and vitures of moral agents with regard to the "Earth’s Wild Living Things".

Extracted from:

Sterba, J. P. , 2003: Justice, Alternative Political Perspectives, Thomson Publishers
Wollstonecraft, M., A Vindication of the Rights of Women; New York: Norton, 1967

Barry, B., 1995; Justice as Impartiality, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Relationships in Geomorphology

In many respects, the theory of the normal cycle of erosion remains an unproven one, although it was based on extensive and detailed field observations of landforms in the eastern US and Europe, it remained assentially a descriptive conceptual model. The most notable objections came from the disbelief that such rapid uplift could occur to initiate a new cycle and that examples of the end-point could not be identified at or near any current base level of erosion. The objections were strongly expressed, elaborating on slope form and erosion, were controlled primarily by varying rates of uplift and the balance achieved between the rate of down cutting of a valley floor and the angle of the valley – side slope. Slopes were thus independent of a cycle but were in a state of dynamic equilibrium controlled by the energy of a river in relation to the rate of uplift of the land surface.

This idea was later embraced through landscape evolution – the end point of which was a land form termed a pediplain. A work on the erosional development of streams and their drainage basins and a quantitiative approach in which landforms would be measured and erosional processes analysed was put forward. Meanwhile considerable work had been initiated on the mapping of slopes and the morphometric analysis heralded in a new thinking which was to establish geomorphology as a quantitative science. Other developments in progress was remarks on a number of morphogenetic regions characterized by differeing climatic controls based on mean annual temperature and rainfall in which frost action, chemical weathering, mass movement, wind action and pluvial erosion all played a part. Interest in climatic geomorphology did initiate a number of more detailed studies of weathering and erosional processes operating in differing climatic regimes through time.

Explanations of slope form and slope processes were also a feature of shift towards a more thorough interpretation of the role of processes rather than structure or time in landscape studies. In Britain relationships were explored interlinking soils, regolith formation, denudation and slope form. A further systematic approach to the topic was presented, examining slope development through time, soil and rock instability, surface and subsurface erosion and rates of operation and formation as applied to different climatic regimes.

The “final affair” is that with the systems approach in which, the move towards quantification inherent in the empirical work and the shift away from descriptive denudation chronology elsewhere represented the attractive “chemistry” which pulled geomorphology into this new liaison. Systems theory was seen as providing a methodology around which all aspects of physical geography could unite and in so doing join the mainstream of scientific progress. In some respects, geomorphology was the last branch of physical geography to become attracted to this new thinking. Thus morphological, cascading, process response and control systems were all defined and exemplified, which in turn generated a plethora of further research in nearby all aspects of geomorphology, which had by now firmly nailed the process flag to its mast. The systems approach is furthered by an interdisciplinary convergence on environmental matters. The socio-economic aspects are integrated with physical and biological theory and in so doing a range of environmental matters are spawned. Many applied aspects of hydrology and fluvial geomorphology were addressed and the relationships across “the divide” between physical and human geography were discussed. In some respects this contributed to the literature of physical geography as well as heralding the rise of environmetal concerns which were to establish themselves onwards.

The progress and control that process studies exerted continued, increasing the fragmentation of the branches of geomorphology. There were even accusations that process orientated geomorphologists had “Lost the Plot” and forgotten that the main purpose of process studies was to explain the origins of landforms. Neverthless, the trend is ongoing and there remains considerable division between the reductionist approach and those who see processes as either an essential part of an over all picture of landscape evolution or as a necessary underpinning to applied studies which attempt to address the role of human influences on natural systems.


References:

King, L.C., 1950: A study of the world’s plainlands: a new approach in geomorphology quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London

King, L.C., 1953: Canons of landscape evolution, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America

Tricart, J., and Cailleux, A., 1972: introduction to climatic geomorphology; translated by C.J.K de Jonge. Longman, London

Chorley, R. J. and Kennedy, B. A., 1971: Physical Geography: A systems approach, Prentice Hall, London

Chorley, R. J., 1969: Water, Earth and Man, Methven, London

Geopolitical Assets of the Balkans

A robust NATO enlargement in Prague, including Bulgaria and other qualified aspirants, will contribute to the victory in the war against terrorism. In other words, Bulgaria’s Euro Atlantic interest coincides with America’s strategic interest to acquire new, reliable allies in the war on terrorism and complete the project of a Europe whole, free, and secure. (Simone Saxe – Goburg) (1)

A great deal of research on the Balkans has focused on its prospects of peace and regional cooperation. Much less attention has been devoted to studying its significance as a bridge towards the Middle East and Central Asia, against the background of changing global security priorities, the importance of the region has increased, especially when considering that EU and NATO programmes have been extended towards Central Asia. As more and more countries, also outside the geographic borders of Europe, are involved in cooperation with NATO and the EU, the geopolitical centre of these previously West based institutions has implicitly moved to the east. Their respective enlargements have acquired geopolitical significance.

The importance of the Balkans in the process of NATO’s post cold enlargement changed considerably. During the Cold War the region was a crucial component of the spheres of influence approach in Great power relations and a meeting place of their respective military alliances. With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and throughout the disintergration of former Yugoslavia, the prevailing rhetoric in European security suggested that the geopolitical importance of Southeast Europe was declining. It was certainly not a factor in the initial enlargement decisions of the Euro Atlantic structures. NATO recognised the geopolitical significance of the Balkans after the Kosovo crisis and especially after 11 Sept 2001.

Such perceptions have become typical of the renewed interest of the western powers in the Balkans. The change occurred parallel to Russia’s withdrawal from the regional. This principal geopolitical shift was marked by the demise of the European spheres of influence and a major repositioning of units in the regional system. Euro Atlantic integration became a priority for the countries historically oriented towards Russia (Bulgaria, Romania, and the independent states of former Yugoslavia). The former Southeast European satellites of the Soviet Union now gravitate towards Western Europe with two principal consequences. First as the dependence of Eastern Europe upon the West increases, Russia applies alternative strategies of enhancing its regional position. Second, in parallel to Eastern Europe she, too, becomes co-opted into the structures of European governance without full membership in its institutions.
The Balkans was the last point of Russia’s retreat from geopolitical influence in Eastern Europe. Russian withdrawal from peace building in Kosovo (1999-2001) exemplifies this trend. As Pavel Baev has noted: Russia’s influence in the Balkans, NATO distanced Russia from the region and made her dependent upon its strategy of security involvement outside Europe. Russia’s status in the NATO-Russia institutionalised cooperation, best described as co-opted dependency, precludes the latter’s future return to Southeast Europe. The increased geopolitical weight of the Alliance in that region was accomplished by an enhanced membership base, monitoring of democratic reforms, and close cooperation with the Balkan countries in international coalitions of the willing.

