Taken together, all of this suggests that, at best, the United States is wasting time that it, quite frankly, may not have. I know some readers here will think this is all for the best, because they don’t care for both the theory and practice of American leadership. But I submit that global economic and political interconnectedness makes it increasingly difficult to achieve progressive goals within the borders of individual states.
The weaker America’s hand, the more likely we are to get a more minimal variant of liberal order, one with open trade and plenty of multilateralism, but little in the way of ‘baked in’ preferences for human rights and democracy. A China that fills the vacuum will do so as a totalitarian party state—quite likely constituted around individual leaders with cults of personality—and with a hybrid of capitalism and socialism quite different from what liberals or progressives would find attractive. It’s not that the United States should be preparing for an inevitable Cold War, but that it needs to remain engaged, credible, and primus inter pares in a web of alliances composed of most of the world’s advanced industrial states.--Dan Nexon. "Xi Jinping’s China, Trumpism, and International Order" @'Lawyers, Guns, and Money [HT Jacob T. Levy]
Even the smartest commentary on US domestic and international politics rarely escapes from partisan evaluation. By 'partisan evaluation' I equivocate between both (i) evaluating from a partisan standpoint as well as (ii) evaluating partisan achievements or failures. Of course, it is possible to do (ii) in a Weberian neutral fashion, but it's hard to pull off given that attention to such failures or achievements often contributes to (i). (Nor do I wish to deny that some administrations/parties screw up more than others or are responsible for some good or bad political outcomes.) What follows is an attempt to avoid both (i-ii), you can be the judge if I succeed.
The US suffers from a crisis of governance. By this I mean a hollowing out of US state capacity. Before you start to laugh -- after all the US Government is not just capable of mobilizing enormous power, but actually does so every day in deployment of troops, incarceration of citizens, capacity to tax, redistribution of wealth, and providing rents to insiders, etc. --, let me remind you of a few facts: first, what is notable about hurricanes of, say, the last thirty years, Andrew, Ike, Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, and Irma is not just the often incompetent response, but the utter lack of preparedness. (See also the series of guest post by Daniel Hogendoorn.) Preparedness involves the routine and politically boring elements of governance: drawing up long range plans, creating consensus procedures, drilling, failure testing, etc. It requires complex coordination of different levels of government and different kinds of agencies. While Federalism generates routine challenges on governance, it also generates opportunities (for creative experimentation and citizen involvement, etc.).
Second, the maintenance of US Public infrastructure is often dismal. This includes an astounding number of deficient bridges on the US Highway System. Maintenance, repair, and inspection are politically un-sexy and while they may involve serious technical challenges, they are really not complex decisions. They often require earmarking a percentage of the capital budget and smart decisions when projects are planned (which may involve willingness to do 20-40 year projections, etc.). Obviously, there is politics here: do you invest in road or public transit; green options vs cheap, etc. But again the underlying issues are connected to capacity to coordinate, plan, and execute.
Third, the response to the ZIKA virus epidemic, left not just allies and poor countries unprotected, but needlessly endangered the lives of US citizens and babies. (Think about that; a country that obsesses over the status of fetuses, basically could not get its act together to protect the unborn.) Strikingly enough, the one municipality that got it right (while the US Government was bickering) was Miami--not exactly known for its high quality governance. I used the previous three examples of lack of effective governance-- disaster planning & relief, infrastructure maintenance, and public health -- because these are not normally thought of as partisan issues, they impact the welfare of citizens often directly, and they involve long term coordination and planning by government of societies intellectual, financial, and workers's resources. (I could have added examples about the state of US Dams, airports, etc. I am inclined to think that there is by now overwhelming evidence that US local police forces are badly trained.)
Now I do not want to glamorize the past. But for most of the twentieth century, the US has been the de facto leader in developing the frameworks for and implementing effective governance. I don't deny, first, impressive feats by other countries (e.g.,the Swiss were capable of putting trains in impossible places and (post 1953) the Dutch created a comprehensive approach to water-management). Nor, second, that some of the US achievements themselves causes and reinforced racial patterns of oppression, and often involved brutal class warfare.
