Illiberal or Incorrigible? Identifying Public Enemies in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

The UN Security Council is deadlocked over action to ease the humanitarian crisis in Syria. This paper suggests that one of the reasons lies in the foreign policy strategy of the Russian Federation. A pillar of Russia's strategy is to essentially contest essentially contestable liberal concepts such as human rights, democracy and the rule of law which it feels have been unjustly appropriated by Western nations in order to mask 'airstrike democracy'. The tendency of Western proponents of action on Syria to frame their proposals in the language of liberalism makes it more not less likely that they will be vetoed by Russia.On this basis, this paper offers an alternative strategy for proponents of action to ease the humanitarian crisis in Syria: Instead of branding the 'Syrian regime' an illiberal and authoritarian state, proponents should focus on whether the parties to the conflict have corrected their behaviour on the basis of obligations laid down by the UN Security Council. Following Michel Foucault's thinking about disciplinary power, these obligations should be phrased in very specific terms which should echo the advice and findings of UN bodies on the ground in Syria. Above all, progress in implementing the obligations must be demonstrable and measurable. The threshold for action would then refer to whether the measurements of progress taken demonstrated the parties to be willing to correct their behaviour. This is a threshold of incorrigibility that avoids the current Russian objections to action.