What is the adequate measure of the Balkans’ contribution to NATO? First, the rationalisation of NATO’s operations in Southeast Europe since 1999 has relied upon regional factors and anchors of stability. An expanded membership became a logical solution. Through enlargement, Bulgaria and Romania emerged as a stability factor for the entire Balkans region. Considerable strengthening of the regional political dialogue was achieved on the basis of joint political statement and partnerships with the candidate countries from the Western Balkans, as well as Greece and Turkey, thus consolidating NATO’s south eastern flank. Such high profile initiatives suggest that there are good prospects for developing a positive regional security dynamic.

Second the war on terrorism considerably increased the strategic importance of Turkey within NATO and thence, the role of the entire Balkans region as a source of diversification and reinforcement of Turkey’s military and political contribution to the Alliance. An expanded south eastern flank is needed also to revitalise the Greco Turkish relationship, frozen by Cold War regional geopolitics. The protracted character oft e Cyprus issue remains a potentially destabilising factor with serious regional spillover consequences. The unresolved territorial integrity of the island, issues of sovereignty refugees, property restitution, and security undermine security in the eastern Mediterranean.

NATO’s enlargement to the Balkans extends the framework of bilateral dialogue and cooperation mechanisms so far available to Greece and Turkey. It diversifies the existing NATO and US capabilities in the region and creates incentives towards participative, rather than competitive methods of resolving the outstanding controversies between the two countries. While NATO recognizes that Turkey occupies a unique position, the geographic expansion of the Alliance to Southeast Europe performs functions of actor socialisation and facilitates strategic adjustment in the entire region.

Third, the security situation in the Balkans indicates that progress towards self sustaining stability has been highly disproportionate to the extent of international involvement there. NATO’s continued presence is needed. Its south east initiative recognised that instability and conflict in southeastern Europe - which is geographically sandwiched by one NATO member in the north (Hungry) and three in the south (Greece, Italy and Turkey) – have posed direct challenges to the Alliance’s interest, during the past decade. Assuring the successful completion of military reform in the Balkans has been a major venue in the political stabilisation of the region. Democratic and civilian control over national military establishments was accomplished exclusively through the partnership for Peace Programme under NATO and US influence. Prior to the 2002 enlargement decision, Bulgaria and Romania received nearly 39 % of the 55.5 million dollar financing authorised for NATO candidates under the US Gerald B H Solomon Freedom Consolidation Act. The de-politicisation of Croatia’s army was a requirement for its recognition as a candidate country. Bosnia-Herzegovina has been criticised by the Alliance for failing to integrate its military into a joint service, undivided along ethnic lines. While such deficiencies indicate that a number of Balkan countries are still inadequately prepared to join NATO, the latter’s continued presence in the region encourages democratic and military reforms and facilitates its integration into the Europe-Atlantic structures.
Fourth, the assessment of the geopolitical relevance of the Balkans region has been revised. The Balkans is of strategic importance to Europe and NATO. Its geographic location contributes to the creation of reliable links to the Middle East and Central Asia. The foreign policy and research community has recognised the inadequacy of a contained regional approach to security. Southeast Europe presents an opportunity to open up and expand the concept of security provision to the core by projecting stability towards the outlying environment. Conceptually (but also for practical purposes), the Balkans is inseparable from the entire Black Sea region and further to the east connects to Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. Extending and more importantly, relocating a territorial and strategic potential within the geographic borders of Europe, ie, within its security system but directly operational out of area, is a significant enhancement of NATO’s comprehensive threat response capacity. The Balkans became a critical first step in the practical reform of NATO’s reconceptualisation to project stability where it matters in order to secure Europe. Southeast Europe is instrumental in the conduct of military operations against international terrorism. Bulgaria and Romania are the largest new members of the Alliance contributing real strategic assets. They have helped free up other Alliance capabilities for peace building and humanitarian assistance, and primarily in the war on terrorism. The two countries have acted as de facto Alliance members since the Kosovo and the Afghanistan campaigns. Senior US officials state that Romania’s main assets are its geographic location-proximity to trouble spots in the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa. It would be an ideal spot for the deployment of US troops on their way to Afghanistan were considerably delayed by the necessity to use the Trebizond airbase on the Turkish Black sea coast possess the same geographic characteristics as Trebizond and could serve as alternative routes, thus reinforcing NATO’s logistics base. Considerable operational and strategic capacities exist in Romania, also on its Black Sea coast. Both countries are willing to host US and NATO bases. The Balkans is part of the new US strategy of base relocation and troop reductions in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and western Europe and is related to broader strategic plans for base development in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia. Equally noteworthy is the observation that public consensus in western Europe with respect to troop deployment abroad is usually hard to reach. As a comparison, the ratification of decisions and international agreements concerning arms deliveries and military contributions to missions in Afghanistan and Iraq has had consistent parliamentary support in Bulgaria and Romania. As Heritage foundation expert John Hulsman has noted, Europe is more pro American the farther east you go.

This assessment sharply contrast with a widely shared scepticism in regard to the preparedness of the Balkans to be a part of NATO. Bulgaria and Romania’s potential security assets may be offset by the need to pursue military reforms after membership. The capacity of the Alliance to absorb new members may be adversely affected. Such criticism, while duly pointing to the cost of the enlargement process, is hardly in line with the enhanced geostrategic value of enlargement. Bulgaria and Romania, as fragile as their democracy may be, have preserved civil peace in the most extreme conditions that post communist transformation has known in Eastern Europe. Ethnic conflicts from the western Balkans did not spill over their borders Bulgaria, under communism a country of intolerance vis a vis its Turkish minority, has displayed a stable model of its inter ethnic relations. This is hardly and indication of a fragile or inconsistent commitment to democratic values. Bulgaria and Romania’s NATO membership can be expected to contribute also to improving security in southeast Europe, as both countries enjoy excellent relations with crucial members of the Alliance in the region-Greece and Turkey.

The southeast enlargement, therefore, has been a positive contribution to NATO’s military and strategic capacity. It reaffirms the commitment of the Alliance to maintain its presence in the Balkans and support its political stabilisation. On the other hand, enlargement captures the positive momentum generated in the region against the back ground of changing international security dynamics. NATO and US support for the Balkan countries, including plans to deploy military personnel in bases in Romania and Bulgaria, indicates that perceptions within the Alliance are changing. It also reflects the potential of the Balkans region to act beyond security demand as a factor of security supply.



