(talking points at meeting in Oslo 19 September 2007, Refleks UD)

Rethinking the South

The idea of a North-South divide in world affairs has had a powerful hold on in the global discourse for many decades. This neat division between developed and developing countries, rich and poor, stable and unstable, aligned and non-aligned, however, is no longer an effective tool in coping with the new challenges confronting the world. The South itself has become a far more differentiated place than in the 1960s and 1970s. While the widely noted rise of China and India often reminds us of the other great dyad  of East and West, there is consequential growth elsewhere in the South, for example in Brazil and South Africa.   Equally important is the emergence of a large, increasingly prosperous,  influential and  globalised middle class in the south cutting across national boundaries  At hand,  then, is problem  not just of nomenclature but the difficult challenge of coming to terms with the unfolding redistribution of power in the world. The sense that “age of Vasco de Gama” is coming to an end has a powerful new appeal in Asia. That the two way flow of people, goods, and ideas between Europe and Asia was a part of the global life before the age of colonization is an important reminder of where we might be headed in the future.

Adapting to the New South

As Asia reclaims its share of the pie of the world’s wealth, Europe will have to go through a painful process of economic and political readjustment.  Until now, Asia and the rest of the South has been at the receiving end of the Western homilies on the virtues of globalization. As China, India and the others take advantage of globalization, there are bound to be many “losers” in the North, especially Europe, from the rapid integration of the world economy. This has led to second thoughts on globalization in the North and new fears about sustaining social and economic stability that had emerged in the post war decades in Europe.   Ensuring that the inevitable redistribution of economic power in the world takes place with the least possible social friction has become a collective challenge for the entire world.

At the political level it is not merely a question of “accommodating” the rising powers into the international system but a restructuring of the global institutions and accepting a new hierarchy of powers in the world.  The argument that China and India must “prove” themselves to be responsible “stakeholders” in the international system sounds a reasonable demand in the North. In Beijing and New Delhi, however, this looks more like the tradition of current powers putting up entry barriers to emerging ones. The challenge, then, is not just about extending the “rule of law” to the South, but of making the rising powers part of the very process of making and remaking international law.

Norway’s Global Activism

My emphasis on structural change in great power relations does not in way diminish the prospects for small countries like Norway in contributing to global peace and stability. Norway’s activism in conflict resolution around the world, including in my own neighbourhood in South Asia, has been a valuable one. Norway’s foreign policy, of course, implies a lot more than taking ownership of many difficult peace processes in the world. It is about the globalization of security, and the inability of major powers, to either singly or collectively, to devote sufficient political and diplomatic energies to many of the conflicts around the world.  Being distant and an actor without immediate and direct “national” interest in a particular conflict can be a very special advantage in the facilitation of negotiations in intractable conflicts. India, which was deeply suspicious of Oslo’s interest in Sri Lanka, today recognizes that if the Norwegians did not exist, it would have had to invent them.   Norway’s own experience in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, however, reveals that special diplomatic expertise and a genuine commitment to peace process do not necessarily guarantee success. That brings me to some deeper questions about promoting peace and stability around the world.

Limits to Power

Norway is right in recognizing the importance of spreading the Enlightenment project around the world. In attempting to facilitate peace around the world, Norway has run into the many primordial passions that drive conflicts. One important lesson that stands out is that soft power alone is not enough to persuade the warring parties to recognize the value of peace.  Without the threat of punishment and the capacity to raise costs for breaking peace agreements, it is not possible to produce desirable outcomes in conflict resolution. But the very prospect for the use of hard power in the age of globalization has run into a series of questions about the legitimacy and effectiveness of use of hard power. Neither multilateral humanitarian interventions nor the unilateral ones have been able to demonstrate a durable framework for conflict resolution in the world. Choosing wisely on where, when and how we might intervene  is a necessary precondition for greater success and would involve an acceptance of the limits to power—both hard and soft.