By A Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.DPacific Daily News
November 4, 2009
Nation-states' international relationships have as primary purpose to serve the state's national interest -- which actually means, what benefits the nation -- as defined by the state's national political leaders. These leaders devise and undertake courses of action to achieve short-term objectives and long-term goals and maximize what they believe is of benefit to the citizens.
During this process, leaders have at their disposition national institutions, endowed, constitutionally, with specific roles and functions. Institutions are tools and the state is the agent of the nation -- which means the people. How well these institutions and the state serve the people's interests are measures of the effectiveness of the institutions and the state.
In general, the world's nation-states aspire to common ultimate goals by giving government the task of maintaining independence (free from foreign invasion and outside control), order and stability (domestic peace and tranquility, and justice to the people, conforming to the constitution), and of promoting economic and social well-being of all citizens.
One school of thought teaches that nothing is possible without man, and nothing is lasting without institutions.
Man lives, man builds, man destroys, man dies. In general, men and women in the world aspire to a state of peace and justice in which they can, at a minimum, attain a level of contentment in life, good health, and a capacity to meet life's basic requirements of food, shelter, clothing. Government is to help them fulfill these aspirations.
In the United States 1776 Declaration of Independence, it is asserted that a government which does not serve the people's interests is not worth keeping; it's the people's right to institute a new one.
Another school of thought teaches that since men are not angels and are capable of abusing other men's rights, in order to avoid tyranny "auxiliary precautions" are necessary through the institution of a separation of governing powers (so that each governing department's power does not overlap with the others', allowing tyrants to extend their power) and a system of checks and balances (so that each governing power can check the others' powers from abuses).
As tools to serve national interests, national institutions -- composed of individuals working together toward common goals with agreed-upon rules -- assure that a change in political leadership does not interrupt the march of the state to fulfill its duty, and to help the people attain their aspirations.
This neat arrangement can be perverted by authoritarian leaders. Those concerned with amassing personal power and wealth undertake strategies and methods that not only do not serve the people's aspirations but impede their rights and the development of democratic structures by thwarting accountability processes and encouraging corrupt governance and practices.
In this age of globalization everything is interrelated, and the old concept of an absolute, comprehensive, permanent, and inviolable sovereignty is supposedly obsolete. But national leaders in the world's state systems see benefits in the continued practice of sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of states in international relationships.
So, rights and freedom advocates continue to face proponents of sovereignty, order and security.
The June 2009 study, "Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians," about which I wrote earlier in this space, warned against "world's democracies ... (that) fall into the authoritarians' trap," through failure to "safeguard and promote the very qualities (rules-based, accountable, open systems) that set them apart from the authoritarians."
Thus, authoritarian regimes of Burma's Gen. Than Shwe and Cambodia's Hun Sen, use the institutions of the army, the police, and the judicial system to continue their authoritarianism and to ignore the tepid admonishments from democratic states, which appear unable and unwilling to confront them. As a respected Western reader, a former diplomat of long experience, e-mailed me, human rights do not trump other "vital" interests defined by the state's leaders.
And, sadly, too, naïve nationalist Cambodians fall right into autocratic Sen's political trap as he beats the "nationalism" drum in his dispute with Thailand over the Preah Vihear temple, exploiting Cambodians' emotional nationalist outburst. Sen benefits from setting up this controversy and ostentatiously vows to "shoot" any Thai transgressor who dares to venture into the disputed area. By so doing, he diverts attention from his internal political rule, condemned by rights groups worldwide, and distracts the public's attention from Vietnam's successful expansionism into Cambodia.
Sen has stirred the political pot on his western border by deliberately injecting himself in Thailand's internal turmoil. Arriving at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Cha-am recently, rather than talking about the mutually agreeable ways to resolve the temple dispute based on a memorandum of understanding of 2000, Sen declared his support for Thailand's fallen premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been sentenced to a two-year prison term for helping his former wife buy land on Bangkok's Ratchadaphisek Road, and his offer to Shinawatra as Sen's economic adviser.
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The Bangkok Post's editorial called Sen's comments, "a slap in the (Thai) government's face on its own soil," and The Nation editorialized, Sen was "rubbing more salt on open wounds" as his provocative statements 'really ripped at the heart of so many Thais at a time when the country is bogged down with internal strife."
In an e-mail to The Nation, former Cambodian professor at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, Naranhkiri Tith, an economist, reminds that Sen creates "all these problems with Thailand" to show that Thailand, not Vietnam, is "the real enemy of Cambodia."
As Tith says elsewhere, Sen is a "destroyer" of Cambodia's national interests.