(1) Bulgarian Prime Minister lecture before the Heritage Foundation held on 24 april 2002 , www.heritage.org

Stefanov, B., NATO’s mixed policy motives in the southeast European enlargement: Revisiting Balkan Geopolitics, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, vol 13, no 1, April 2005

Baev, P., (1998) Russia’s departure from empire: self-assertiveness ad a new retreat, in: O Tunader, P.Baev and V. Ingrid Einagel (eds) Geopolitics in post wall Europe: security, territory nd identity, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi

Environmental NGOS

NGOs presence at and participation in environmental governance can contribute to improved transparency and accountability and can be a check and balance on unbridled state sovereignty. NGOs have played an important role in contributing to the massive increase in international environmental legislation as well as revealing the inadequacies of the traditional legal process. NGOs have been effective in highlighting environmental problems and in mobilising public opinion and support for sustainable development. They create channels of communication, inform public opinion, help to create new international norms and contribute to the scientific debate. NGOs have become increasingly important in the monitoring and compliance of international environmental agreements, often drawing public and government attention to instances of non-compliance and placing pressure on governments and corporate interest. Studies suggest that NGOs have been able to influence the content of environmental agreements and practice on particular issues. Stairs and Taylor (1992) for example, examine the role of NGOs in protection of the oceans, concluding that NGOs have been effective and influential in that regime. Elliott (1994) argues that NGOs were important in the rejection by governments of the Anarctic minerals agreement and the subsequent negotiation of an environmental protocol to the Antarctic Treaty. Benedict (1991) draw attention to the influence of NGOs on the Montreal Protocol negotiations, suggesting that NGO participation is an important factor in getting better environmental agreements. Tolbert explores the ways in which NGOs have sought to influence the climate change negotiations, arguing that their impact is not to be underestimated and is likely to be quite substantial (1991, p. 108).

Views are mixed on the impact and influence of NGOs; however, the knowledge and information sharing of NGOs clearly contributes to awareness raising. Despite some tensions among NGOs the global forum process strengthens networks and information exchange among a range of groups with environmental concerns, especially those from the south. This further development of global civil society, as something different from the influence of specific NGOs on the state centric policy making is one potential important outcome. On the other hand, Preston argues that access does not necessarily translate into influence elaborating on the effect of NGOs (1994) and that they are effectively outflanked by the corporate sector. Princen suggests that the potential influence of NGOs is strengthened because of their ability to position themselves within both top down and bottom up approaches to international environmental policy making (1994, p. 38) thus, in effect, linking the global and the local. NGOs can play an important role in offering alternative approaches and in broadening the horizons of the debate; they can bring a global perspective to negotiations and debate and are often the only groups talking about the long term view, or bringing up difficult concepts such as the rights of future generations (1984, p. 173). Banuri argues that NGOs have begun to articulate a genuinely alternative vision of development (1993, p. 58). Active NGO participation …..is playing an increasingly important role in a constructive vigilance concerning human values and unmet needs. In this view, t hen, NGOs should be conceived as not only being non governmental bodies but as providing a voice for grassroots movements (Gudynas, 1989, p. 199).

The emphasis on democratisation is a central theme in global civil society. Barnes argues that the international NGO phenomena provides the cutting edge of the common interest (1984, p. 175). NGO participation in international affairs buttresses democracy but questions are raised, however, about how best to understand the representative nature of NGOs. Some question the claims to representation and therefore participation on the grounds that NGOs are not for elected or necessarily accountable to the peoples whom they claim to represent. This is an observation which rather skirts the fact that a substantial proportion of the world’s governments are not freely elected either and election techniques are not as accountable as it was meant by theory. As a note in the Harvard Law Review observes, participatory rights at intergovernmental organisations are meaningful primarily for well organised, well finance and well informed NGOs (Anon., 1991a, p.1589). Yet it may be that it is the voice of new and minority and non traditional NGOs that the international system most needs to hear to solve global problems which are increasingly international, interdependent and non responsive to traditional power politics. The importance of global civil society lies not just in its potential to improve the participatory or democratic nature of environmental governance, in which case the goal is better policy making, but also in opening a political space for t he expression of marginalised voices and those for whom environmental degradation is symptomatic of a broader structural oppression and silencing.

The continued emphasis on growth as a fundamental principle in the world political economy and as a precondition for sustainable development and a successful measure of it, precludes any debate about the need for an intelligent restraint of growth. William Rees argues that the pursuit of sustainable development should force a reconsideration of the entire material growth ethic, the central pillar of industrial society (1990, p.21), what Sanders calls the ’gospel of export-led growth’ (1990, p. 396). Sustainable development legitimises the growth ethic. However critics argue that growth is not the solution to poverty or environmental degradation. Sachs suggests that the argument that growth will alleviate poverty is the single most important pretension of the development ideology (1991, p. 254). The maximising of economic growth does not ensure that the benefits will be equitably distributed (1991, p. 192). There is now a substantial body of evidence to support the proposition that unrestrained economic growth is incompatible with environmental stability and balance. World economic growth, is becoming more uneven rather than less and is showing signs of slowing - a shrinking world market with declining terms of trade will serve to accelerate environmental degradation as nations seek to maximise agricultural, mining and other commodity exports in a losing effort to stay even. The objection is that poverty rather than its underlying causes is cast as the problem, which makes it easier to hold poor people responsible for environmental degradation and to require action on their part. Further, it defines unsustainable development as primarily a developing country problem. Yet, rich countries use more resources and emit more waste than poor ones. It is critics suggest, therefore too simplistic a view of the relationship between poverty and environmental degradation and one which tends to gloss over any recognition that poverty is structurally determined (Redclift, 1984, p. 59). Reliance on GNP as a measure of sustainable growth is also viewed with considerable discomfort. To measure an economy on indicators such as GNP is like trying to fly a jumbo jet with only one gauge on the instrument panel (Henderson, 1992). GNP does not measure external costs such as environmental degradation or resource depletion. The results of timber felling, for example, are usually treated as a net contribution to capital growth, even when it might lead to long term deforestation and loss of resources. Indeed it is more likely to advance the argument that a move to environmentally sustainable practices could actually be accompanied by a decrease in GNP. There has been a failure to emphasis on growth and quantity has overridden the emphasis on quality, or the view that growth supports development which then supports more growth is accepted without any serious questioning. What is required in this critical perspective, is a reclaiming of a quality rather than quantity driven concept. Some scholars prefer the term eco-development although the phrases has been used in a variety of ways from a planning concept which emphasises local and regional input to an ethically committed, integrated approach which explicitly incorporates social an d cultural processes, and which is shaped by t hose processes and basic human needs, rather than assuming that those needs will automatically be fulfilled by sustainable development.

References:
Stairs, K., and Taylor, P., (1992) Non governmental organisations and the legal protection of the oceans: a case study in Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury, The Intl politics of the Environment (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

Elliott, L., (1994) International environmental Politics: protecting the Antarctic (London: Macmillan)

Benedick, R., (1991), Ozone Diplomacy: new directions in safeguarding the planet (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ Press)

Tolbert, D., (1991), Global climate change and the role of international non governmental organisations, in International Law and Global Climate Change (London: Graham and Trotman)

Preston, S., (1994) Electronic global networking and the NGO movement: the 1992 Rio Summit and beyond

Princen, T., (1994) NGOs: creating a niche in environmental diplomacy in Thomas Princen and Matthias finger, environmental NGOs in World Politics: linking the global and the local (London: Routledge)

Banuri, T., (1993) The landscape of diplomatic conflicts in Wolfgang Sachs, Global Ecology: a new arena of political conflict (London: Zed Books)

Gudynas, E., (1989) the challenge to recover El Dorado, Transnational Associations, No 4, pp. 197

Rees, W., (1990) the ecology of sustainable development, The Ecologist, vol. 20, no 1, Jan/Feb pp 18-23

