Ronnie D. Lipschutz

Associate Professor of Politics, 260 Stevenson College, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA; Phone: 01-831-459-3275/e-mail: rlipsch@cats.ucsc.edu. This paper has been prepared for presentation at the conference on Security in the 21^st Century, Nov. 20, 2000, National Defense Institute, Lisbon, Portugal. This is a draft, dated 11/14/00.

--tag line from The Naked City--

The end of an old century is a time for retrospection; the beginning of a new one, a time for introspection. What went wrong? Why? Can we avoid the mistakes of the past in the future? How? In asking such questions, we take on a plethora of associated philosophical problems, such as the misuse of power, the uneven global distribution of wealth, the problem of injustice, the absence of ethics. These are not matters normally addressed under the rubric of "security," but they are extremely important to world politics during the 21^st century. It would be relatively easy, of course, to provide a list of issues related to the prospects for security during the 21^st century; indeed, this has been done by a number of individuals and institutions, equipped with much greater resources than I control (see, e.g., Lipschutz, 2000 for examples). From the plethora of documents on the topic, moreover, it would appear that the number of real or imagined threats to human life and safety is long and growing. I need not remind you of them here (Lipschutz, 1999). But absent from such an approach would be some notion of what kind of really-existing world we would like to live in or how we would wish our grandchildren, meeting similarly 100 years from now in 2100, to reflect on the century just then past.

Planning an acceptable and secure future, even if not an ideal one (which is hardly to be wished, let alone achieved), requires a willingness to speculate. Speculation, however, often leads to either idealism (which remains under continuing suspicion) or fatalism (the latter itself a form of idealism), that is, either perfecting the world or seeking its end. But the experiences of the past decade experience suggest that even our imaginations are impoverished. Events not thought remotely possible have occurred, and those deemed inevitable by some have not. The difficulty we face is more epistemological than methodological (Dillon & Reid, 2000). We have foresight but we cannot know how our choices will turn out. Consequently, we draw on what we know (or think we know) to make predictions. We tell stories and use analogies and metaphors: coming anarchies, clashes of civilizations, Lexi and olive trees. I can do no less.

In 10 years, no one will remember what I have written here, but compelling analogies and metaphors have a way of living on. My paper begins, therefore, with an analogy--the "Somalia Syndrome"--which builds on our current thinking about security. I then continue with a metaphor--the "Naked City"-- to frame an argument for thinking differently about security. The Somalia Syndrome is familiar to us from the news media; it is about anarkhos, capturing a widely-held fear about both state and statelessness. The Naked City is a metaphor, neither idealistic nor fatalistic, proposing a possible world politics for the 21^st century based on existing social institutions and material structures The Somalia Syndrome interrogates the flaws and failures of a security agenda based on one type of political community; the Naked City examines the flaws and promise of another. Both are intended to help us think about potentials , to, as Marx (1989:345) put it, to "erect our structure in imagination before we erect it in reality."

Many of the security threats conventionally listed in the literature arise not from the classical security dilemma associated with sovereign states but, rather, from what are essentially inequities in the global distribution of power, authority, and wealth and the processes of globalization (Lipschutz, 1998a, 2000). These inequities are often cast in terms of a "North-South divide" (successor to the East-West conflict) in which the poorer countries of the world are demanding a greater share of global income. Threats are then seen as emanating from disaffected governments and groups, from people on the move, from phenomena that cannot be suppressed at their source by weak or non-existent states. One solution, as proffered by a broad range of strategic and economic analysts, is the strengthening of national institutions and the pursuit of prescribed regulatory policies so as to facilitate economic growth within the poor countries (IMF, 2000; Evans, 1997). States, it is assumed, will remain the last bastion of domestic order and stability necessary to foster economic investment and growth. Eventually, it is said, the gap will be closed, the rule of law legitimized, and justice served.

Yet, we must also recognize that this divide is not simply a geopolitical one. Within the societies of both North and South, there are the powerful and rich, on the one hand, and the poor and weak, on the other. Neo-liberal economics and politics do not address disparities within societies and shy away from any sort of regulatory redistribution of wealth and influence (IMF, 2000). As I have argued elsewhere, and as is evident in any number of instances, the blind application of democratic and economic liberalism can be profoundly destabilizing and unjust (Lipschutz, 1998b). Social violence and warfare--the Somalia Syndrome--are one consequence. If, in our pursuit of security, such outcomes are of no concern to us, and we are content with containment, then there is little we need to do in addition to building new walls. I would argue to the contrary, that, in philosophical and practical terms, we should be concerned about such outcomes, and we must act on them.