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.
Nation-states' international relationships have as primary purpose to serve the state's national interest -- which actually means, what benefits the nation -- as defined by the state's national political leaders. These leaders devise and undertake courses of action to achieve short-term objectives and long-term goals and maximize what they believe is of benefit to the citizens.
During this process, leaders have at their disposition national institutions, endowed, constitutionally, with specific roles and functions. Institutions are tools and the state is the agent of the nation -- which means the people. How well these institutions and the state serve the people's interests are measures of the effectiveness of the institutions and the state.
In general, the world's nation-states aspire to common ultimate goals by giving government the task of maintaining independence (free from foreign invasion and outside control), order and stability (domestic peace and tranquility, and justice to the people, conforming to the constitution), and of promoting economic and social well-being of all citizens.
One school of thought teaches that nothing is possible without man, and nothing is lasting without institutions.
Man lives, man builds, man destroys, man dies. In general, men and women in the world aspire to a state of peace and justice in which they can, at a minimum, attain a level of contentment in life, good health, and a capacity to meet life's basic requirements of food, shelter, clothing. Government is to help them fulfill these aspirations.
In the United States 1776 Declaration of Independence, it is asserted that a government which does not serve the people's interests is not worth keeping; it's the people's right to institute a new one.
Another school of thought teaches that since men are not angels and are capable of abusing other men's rights, in order to avoid tyranny "auxiliary precautions" are necessary through the institution of a separation of governing powers (so that each governing department's power does not overlap with the others', allowing tyrants to extend their power) and a system of checks and balances (so that each governing power can check the others' powers from abuses).
As tools to serve national interests, national institutions -- composed of individuals working together toward common goals with agreed-upon rules -- assure that a change in political leadership does not interrupt the march of the state to fulfill its duty, and to help the people attain their aspirations.
This neat arrangement can be perverted by authoritarian leaders. Those concerned with amassing personal power and wealth undertake strategies and methods that not only do not serve the people's aspirations but impede their rights and the development of democratic structures by thwarting accountability processes and encouraging corrupt governance and practices.
In this age of globalization everything is interrelated, and the old concept of an absolute, comprehensive, permanent, and inviolable sovereignty is supposedly obsolete. But national leaders in the world's state systems see benefits in the continued practice of sovereignty and non-interference in the affairs of states in international relationships.
So, rights and freedom advocates continue to face proponents of sovereignty, order and security.
The June 2009 study, "Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians," about which I wrote earlier in this space, warned against "world's democracies ... (that) fall into the authoritarians' trap," through failure to "safeguard and promote the very qualities (rules-based, accountable, open systems) that set them apart from the authoritarians."
Thus, authoritarian regimes of Burma's Gen. Than Shwe and Cambodia's Hun Sen, use the institutions of the army, the police, and the judicial system to continue their authoritarianism and to ignore the tepid admonishments from democratic states, which appear unable and unwilling to confront them. As a respected Western reader, a former diplomat of long experience, e-mailed me, human rights do not trump other "vital" interests defined by the state's leaders.
And, sadly, too, naïve nationalist Cambodians fall right into autocratic Sen's political trap as he beats the "nationalism" drum in his dispute with Thailand over the Preah Vihear temple, exploiting Cambodians' emotional nationalist outburst. Sen benefits from setting up this controversy and ostentatiously vows to "shoot" any Thai transgressor who dares to venture into the disputed area. By so doing, he diverts attention from his internal political rule, condemned by rights groups worldwide, and distracts the public's attention from Vietnam's successful expansionism into Cambodia.
Sen has stirred the political pot on his western border by deliberately injecting himself in Thailand's internal turmoil. Arriving at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Cha-am recently, rather than talking about the mutually agreeable ways to resolve the temple dispute based on a memorandum of understanding of 2000, Sen declared his support for Thailand's fallen premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been sentenced to a two-year prison term for helping his former wife buy land on Bangkok's Ratchadaphisek Road, and his offer to Shinawatra as Sen's economic adviser.
Quantcast
The Bangkok Post's editorial called Sen's comments, "a slap in the (Thai) government's face on its own soil," and The Nation editorialized, Sen was "rubbing more salt on open wounds" as his provocative statements 'really ripped at the heart of so many Thais at a time when the country is bogged down with internal strife."
In an e-mail to The Nation, former Cambodian professor at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, Naranhkiri Tith, an economist, reminds that Sen creates "all these problems with Thailand" to show that Thailand, not Vietnam, is "the real enemy of Cambodia."
As Tith says elsewhere, Sen is a "destroyer" of Cambodia's national interests.
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.
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