Barnes, J. (1984) non governmental org: increasing the global perspective, Marine Policy, vol 8, no 2, April pp. 171

Sachs, W., (1991) environment and development: the story of a dangerous liasion, The Ecologist, vol. 21, no 6, Nov/Dec, pp 252

Sanders, J. W. (1990) Global ecology and world economy: collision course or sustainable future, Bulletin of Peace Proposals, vol 24, no 1 Dec pp. 395

The Polarised Debate on Globalisation

Elliott Lecture: Globalisation: Curse or Boon? St Antony’s College, Oxford

Foreign contact of course was not invented with globalisation. Britain has a long history of providing home to successive waves of immigrants. London was first established as the capital of England by Romans from Italy. They were displaced by Saxons and Angles from Germany who were in turn invaded by Danes from Scandinavia. The great cathedrals of this land were built mostly by Norman bishops, but the religion now practised in them was settled by a Dutch prince. It is not purity that has given Britain its strength and its character but the sheer diversity of the many foreign influences which have contributed to its development.
Today globalisation challenges all nations with exposure to foreign contact and competition to an extent that not even Britain has previously encountered. Trade between nations has increased at more than double the rate of output. Even the youngest lecturer at this college has witnessed the overall volume of trade increase by more than it did from the Industrial Revolution to the Second World War. The growth in mobility has been even more exponential. It took two centuries of migration by sea to develop Australia. In modern times the equivalent of the entire population of Australia is in the air or moving through an airport at any one moment.
But most striking of all has been the revolution in communications technology which can hurl data and design across continents in seconds. Location has become irrelevant to the production process. For a century after the Industrial Revolution managers lived within walking distance of the mill. Today they are more likely to transmit their instructions by fibre-optic cable or satellite to numerically controlled machines in factories in China or Brazil.
The debate about the globalisation of economic activity has become dramatically polarised. Globalisation has become a hologram in which the picture is dependent on the perspective from which you view it. To some globalisation expresses the conditions for a welcome growth in trade and investment, and enriching contact between foreign cultures. To others it is shorthand for deepening global inequality, a threat to local cultures and worldwide homogeneity of the same consumer brands and products. Neither of these views is wholly without evidence to support it. Both of them capture different elements of the same complex reality.
As the Government made clear in last year’s Globalisation White Paper, the world is now more interdependent and interconnected than ever before. This process is irreversible. Globalisation brings with it great opportunities but also real risks. Managed wisely, the new wealth being created by globalisation creates the opportunity to lift millions of the world’s poorest people out of their poverty. But managed badly it could lead to their further marginalisation and impoverishment. Neither outcome is predetermined; it depends on the policy choices adopted by governments, international institutions, the private sector and civil society.
Globalisation has provided the conditions for the largest financial flows in history from the industrialised world to the developing world. Foreign Direct Investment has increased six fold in a generation and is now three times greater than official development aid. With investment has come technology transfer which is the main driver of industrial competition. Within my lifetime some countries of Asia have as a result moved from a standard of living broadly comparable to Africa to a standard of living broadly comparable to Europe. Within the next generation the majority of the ten countries with the highest GDP will border the Pacific not the Atlantic.
But the economic gains have not been evenly spread either within countries or between countries. Across Africa per capita income is lower than a generation ago. It is not just the irony, but the tragedy of globalisation that the poorest continent has got poorer during the era of globalisation. The communications revolution has bypassed a whole continent. Sub-Saharan Africa has fewer phones than Manhattan and the majority of its residents have never made or received a phone-call in their life.
The polarity of views on globalisation reflects the diversity of the phenomenon of globalisation. How do we set about constructing a common response to such a diverse phenomenon?
Nostalgia for a pre-global era does not offer a rational response. The problem with nostalgia is not only that it provides no guide to the future, but that it often is dishonest about the past. There are telling criticisms of the effects of globalisation which need to be addressed, but they should not be based on the myth of a past in which third world villages lived in a rural idyll and workers of the industrialised world sang the hours away at the assembly line. The traditional way of life in some of the native cultures now being changed under global pressures often embraced poverty, disease and ignorance. Work on the traditional assembly lines and garment production is now disappearing from the developed world was often repetitive, unhealthy and exploitative. The task is not to resist change but to ensure that change produces progress.
The one common ground between both advocates and critics of globalisation is that it does bring monumental change. In terms of economic change it even surpasses the experience of the post-war decades, from the Marshall Plan to the Seventies oil shock – what the French call ‘les trente glorieuses’. During that period, the British economy doubled in size, the US economy tripled. Germany and Japan both grew ten-fold.
However, the striking contrast between these two phases of economic growth is the difference in public reaction. The period of post-war growth was overwhelmingly popular and was not in itself a matter of political controversy. By contrast, the term globalisation has entered the language as an unloved, menacing word – as unattractive as it is polysyllabic.
Why this contrast in popular reaction to two periods of economic change?
The post-war consensus was built not just around economic growth. It reflected a much wider social compact which was broadly common across Western Europe. Business was guaranteed a stable environment for sustainable growth. But the wider consensus was based on an implicit social contract with the people. Their consent was based on other features of the post-war consensus. A universal standard of welfare. Equal opportunity of education and in employment regardless of birth. An open society and democratic government. These were the broad planks on which popular support was built for the prolonged post-war period dynamism of business in the Atlantic area.
A Global Social Contract
Globalisation will not enjoy a similar consensus until it offers a similar social compact.
Globalisation must be more than just a global economy. If we are to accept that a global economy requires rules on trade and investment that are common to all, then we must also accept that it requires social solidarity on the same global scale. Those nations who benefit from increased exports, reduced consumer prices and the new range of exotic fruits in their supermarkets, should be expected to put back some of that increased wealth into the provision of basic education, clean water, and primary healthcare in those communities who have none.
Yet the harshest paradox of globalisation is that while the global economy has been integrating, development aid from the rich to the poor countries within that global economy has been declining. Moreover, the global distribution of official aid sometimes appears to enhance rather than to diminish injustice. If we were to allocate aid on an index of poverty it would be unlikely to produce the current spread of development assistance, which allocates to the whole of sub-Saharan Africa only one-twentieth of the help per head available to the Middle East and North Africa.
Britain is unusual among donor countries in that we are increasing our aid budget, up by 45% in real terms in the six years from 1997. However, in most donor countries the world wide trend to lower public spending has fallen disproportionately on the aid budget with results that are the very antithesis of globalisation. For instance it is not a rational order of priorities that Europe and North America together should spend more on subsidising their domestic agriculture than on promoting development of the entire Third World.
Nor can we pretend that the benefits of global trade are available to all states when some states see their income from their current exports swallowed in part or in whole by interest on historic debt. Bad debts are not the sole creation of the borrower. They are also the result of bad lending by the creditor.
Britain has unilaterally renounced the debts to us of the forty-one most Heavily Indebted Poorest Countries. However, in some cases, most usually in cases where the government is engaged in conflict, often with its own citizens, we have not felt it right to let the government rather than its people pocket the benefit from debt relief. In those cases the interest payments are now being held in trust until such time as we can be confident they will be applied to the reduction of poverty rather than the prosecution of conflict. If the International Monetary Fund could agree on the same approach from all its members, it would secure a real reduction in the debt burden and a real increase in pressure to end conflict.
No programme for social justice within the global economy would be complete unless the demand for free trade from the industrialised world was matched by fair trade from the developing world. The World Trade Organisation meets this weekend in Qatar. If it could secure the halving of tariffs on trade from the developing world it would have delivered them a financial gain three times larger than global development aid. Nor would it be only the residents of the developing world who would benefit. Ultimately higher tariffs on trade translate into higher prices to the consumer. European consumers are currently paying in the shops three times the price for sugar on the world market.
The obstacle to the WTO achieving such a dramatic breakthrough is not anti-globalisation protestors, but old-fashioned protectionists. It is an irony for globalisation that those who preach free trade to the developing world are often disappointingly slow to practice the same policy on their own imports.
There is one useful reform that could provide a corrective to the effects of protectionism. The WTO should accept as one of its objectives achieving the agreed International Development Targets, such as the reduction by half by the year 2015 of those living below the poverty line. Endorsing these targets would be a powerful signal of the WTO’s commitment to poverty reduction, and would in itself be an acknowledgement that trade is a means to an en, not an end in itself.
An explicit social contract based on the three planks of development aid, debt reduction and fair trade would go a long way to creating a consensus for, not against, globalisation. It would mirror the post-war settlement which created the conditions for political stability as well as economic prosperity. It would answer many of the questions raised by the critics of globalisation in domestic debate.