Approaching security through the conventional lenses of international relations and strategic studies leads to a tendency to define problems and threats in particular ways; shifting our frame of exploration and analysis to something familiar yet different can open up ways of approaching matters that are foreclosed by more conventional approaches. That is my intention here. The provenance of the Somalia Syndrome is obvious, although I do not mean for it to stand as analogy to realist theory or policy; rather, as we shall see below, the story of Somalia is about politics "inside" a putative nation-state (Walker, 1992) and their implications for 21^st century world politics. Specifically, the Somalia Syndrome is recognizable as a more general phenomenon widely-discussed since 1991: the evanescence of political authority and the implications for social order (Lipschutz, 2000; this pattern is also evident, I think, in the current Palestinian uprising). The causes of the Somalia Syndrome are, perhaps, less evident. The end of the Cold War? The re-emergence of ancient hatreds? Corrupt and inept leadership? Globalization or market failures (Lipschutz, 1998a)? "Whatever," as someone has said. The outcome is the same. Such stories don’t threaten global security, as thermonuclear war once did but, as we saw at the Millennium meeting of the United Nations, they are the source of considerable discussion, debate, concern, and fear. Do the nations of the world have the duty or the right to eliminate anarkhos within states when they are so protective of anarchy (and sovereignty) among them?

The metaphor of the Naked City draws on growing interest in cities as loci of politics and economics (Knox & Taylor, 1995; Sassen, 1994). I draw on a rather different source: a text on justice. In Justice and the Politics of Difference, Iris Marion Young writes the following:

Young addresses domestic politics and strives for a realistic vision. She argues further that "A model of a transformed society must begin from the material structures that are given to us at this time in history…." (Young, 1990:234). For her, the relevant structure is not "community," an idealized and homogenized vision of social relations but, rather, the "City," used here as a generic concept, rather than as a specific urban agglomeration. In the City, we find "a form of social relations…define[d] as the being together of strangers." Continues Young, "In the city persons and groups interact within spaces and institutions they all experience themselves as belonging to, but without those interactions dissolving into unity or commonness" (1990:237). The City is not without its flaws and dangers, of course; Young is the first to admit that. But the City is a collective political space different than, but not so distant from, a potential world politics for the 21^st century.

Many of the security threats conventionally listed in the literature arise not from the classical security dilemma associated with sovereign states but, rather, from what are essentially inequities in the global distribution of power, authority, and wealth and the processes of globalization (Lipschutz, 1998a, 2000). These inequities are often cast in terms of a "North-South divide" (successor to the East-West conflict) in which the poorer countries of the world are demanding a greater share of global income. Threats are then seen as emanating from disaffected governments and groups, from people on the move, from phenomena that cannot be suppressed at their source by weak or non-existent states. One solution, as proffered by a broad range of strategic and economic analysts, is the strengthening of national institutions and the pursuit of prescribed regulatory policies so as to facilitate economic growth within the poor countries (IMF, 2000; Evans, 1996). States, it is assumed, will remain the last bastion of domestic order and stability necessary to foster economic investment and growth. Eventually, it is said, the gap will be closed, the rule of law legitimized, and justice served.

Yet, we must also recognize that this divide is not simply a geopolitical one. Within the societies of both North and South, there are the powerful and rich, on the one hand, and the poor and weak, on the other. Neo-liberal economics and politics do not address disparities within societies and shy away from any sort of regulatory redistribution of wealth and influence (IMF, 2000). As I have argued elsewhere, and as is evident in any number of instances, the blind application of democratic and economic liberalism can be profoundly destabilizing and unjust (Lipschutz, 1998b). Social violence and warfare--the Somalia Syndrome--are one consequence. If, in our pursuit of security, such outcomes are of no concern to us, and we are content with containment, then there is little we need to do in addition to building new walls. I would argue to the contrary, that, in philosophical and practical terms, we should be concerned about such outcomes, and we must act on them.