My current pet-theory that helps explain this erosion of governance is rooted in the end of the cold war. I consider the fall of the Berlin Wall the greatest political moment in my life. Even so, Mutually Assured Destruction created a sobriety in US governance that is lacking ever since. Because of overwhelming US power, since then our political elites have behaved recklessly (culminating in the second Iraq war and the way the invasion of Afghanistan was handled) and at home (as Nexon notes, continuously allowing Wall Street to extract rents). I do not deny that the US behaved foolishly before, but there was always a multi-dimensional check on the extent of the folly. My underlying intuition is that democratic regimes do badly when they understand themselves as (locally) hegemonic and unchallenged: think classical Athens, the Dutch in the Far East before second world war, France in Vietnam after, Israel since the Egypt peace accords, etc. <--Obviously, this should be tested more rigorously.
Notice that I have not mentioned President Trump. I don't think what I am describing is a partisan issue (in the two senses above). Regular readers know I treat Trump as a symptom of the malaise not its cause (recall for example here and, going back to december 2005, here). I am open to the argument that in fact the meaning of his rise involves a very sizeable part of US electorate's repudiation of the elites from both parties that had governed (or not) the US during the last generation. (This was symbolized by the repudiation of candidates with the name 'Bush' and 'Clinton.') And while it is too early to tell, it is notable that one-party control of nearly all levers of US government has only revealed the extent of dysfunctionality.*
I close with three thoughts: first, it is possible that there has been a displacement effect. That is, that in so far as the US federal government has become enamored by (un)-funded mandates during the last few decades, governance capacity has been simply overwhelmed at all levels.* (Perhaps the war on drugs also played some such role.) Second, I am inclined to discount the currently popular idea that partisan polarization is the underlying cause here. (If anything I suspect it is also the effect.) For polarization has entrenched incumbents, and so should, in principle, make long-term governance easier. Third, I honestly don't know what is causing the corrosion of governance. I believe it involves a failure of democratic leadership -- a topic too ignored by theorists and empirical scientists --, and I am pretty sure it also involves a failure of our for-profit media landscape, but I do not know the solutions. It is astounding, however, perhaps unprecedented, that a country as wealthy, youthful, educated, and as dynamic as the US is incapable of righting the ship of state. It is not that I welcome a future global rivalry with China, but one is almost tempted to long for it.
*I thank Vernon Smith for the suggestion. I also thank Keith Hankins and Bri Wolf for discussion. The usual caveats apply.
As someone who has recently returned from hurricane response (in the Keys this time) and a veteran of emergency response on many levels, I applaud your analysis.
However, I'm not convinced that governance capacity has been overwhelmed, as you suggest, more than it has been over-reaching. I think we have become accustomed to the notion that nothing can involve bad news lest it be seen as a failure. Hurricane responses are good petri dishes for that theory. In that world, bad news is everywhere, yet we pretend all will be good and it just takes time and perseverance for life to move on. In fact, its bad news - really bad news - and government's job should be to mitigate the badness.
Media plays a role, to be sure, for their ratings quests shine bright lights on incompetence, but for such short periods that the incompetence never gets adequately addressed, instead labeling the subject of said bright-light-shining either a 'success' or 'failure'. And there is a lot of mundane good (and bad Im sure) happening outside those bright lights.
The corrosion of governance you refer to is a symptom of our success in my view. We forget the cost to make and sustain the juggernaut of our success - instead we like to think it can be sustained on its own without the continuing influx of resources necessary to keep it going.
Just an unfiltered thought after reading your more-thoughtful post.
Posted by: Paul Hankins | 10/24/2017 at 11:23 PM
This governance infrastructure failure is why I have proposed experimenting with the privatization of interstate highways. The idea would be to begin where there are competing alternatives. They surely would become electronically controlled toll roads; permit autobahns, innovative use of right-way, self-driving vehicles; would compete with air travel on shorter routes. No public money would be at risk. Public roads might benefit from the results of the experiments
Posted by: Vernon L. Smith | 10/25/2017 at 09:02 PM