A Global Politics
Such a social contract would not answer the thorny political questions about the new relationships between states in the modern global era.
With the social dimension to globalisation at least we know what the answers ought to be. The problem is in getting them implemented. With the political dimension we simply do not yet know what are the answers. The politics of globalisation is lagging far behind the economics of globalisation.
Globalisation will require a profound rethinking of our political structures. Political thought and concepts of political legitimacy move at a pace in which change is measured in generations. It is proving hard for that leisurely process of political change to adjust to the acceleration of technological innovation and the resultant rapid economic and social change.
For centuries the state has been the primary unit of political identity and the principal context in which political differences were resolved. Most of the population of most states, and most of their politicians, still retain a mindset that reflects the perception of politics as a domestic matter. It is hard for that mindset to come to terms with a globalised environment in which more and more issues, from economic prosperity to security against organised crime, that were once central to domestic politics, can now be satisfactorily resolved only between states rather than within states.
September 11th should have put a full-stop to unilateralism as a viable basis for foreign policy. We are all interdependent now. The future conduct of international relations requires not the narrow calculation of individual national interest, but the securing of common interests through coalition building, international partnership and the construction of global architecture. It is an era in which diplomacy will become more and more multilateral rather than bilateral. An era in which the skilful application of foreign policy is not measured by the stubborn assertion of individual interest but by success in putting together international strategies on global threats such as climate change, terrorism or the drugs trade. It will mean that national leaders must meet more often, not less often. The true cause of protests by those who want an ordered system of global relations with fair rules is when national leaders fail to meet rather than when they do.
As a multicultural society the United Kingdom has a distinct advantage in this new multilateral era. London is a hub of the new globalised era. Tonight no less than three hundred separate languages will be talked over the table as the residents of our capital city sit down to their evening meal. Such ethnic diversity is an inevitable consequence of globalisation and the population movements that accompany it. Those states that will best retain their cohesion through this century will be those that draw on the new diversity as a source of strength in their economy and richness in their culture. Those states who will have the greatest problems in coming to terms with globalisation will be those who try to resist foreign influences and to preserve an ethnic or religious mono-culture.
Some writers have argued that globalisation means the end of the state. The more we adjust to the new political context of globalisation the more that view appears wrong. On the contrary the more our employment, our environment and our security depend on agreements with other members of the global community, the more we need an effective national government that can broker common strategies with other states.
But politicians raised on the concept of an independent state must now come to terms with a world in which all states are inter-dependent. Even the strongest state cannot now stand alone.
A generation ago it was fashionable to talk about world government and to envisage the UN emerging as a super-national system of government. We are witnessing the emergency of a system of global governance, but not one which is a kind of replica of a national government on stilts. What we are witnessing is the mushrooming of international agreements, treaties and conventions, requiring individual states to regulate their conduct in the global interest. Each of them are separate though often complementary. Each of them have a shifting kaleidoscope of states who are parties to the agreement. The common feature to all of them is that the primary political unit of which agreement is built is the old-fashioned concept of the state.
Paradoxically globalisation has provided not less room for initiative by governments, but has provided the need for even more activism by governments in order to mediate the terms of engagement of their nation with the rest of the global community. It is not the state that is withering away in the age of globalisation but the importance of the borders which were once essential to the definition of a state. Globalised production, the worldwide web, acid rain, the drugs trade or massive daily financial transactions, for better or for worse, are rendering the borders between states increasingly less significant.
In Europe we have learnt a lesson that would have appeared a paradox to the Edwardians. We have discovered that by removing borders as a barriers between us we have gained more security, not less, than when we maintained them as armed frontiers against each other. Who in either France or Germany would now imagine that it was rational to go to war over which side Alsace-Lorraine stood on the border between them?
This has not lessened the importance of the state but it has changed its role. Government today can deliver on its domestic agenda only if it is successful in delivering on the international dimension to domestic issues.
The environment is a good example of both triumph and tragedy in international negotiations. The most dramatic demonstration of the inter-connected character of the modern globe is that even our weather can be changed by economic activities in the southern hemisphere of the globe. There has been agreement on a diversity of environmental measures from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to the regulation of transfer of nuclear technology. The Montreal Protocol on the Ozone layer has made real progress in inhibiting use of the flouro-carbon products that deplete the ozone layer. The environment has been the scene of some success for multilateral diplomacy.
It has also been the scene of its most abject failure. On a long term view the biggest challenge facing humanity is how we halt the impact of our own activities on the climate of our planet. That impact has been greater in the past five decades than in the previous five millennia. Nothing will do more to destroy species and diminish food production than the steady over-heating of the globe. But we have yet to reach agreement on the Kyoto Protocol. A measure so modest that it will not halt global warming but it will merely slow down the rate at which matters get worse.
Europe can take pride in its commitment to the Kyoto principles and no country is volunteering a bigger cut in its greenhouse gases than Britain. But the present stalemate does not reflect with credit on the world’s efforts to construct a web of agreements that reflect our growing inter-dependency. Every nation will suffer if climate change continues unchallenged. No nation should regard its signature on the Kyoto Protocol as a favour to others. We are all in this together. We need a global coalition against climate change as urgently as we need a global coalition against terrorism.
Yet too often the common interest of all nations gets sabotaged by the old-fashioned pursuit of national interest by individual nations. This is counter-productive in the globalised era when the common interest is in the national interest, especially on climate change. The problem is that our deep seated identity with our nation often blinds us to the greater gain of compromise to get agreement with many nations.
The challenge is to establish popular consent to respect for international obligations. Democracy works best when it is built on a common identity. It requires the defeated minority to accept the legitimacy of the verdict. That is only possible where both minority and majority share a wider solidarity through their common membership of the same nation. Democracy without that consent to a common identity becomes an empty form.
This is the single most acute political dilemma from the increased need for global agreement. A supra-national democracy would lack legitimacy. An inter-governmental polity will only work if the national electorates understand the need for agreement and reward leaders who prove adept at securing agreement, rather than leaders who pose as national heroes for refusing to compromise.
We see this dilemma here at home in the British ambivalence to the European Union. Britain has little prospect of coming to terms with the globalised world if it cannot make a success of its relations with its immediate neighbours. Yet the Official Opposition in Parliament have made No Surrender on the British Veto their rallying cry. In truth British interests have been more often a victim of other countries vetoes. Where we have given our considered agreement to majority voting we have often been able to further British interests precisely because no other individual member can block progress.
Conclusion
The real question today is not whether globalisation is good or bad. It has both those characteristics in abundance. Globalisation is a reality. It is not going to go away through a process of collective wish fulfilment in which we will ourselves back to a previous more insular era with more fixed certainties and fewer disruptive changes.
The real questions are how do we make globalisation work for the greater good? How do we increase its potential for growth in the developing world and minimise its potential for exploitation? How we do combine globalistion with global social justice? How do we develop a new political culture which recognises the compelling need for inter-governmental co-operation that matches the global reach of the new economic and environmental forces?
These questions will have a powerful impact on domestic as well as international politics.
In the 21st century the old dividing lines between left and right will be less and less useful as a political definition. A more relevant guide to the division between the forces of progress and forces of reaction will be how they respond to the new global reality of interdependence.
The reactionary forces will be those who are isolationist and insular: who feel more comfortable clinging to the comfort blanket of a false past of their nation state. They will offer solutions that are based on a retreat to narrow nationalism and will oppose the obligations of international partnership. They are more likely to favour detaining foreigners than welcoming them.
The progressive forces will be those who are cosmopolitan and outward looking: who are comfortable building international partnerships and looking to the future. They will recognise national security requires international alliances, and that domestic prosperity requires foreign co-operation. They will be people who like foreign contact as enriching not threatening.
Placing the anti-globalisation political movement on this new political calculus is perplexing. The individuals within it are demonstrably cosmopolitan. They are masters of the new technologies of international communication such as internet, email and mobile phone. Their campaign transcends national identities and expresses solidarity with peoples of other continents. Yet a demand to stop globalisation puts them in uncomfortable proximity to reactionary forces who view with distaste much of the international contact that is forced on them by globalisation.
Many of the anti-globalisation campaigners deserve credit for having identified and highlighted the downsides of globalisation. But the solution lies not in the hopeless undertaking of halting globalisation, but channelling its colossal energy for change in a direction that leaves the world a better place.