Everyone knows the story of Somalia (Hashim, 1997; Besteman, 1999), but where to begin? In the interests of space and time, I will not elaborate on the origins of that cartographic construction still identified on world maps as "Somalia." Instead, I will begin at the end. Once upon a time, there was a dictator named Siad Barre. In acquiring and keeping state power, he was, first, a client of the Soviet communists, then of the American capitalists. His arch-enemy (in this telling) was Ethiopia, whose presence in "Western Somalia" (aka, the Ogaden) made a fiction of the five-pointed star on the national flag (Kenya, it must be added, possessed one of the other points). Barre had few scruples about who was his paymaster and even fewer about how he used his power; the attempt in 1977 to wrest the Ogaden from Ethiopia was a dismal failure and it soon led to the change of patrons (Ethiopia was considered by Soviets to be the greater prize). Policymakers in Washington and elsewhere did not idealize Barre's rule, but his regime stood guard over the oil shipping lanes from the Persian Gulf to Europe and beyond. Moreover, his was an orderly regime, in the sense that he imposed an order of sorts on his country and its borders, and met the minimal standards of the international community.

Then, the Cold War ended. Oil was cheap. Clients were costly. Ethiopia warred with itself. Barre was overthrown and left behind a cornucopia of armaments but no successor. Anarkhos followed. "Warlords"--a Western euphemism for people with stockpiles of guns--asserted sovereignty over neighborhoods, districts, and towns. They accumulated riches, arms, and bits of territory, and dispensed rewards to supporters and punishment to opponents. Under the new regime, some Somalis became quite wealthy; many lost what little they had. With the economy in shambles and no patron, there were few employment opportunities outside of the warlord sector. For young men with no other job prospects, the seemed a future in the armies.

But catastrophe heaped upon catastrophe. The rains failed and crops died. With few mechanisms for food distribution, an economy based on rentier practices, and little in the way of liquidity, famine did not fail to arrive. People without money or connections went hungry, and died. The disaster was broadcast to a prurient world, and the "CNN effect" was born. The sight of death and disorder disturbed the viewing public, while the implications of domestic anarkhos perturbed Washington (Lipschutz, 2000). President Bush send in the police--U.S. Marines--to restore authority and establish justice. We know what happened. The police were outmanned and outgunned. They left.

Time passed. Not much was heard about Somalia, but curious things were happening. In some parts of the former Somalia, called "Somaliland" and "Puntland," local elites eliminated or pacified competitors and became statesmen. Order was restored and civic life resumed. In other parts of Somalia, competition among warlords and turfs escalated, and so did misery, violence, and injustice. In August, 1999, UN Secretary General Kofi Anan presented a report to the Security Council on the situation in Somalia which, by all accounts, remained grim (UN Secretary General, 1999). Although the collapse of the Somali state was an entirely internal matter (albeit with gunrunning and meddling by neighbors), Anan nonetheless presented the situation as one that might, according to something called the "Somali Consultative Council," lead to the destabilization of the entire region (UN Secretary General, 1999: sec. 36). Anan observed that "As a country without a national government, Somalia remains unique… a 'black hole' where the absence of law and order is attracting criminals and subversives" (UN Secretary General, 1999: sec. 63, 62). And, he reported, that although there was "a strong feeling that the days of the 'warlords' were over," there was also a fear that some approaches to reconstruction "could lead to unsustainable 'emirates' and/or to many 'presidents' in an absurd fragmentation of the country, ultimately reaching as far down as the district, if not the village level" (UN Secretary General, 1999:sec. 40). Statelessness, it would appear, is a threat to the state system!

In the midst of anarkhos, however, a demand for order appeared. Businesses began to grow and prosper. More money became available, and demand grew for goods smuggled in from Yemen and other nearby countries. Merchants bemoaned the lack of rules and regulations. According to a New York Times reporter in Mogadishu, writing during late summer, 2000,

To fulfill this vision, in August, 2000, 2,000 Somalis met in neighboring Djibouti and, mindful of the failure of twelve previous attempts to reconstruct the state, chose a "president" to preside over that part of Africa which appears on the map as "Somalia" (Fisher, 2000b). The new chief executive, one Abdikassim Salad Hassan, was assigned the task of putting an end to anarkhos. Not all of the clan leaders cum warlords were happy with this prospect. After meeting in Sana, Yemem with that country's president, four of them "warned foreign nations not to recognize the election of a new president," because it might "lead to civil war" (Agence France-Presse, 2000). Clearly, if anarkhos vanishes, so does their power. If a new national government is established, the "warlords" will be no more than boyz in the 'hood. If the economy is regulated, taxes will take their wealth. How did Charles Tilly (1985) put it? "War-making and state-making as organized crime?"

