„Empire“or „American Empire“or…
The concept “Empire” has been circulating since 2000/1. The debate about “American empire” – a model for the future of the planet which for instance is reflected in the new directive for national security published by the Bush administration in mid September 2002 – has not only been developing for some time amongst neoconservatives and strategic intellectuals such as politicians in the USA. The current government’s war project illustrates that strategic concepts have clearly turned into actual policies of war. Information on current US foreign policy can be found on the websites of the Foreign Policy Association. A very informative critical source is Foreign Policy in Focus while Alternative Insight (foreign policy and politics) also offers a critical introduction. In its World Policy Journal, the World Policy Institute publishes traditional liberal and, as a rule, critical texts. A good source for current discussions is the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which could be said to be politically close to the Democratic Party. Four websites on US American military and arms and security policy can be recommended: globalsecurity.org with extensive and current information, the Center for Defense Information (CDI) and the Project on Defense Alternatives – both have for a long time been providing detailed information above all on US military and security policy. See also the website of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) which for years has been a pool of radical opinion. Links on security policy are provided by the US Army War College. Amongst the numerous watchdog sites about the political system of the USA, the Center for Public Integrity and opensecrets.org are particularly informative and up to date. Their main subject area is "money in politics". Those wanting to delve into issues of violence and fear in more detail could of course consult Michael Moore’s website. There are many magazines dealing with questions of foreign and military policy. A large number of left wing and radical texts can be found on Z-Net. The Nation, Monthly Review, New Left Review, The Progressive, In These Times, Counterpunch, and CovertAction Quarterly also belong to the left spectrum. Within the informative neoliberal spectrum consult the Atlantic monthly and the New York Review of Books, which likewise continually discuss US foreign and military policy issues.
Besides the larger think tanks, the flagship journalism of The Weekly Standard, Washington Monthly, Policy Review, the National Interest and the Frontpage Magazine (for the more acerbic undertones) are of current interest in the area of neoconservative journalism. The Project for the New American Century and the Committee to bomb Iraq (CLI) both offer an insight into the power of conceptual ideologues.
Those wishing to refer to the analyses of peace research can consult Peace and Conflict Studies (PeaCon), the overview on “Politik und Friedensforschung” (HH) and the Virtuelle Bibliothek Politikwissenschaft und Friedensforschung and finally in institutes such as the Center for Conflict Studies (Marburg) the Forschungsgruppe Politische Steuerung und Regelung (Polikon), the SIPRI, the HSFK or the AFK.
Perhaps of more interest at the moment are websites which have arisen in the USA in previous months and which gather material daily from the point of view of peace studies. These include: THE WAR IN CONTEXT, thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse, the No War Blog, and the PeaceBlog Project, War, Politics and Culture and the Antiwarmonger. The Bundesausschuss Friedensratsschlag (Kassel) has in the meantime made an extraordinary amount of information available. Linksnet and the Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik as well as Politik und Gesellschaft (FES) are also important sources for current discussions on “American Empire”.
Texts on American Empire:
Rainer Rilling: rls policy paper 2/2003 [pdf]
Empire
Even if at present fading into the background, a broad debate about the “empire” of postmodern capitalism was inspired by the publication of the book “Empire” by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in Spring 2000. Empire is an attempt to grasp the political form of globalised capitalism.
It distances itself from classic concepts of imperialism and other attempts at elucidating contemporary capitalism and develops a framework for a counter perspective (“multitude”). Meanwhile, 300 reviews and debates about the book have emerged. The RLS, its regional foundations and the RLS-Clubs have supported this debate through activities dealing with current capitalism theory and taken part in this – with a series of seminars in Berlin, with individual events in Wuppertal, Stade, Frankfurt, Berlin, Porto Alegre and Florence, in which the following participated amongst others: Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin (Canada), Thomas seibert, Manfred Lauermann, Jost Müller, Hans Jürgen Krysmanski, Miochael Krätke, Rainer rilling, Katje Dieffenbach and Michael Hardt. (see the “Veranstaltungsarchiv” – events archive – on Empire). In the next few weeks internet based educational material will build on this, based on the visualisation of H.J. Krysmanski (“Reflexionen”) and further “overviews”. Parallel to this the most extensive collection of articles and materials on this text has been compiled and is frequently amended. The following links express the international debate, they are constantly being revised – we would be grateful for any additional information. (Contact: rilling@rosalux.de)
RLS Links on Empire:
Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt: Empire [pdf,496 S] and [ascii] or [html] Cambridge, Mass.2000, Harvard University Press and relevant reviews; Spanish translation.
Reviews in English; des critiques française; other languages
Seminars, workshops and discussions on Empire; Scientific publications on Hardt and Negri. Empire Debate (mail archive Yahoo groups!)
Rainer Rilling as well as the interns Stephen Sielschott and Patrick Eser worked on this compilation.