Oxfam - Influencing Strategies

Reason: influencing people by relying on data and information to support one’s requests. The influencer carefully plans, prepares, and uses expertise in a strategic way. Facts and logical arguments are used to convince the ‘target’ person. The base of power here is the influencer’s own knowledge and ability to communicate this information. One possible problem in using this strategy could be a failure to develop ideas adequately and to organise information illogically.

Friendliness: influencing someone by causing that person to think well of the influencer. This strategy seeks to create a favourable impression of the influencer so that the target person will be more inclined to do what the influencer wants. A person’s use of this influence strategy is based on the person’s own personality, interpersonal skills, and sensitivity to the moods and attitudes of others. Overuse of this strategy could lead the other person to suspect their motives.

Coalition: mobilising other people to assist the influencer. The influencer believes there is ‘power in numbers’. The influencer’s power in using this strategy is based on his or her alliances. Coalition is a complex strategy that requires substantial skill and effort. Overuse of coalition could create the impression that an influencer is conspiring against the target person.

Bargaining: influencing others through negotiation and the exchange of benefits, e.g. reminding the target person of past favours that he or she has done and/or offers to make addition concessions in order to get what he or she wants. A drawback of this strategy is that it creates obligations that the influencer must fulfil in the future. What is traded might not be worth what is received in exchange.

Assertiveness: influencing people by one’s forceful manner. It involves the use of demands, the setting of deadlines, and the expression of strong emotions. Assertiveness gives the impression that the influencer is ‘in charge’ and expects compliance with his or her wishes. When used ineffectively, it can create ill will.

Appeal to Higher Authority: relying on the line of management to create influence. The influencer uses people higher up in the organisation who have power over the target person. Other people and outside power are used to influence the target person indirectly. There are two ways in which this strategy is used: by formally appealing to the chain of command or by informally asking higher management to deal with the influencer’s request or to speak to the target person on the influencer’s behalf. The problem that results from frequent reliance on this strategy is that it could undermine relationships with target people.

Sanctions: using rewards or punishments to influence others. The use of sanctions may involve either a desirable gain or an undesirable consequence. Depends on the influencer’s access to rewards or punishments and on his or her ability to actually deliver them. Sanctions must be used with great care, because a failure to follow through will lead to a loss of credibility and, hence, a loss of ability to influence.

Caspian Geopolitics

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia lost influence and proprietorship over much of the Caspian Sea basin. Where there were only two littoral states, the USSR and Iran, there are now five. Even worse, in the view of many high-ranking Russian officials, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan sought to build upon their new-found independence by exploiting—with Western investment—the energy resources in what they viewed as their sectors of the Caspian. Russia openly objected, claiming that the Caspian was an inland lake; this meant that any projects had to be agreed by all the littoral states. Faced with the proliferation of consortia despite Russian opposition, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) proposed in 1997, that each state have a 45-mile zone of its own, while the center of the sea would remain under joint administration—leaving a shape much like a doughnut.

More important issue however is the routing of the oil and natural gas export pipelines of the Caspian Sea to international markets which must cross Russia, Iran, or Georgia. The pipelines that will carry this oil and gas westwards, across Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey, are now finalized. But Russia already has its own pipelines to Turkey and the Black Sea. A Soviet era pipeline runs from Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, but it passes through war-torn Chechnya. When Chechnya descended into war for a second time in fall 1999, Putin authorized the building of a pipeline through Dagestan to by-pass Chechnya. It was completed in mid-2000. Consequently both the Russian and Georgian variants require tankers to pass through the Bosporus, alarming Turkey at the prospect of increased tanker traffic. Russia supplies almost all of Georgia's gas. But in future Georgia will be able to get much of it from the trans-Caucasian pipeline at an extra-cheap rate. In the past, Russia has cut off gas supplies in winter: theoretically for non-payment, but often apparently for political ends.