My point is not to belabor the problematic of Somalia--if that is what it is--but, rather, to present it as an archetype of one dynamic in 21^st century world politics: the fragmentation of authority and destruction of the polity. I would argue that many of the matters on conventional laundry lists of contemporary "security threats" are a result of this specific dynamic, which is driven by those processes sometimes subsumed under the rubric of "globalization" (Lipschutz, 2000:ch. 2; see also Dillon & Reid, 2000). In brief, any social institution, whether family or state, whose members are motivated by appetite and libertarianism, rather than some notion of the collective good, however weak, will suffer from this same dynamic, albeit to different degrees. The invisible hand, by itself, will not produce salutary results. And it seems fair to predict that those parts of the world in which the invisible hand rules will, sooner or later, be subject to some version of the Somalia Syndrome.

I am not sure, however, that restoration of the state will provide a solution to the Somalia Syndrome. The United Nations and its members are states. Their representatives think in terms of states. Resolutions are cast by states and for states. Notwithstanding the growing presence of other social actors in world politics, the UN is a state-centric organization. The contradictions that follow from such state-centrism are visible in efforts to think of a future Somalia in these terms. As the Secretary General's report (sec. 64) puts it,

Inasmuch as the state system itself is organized on the basis of political collectivities characterized by mutual distrust--this, after all, is the basic premise of anarchy and self-help--the anarkhos of Somalia is simply the reproduction of statist logic at the district and village levels. The flaw in the Secretary General's vision of Somalia's future is, in other words, not a function of the situation on the ground but, rather, in the constrained framework within which the Somalia Syndrome is being addressed. To restore the Somali state--or a state to any polity in a similar situation--is to restore the very reified national sovereignty that lies at the core of the ideology of state system, which is no more than a libertarian metaphor (and utopia) writ large. "Metaphors can kill," as Berkeley linguist George Lakoff once argued (1991). Attempts to transform the metaphorical state into reality have repeatedly demonstrated its genocidal potential.

 How else might we think about a security agenda? Rather than endlessly debating what is to be secured (the referent) or how it is to be secured (the method), let us consider those minimal conditions that would make it feasible to cope with anarkhos and, perhaps, address some of its consequences. While most analysts would seek strategies in material methods--military, financial, communicative--I choose instead to focus on institutional possibilities. I offer, therefore, a metaphor drawn from the 1948 detective film, The Naked City (and the late-1950s television show based on it). The film is a noirish police procedural, set in New York City, in which crimes are investigated and solved by the ancestors of those who populate today's police TV shows (e.g., NYPD Blue). In all of these representations, New York appears as a site of constant violence and disorder, in which the boundaries of civilization are maintained only by the thin blue line.

As anyone who has ever spent a few days in New York can attest, however, the image is a vastly exaggerated one, and it is not unlike the conventional wisdom concerning the world as a "dangerous place." Indeed, the mantra (and myth) of urban danger, endlessly repeated, only serves to reproduce the theoretical logic of interstate relations at the urban level and motivates really-existing police departments to acquire military equipment generally reserved for use by national armies. Thus, even as militaries engage in "police actions" and are criticized for their lack of skill in doing so, police departments conduct military operations against gangs and households, and are lionized for courage and ingenuity.

In some ways, this contradiction is in keeping with the widespread political tradition of the City as site of evil and corruption, in which the worst of human nature is revealed. The term "cosmopolitan," which literally means "citizen of the world," but is more generally understood as "worldly sophistication," has been used, in the past, to refer to specific marginalized groups who were blamed for urban degeneracy. Today, much rhetoric is expended discussing the "exploding cities" of the South, unable to accommodate rural migrants, overwhelmed by demands for social services, hotbeds of crime and corruption. Even images of "global cities" as the new centers of the world economy, controlled by capital, carries with it intimations of hegemony, of "powerful centres of economic and cultural authority" (Knox, 1995:7) that, through their role as nodes in the world's "nervous system," dominate domestic hinterlands as well as foreign ones.