The United States has been pushing for a pipeline from Baku, through Georgia, to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Officials claim that Baku-Ceyhan avoids a long list of obstacles: It frees the new littoral states from dependence on Russian pipelines; it continues to isolate Iran; and it eliminates tanker passage through the Bosporus. As a counter to Baku-Ceyhan, MID officials have, despite Turkish objections and the risks of transit through the unstable Caucasus, been adamant that the oil from the Caspian be piped through Russia. In the most benign interpretation, this would allow Russia to garner transit fees; more malignant observations are that Russia is determined to control the exports of the former Soviet republics.

In September 1994, Azerbaijan signed the “contract of the century,” the first of several consortia agreements with Western oil companies and with the Russian company LUKoil. The initial objection by Russia later was turned to approval by the Representatives of the Ministry of Energy and Fuel. Thus, Russia assured Azerbaijan that it would not object to the deal, but that Azerbaijan would need to coordinate policy with Russia regarding ecological issues and fishing. It was then in 1997 that the MID proposed the so-called doughnut, that is limited sectoral division of the sea. The proposal was not supported by the other littoral states, but it was a major step toward recognizing the validity of the several Caspian consortia. The agreement to divide the sea bottom, but not the waters of the Caspian,
was finally initialled in early July 1998 when Nazarbaev President of Kazakh travelled to Moscow.

It was in October 1999 that the Azerbaijani consortium companies agreed to Baku-Ceyhan pipe line which was faced with Russian efforts to block the route. Russian envoys travelled to the Caspian in a major initiative to dissuade Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan from signing the final agreement. The following month, on the sidelines of the Istanbul OSCE summit, a formal agreement for Baku-Ceyhan was signed by the presidents of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkmenistan. Over the next 20 years Azerbaijan is expected to make $29 billion in oil revenues alone.

The United States was the promoter of the Baku-Ceyhan line at a time when contacts between the new littoral states and NATO were intensifying contributed to the sense of loss. Perhaps most importantly, Russia’s failure to prevent the deal came after NATO’s fiftieth anniversary celebration and the formal accession of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary to the military alliance. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium CPC is the main export route from the vast Tengiz field in Kazakhstan, through Russia to Novorossiisk. According to many observers, Chevron and Mobil Oil companies involved in the area, ultimately realized that the only way to get Russia to cooperate was to bring in a Russian company—in this case LUKoil. In the final arrangement, the Russian government has a 24 percent stake in the pipeline and an additional 20 percent is held by LUKoil and Rosneft; the private oil company participants agreed to finance the pipeline’s construction. Despite repeated delays in obtaining construction permits from local and regional authorities, the CPC was scheduled to completion in 2001.

The Turkmen case also highlights the importance of export routes. Turkmenistan, with its tremendous natural gas reserves, is under the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom. Gazprom limited Turkmenistan to the Commonwealth of Independent States’ (CIS) market. Clearly, Russia, and Gazprom specifically, view Turkmenistan as a competitor in the natural gas market. Were Turkmenistan to secure alternative export routes, it would emerge as a significant rival to Gazprom. There is also heightened competition in the gas sector created by the discovery of vast gas reserves at Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field. As such Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Russia’s Gazprom are rivals for the lucrative Turkish market. From Turkmenistan’s perspective, it turned out that export via Russia is the least bad scenario.

Russia’s attack on Yukos Oil Company and its former boss, Mikhail Khodorkovskii, can be interpreted in all sorts of ways. It is part of an attempt to re-establish state control over ‘strategic sectors’ of the economy, and above all over oil and gas. In Dec 19 2004, the main production subsidiary of the Yukos oil company was sold by the Russian federal Property Fund for $9.35 billion to Baikalfinansgrup, an unknown company. Its address turned out is shared by some liquor store, a food store, some mobile phone and jeans shops and one hundred and fifty invisible companies. The expected buyer, the Gazprom subsidiary Gazpromneft, did not participate in the bid. The approach to oil and gas is clear. Proposals to break up and partly privatise Gazprom have been dropped. The company is a near monopolist in Russian gas production and has complete monopoly over the country’s storage, processing and transportation of gas. Putin has clearly marked that oil and oil product pipelines will have to be controlled by the state. The attack on Yukos has been conducted not only during a boom, but also at a time when Russia has been negotiating to enter the WTO.

Putin seems to understand that he needs to bring Russia’s economic and geopolitical interests together. But the question remains how effective Russia’s policy can really be. Of particular importance will be Russia’s relationship with Iran. The community of interests between Russia and Iran—including the export of sophisticated nuclear technology to Teheran—is derived at least in part from their mutual exclusion from the Caspian by the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Teheran is demanding 20 percent share of Caspian resources-seemingly more than the other littoral states are willing to concede. One can only speculate on the impact of a change in U.S. policy that would allow Iranian participation in Caspian export schemes. This is the solution that the oil companies prefer: It is cheaper and more easily realized.

While Nuclear energy negotiations is facing crisis, Iran is driven toward strengthening its friendship with Russia. There has been a signed concession between Baku, Tehran and Moscow to construct railroad installations in the north of Iran - starting from Qazvin (centre) by crossing Rasht (north) and Anzali Port, and finally joining Astara Port in Azerbaijan. The news was first published in 'Ria novosti' Russian journal. It was explained that a consortium has been established for the construction of the railroad - 375 KM long - Azerbaijan is obliged to finance and construct 15 KM in its own territory to join the line to Astara Port.

Additionally Iran is looking forward to Russia's suggestion to set up Common Rapid Reactionary Forces to safeguard the Caspian Sea. 'Russland' an online Russian journal elaborates on that: Iran is in favour of the Russian initiation to launch the Reactionary Force with the cooperation of all neighbouring countries around Caspian Sea.

This is not merely to fight international terrorism, rather to restrict the presence of foreigners and non-locals in the area, including US. The aim is to make coalition against any foreign force who intends to use the Caspian Sea for its interest. However under condition that some of the local governments have established strong ties with US, the prevention of US army presence is unlikely.
This was a continuous effort by Russia for several years back when launched a military manoeuvre on 2002. Consequently, the trip of Ronald Ramsfield to the area triggered the necessity of a common agreement on the issue. Ramsfield made the trip on total confidentiality. Few months earlier the chief of NATO in Europe declared that US intends to set up military bases in the area, he pointed that US is drawing special plans for the next 10 years. US stresses his intention to outline bigger role for Azerbaijan - where it will be setting a Headquarter with equipped modern communication devices. This will particularly endanger Russia's interest in the area while US maintains its position by controlling equipment systems for NAVY, Ground and Air forces. The Headquarter in Baku will be operational by Americans.

Both US and Russia justify their moves out of the threats, emanating from international terrorism. But the bottom line is the threat of the two countries get closer - Russia and China - they are preparing themselves for the possible future wars in the area for control over oil resources and ultimate access of China to local energy resources. Russia recognizes well the threat and tries to shut down the US from entry in the region. Russia contested the militarization of the region while the other countries such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan obviously are after modernisation of their navy force, seeking full support from US.

US following up the case of Kazakhstan, planned on dispatching military ship - followed by similar projects for Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Additionally there are talks around military coalition between these three countries to be followed by Turkey and Uzbekistan. The unsuccessful attempt for a regional concession over dividing the Caspian sea among the neighbouring countries, while Iran and Turkmenistan rejected the previous talks, demonstrates the complexity of the issue.

The future of China to become world giant in economy is a threatening scenario. This has brought Russia and China on one side against the Western capitalism. Central Asia is where these two powers meet and US insist on holding the power in the area to avoid coalitions. Therefore any attempt from Iran or Mosquo to restrict US presence is hopeless. From Moscow’s perspective, the stakes are high—oil, natural gas, and an historic sphere of influence. It would also seem that in an era of diminished Russian capabilities, Moscow is concentrating its efforts on areas closer to home. Consequently two separate forces will dominate the area: one composed of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and possibly Turkey and Uzbekistan. The opposing force would be Iran and Russia - they will be played against one another as the game moves on.




References:

- The Russian Foreign Ministry Website. www.mid.ru
- The Economist, A moment of truth, Nov 27th 2003, MOSCOW AND TBILISI
- Saivetz, C., R., Fellow Davis Centre for Russian Studies, Harvard University, Caspian Geopolitics: The View from Moscow
- Hanson, P., The World Today, Volume 61, No 2, (p:25), February 2005

Inventing your world

History remains a ‘fable convenue’ chiefly because it wants fresh ideas but also because it wants scientifically thinking workers to reconstitute the life of past centuries. In each branch of science a revision of the current theories as well as new wide generalisations are wanted. And if the revision requires some of that inspiration of genius which moved Galileo and Newton, and which depends in its appearance upon general causes of human development, it requires also an increase in the number of scientific workers. When facts contradictory to current theories become numerous, the theories must be revised, and thousands of simple intelligent workers in science are required to accumulate the necessary facts. In short, there is not one single science which does not suffer in its development from a want of men and women endowed with a philosophical conception of the universe, ready to apply their forces of investigation in a given field, however limited, and having leisure for devoting themselves to scientific pursuits.

While industry, especially during the 20th, has been inventing on such a scale as to revolutionise the very face of the earth, science has been losing its inventive powers. Men of science invent no more or very little. Is it not striking indeed, that the steam engine, even in its leading principles, the railway engine, the steam boat, the telephone, the phonograph, the weaving machine, the lace machine, the lighthouse, the macadamised road, photography in black and in colours, and thousands of other things, have not been invented by professional men of science, although none of them would have refused to associate his name with any of the above named inventions? Men who hardly had received any education at school, who had merely picked up the crumbs of knowledge from the tables of the rich, and who made their experiments with the most primitive means - the attorney’s clerk Smeaton, the instrument maker Watt, the brakeman Stephenson, the jeweller’s apprentice Fulton, the millwright Rennie, the mason Telford, and hundreds of others whose very names remain unknown, were the real makers of modern civilisation; while the professional men of science, provided with all means for acquiring knowledge and experimenting, have invented little in the formidable array of implements, machines, and prime motors which has shown to humanity how to utilise and to manage the forces of nature.

Chemistry being an exception to the rule as the chemist are involved with so much manual work of examination. Recent revival in scientific inventiveness, especially in physics - is in a branch in which the engineer and the man of science are meeting so much together. Experimental Inventors and interpreters knew something which the savants do not know - they knew their surroundings which stimulates their inventive powers, and their original ideas; they knew the use of their hands; they knew machines; their leading principles and their work; they had breathed the atmosphere of the workshop and the building yard. We know how men of science will meet the reproach. That they discover the laws of nature, let others apply them; it is a simple division of labour. But such a rejoinder would be utterly untrue, the march of progress is quite the reverse, because in a hundred cases against one the mechanical invention comes before the discovery of the scientific law. It was not the dynamical theory of heat which came before the steam engine, it followed it. When thousands of engines already were transforming heat into motion under the eyes of hundreds of professors, and when they had done so for half a century, or more; when thousands of trains, stopped by powerful brakes, were disengaging heat and spreading sheaves of sparks on the rails at their approach to the stations; when all over the civilised world heavy hammers and perforators were rendering burning hot the masses of iron they were hammering and perforating - then, and then only, Seguin and Mayer ventured to bring out the mechanical theory of heat with all its consequences; and yet the men of science ignored the work of Sequin and almost drove Mayer to madness by obstinately clinging to their mysterious caloric fluid. Worse than that, they described Joule’s first determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat as ‘unscientific’.

When thousands of engines had been illustrating for some time the impossibility of utilising all the heat disengaged by a given amount of burnt fuel, then came the second law of Clausius. When all over the world industry already was transforming motion into heat, sound, light, and electricity, and each one into each other, then only came Grove’s theory of the ‘correlation of physical forces’; and Grove’s work had the same fate before the Royal Society as Joule’s. the publication of his memoir was refused with much delay. It was not the theory of electricity which gave us the telegraph. When the telegraph was invented, all we knew about electricity was but a few facts more or less badly arranged in our books. One could easily multiply the illustrations by quoting the great processes of metallurgy; the alloys and the properties they acquire from the addition of very small amounts of some metals or metalloids. The flight of genius which has characterised the workers at the outset of modern industry has been missing in our professional men of science. And they will not recover it as long as they remain strangers to the world, amidst their dusty bookshelves; as long as they are not workers themselves, amidst other workers, at the blaze of the iron furnace, at the machine in the factory, at the turning lathe in the engineering workshop; sailors amidst sailors on the sea.

For thousands of years in succession to grow one’s food was the burden, almost the curse, of mankind. But it need be so no more, if you make yourselves the soil, and partly the temperature and the moisture which each crop requires, you will see that to grow the yearly food of a family, under rational conditions of culture, requires so little labour that it might almost be done as a mere change from other pursuits. If you return to the soil, and cooperate with your neighbours instead of erecting high walls to conceal yourself from their looks; if you utilise what experiment has already taught us, and call to your aid science and technical invention, which never fail to answer to the call - look only at what they have done for warfare - you will be astonished at the facility with which you can bring a rich and varied food out of the soil. You will admire the amount of sound knowledge which your children will acquire by your side, the rapid growth of their intelligence and the facility with which they will grasp the laws of nature animate and inanimate.

Have the factory and the workshop at the gates of your fields and gardens, and work in them. Not those factories in which children lose all the appearance of children in the atmosphere of an industrial hell, but those airy and hygienic, and consequently economical, factories in which human life is of more account than machinery and the making of extra profits, of which we already find a few samples here and there, factories and workshops into which men, women and children will not be driven by hunger, but will be attracted by the desire of finding an activity suited to their tastes, and where, aided by the motor and the machine, they will choose the branch of activity which best suits their inclinations.

In sum, as to the grand inspirations which unhappily have been so much neglected in most of the discussions about art - and which are missing in science as well - these can be expected only when humanity breaking its present bonds, shall make a new start in the higher principles of solidarity, doing away with the present duality of moral sense and philosophy.

Extracted from:
Kropotkin, P., Fields, Factory, and Workshops: Brain work and manual work, (first published 1912), Transaction publishers, UK, 1992