But the City is also a place of culture, diversity, stability, invention, and innovation. Moreover, as Jane Jacobs (1961) wrote in The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Cities such as New York, London, Los Angeles, or Lisbon are not without their flaws and dangers, of course, but each is also a place in which there is an order, to which there is a logic, and by which human interaction and creativity is fostered. Some of the City's order is maintained by police power, some by custom, much through collective desire and action. As James Donald (1992:6, cited in King, 1995:215-16) has argued,

The Naked City, as I use it here, is also meant to displace another, rather pernicious, metaphor, that of the "Global Village," which can be traced back to Marshall McLuhan. In The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), he wrote that "The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village." His metaphor is best remembered for its communicative implications, and the notion that we were now living in a much smaller world in which we would all get to know each other and become a single community. This, at least, is the impression one gets from examining the way the term is commonly used today. It is not entirely clear, however, that McLuhan thought of the global village in a wholly positive sense; he also argued that, whereas print media detribalized humanity, electronic media were retribalizing it, putting people back in touch with their tribal emotions (The Medium is the Massage; 1962). Many have since pointed out that, far from being a realm of freedom, the village can actually be claustrophobic, limited, mean, and intolerant of difference. Moreover, the "village" can also be a place in which residents are disciplined by familiarity and surveillance, rather than liberated by the sense of community (see, e.g., Young, 1990:229-30).

 The City, by contrast, involves "a form of social relations which [involves]…the being together of strangers" (Young, 1990: 236). According to Iris Marion Young,

In the City, difference can thrive without resort to the violence of either the battlefield or the marketplace. There are rich and there are poor, there is physical violence and structural violence, but there is also a modicum of justice and no mass murder. Three characteristics that buffer the rough edges of human relations are also evident in City life: empathy, respect, and justice. Empathy, because everyone living in the City experiences it as common environment; respect, because life in the City requires the recognition of fellow residents as members of a single polity; and justice, because residents feel a sense of responsibility to their fellow residents.

I do not wish to reify or idealize the City as a location in which Human Nature is, somehow, transformed, nor to argue on behalf of some idealized "City of God" in which harmony reigns. And I do not propose revival of the "city-state" or the construction of some kind of world cosmopolis. Rather, my use of City is entirely metaphorical, meant to motivate thought about a realm of politics, conflict, and social relations that can stand as an alternative to the idealized metaphors of state and state-system.

There are several advantages to thinking about global politics in terms of the City, of urban environment and society. First, cities are real, material places in a way that states are not. Cities have boundaries, of course, but they also have infrastructures whose use and maintenance are critical to people's lives and livelihoods. Therefore, at least some sense of commitment to the City on the part of its residents is necessary to the well-being of both individual and polity. Second, membership in cities is constituted in terms of this material reality, in ways that citizenship in a nation-state is not. To be sure, both offer entitlements but, whereas the state is a distant, sometimes intrusive presence, the City is proximate and the resident is continuously involved in the City's reproduction. The commitment may be weak, but it cannot be avoided. Third, cities are heterogeneous in both material and conceptual terms in ways that nation-states are not. Neighborhoods tend to be identifiable and different. Some are rich, some are poor. Some are more cohesive than others. Together, they comprise the social infrastructure and human capital that makes the City possible. Finally, in some cities--not all--the politics and social relations of the parts--places and people together--add up to something that is more than their sum. Even where race relations and police power are problematic, as in Los Angeles and New York, it is the linkages among the parts, and not only the parts themselves, that are important to the whole.

What does it mean to think of contemporary world politics and social relations through the metaphorical lens of the City? First, the City offers a different conception of political economy than globalization or international political economy. In an urban context, economic and social relations among people are mediated not only by face-to-face contact and electronic connections but also by material linkages. These include physical infrastructure as well as social institutions, both of which play a central role in the maintenance of the City as a cohesive place. Much of the interaction that people have with each other takes place in areas such as streets and neighborhoods, which help to constitute both individual and collective identities. These places are distinct from each other but, in combination, are the "building blocks" of the City as a whole.

The material and social infrastructures of the global political economy are clearly not as dense or well-established as those of the City, but they have been built up from discrete parts, most of which are a good deal smaller than nation-states. Although flows of capital, currency, and information through electronic networks attract the most scholarly and popular attention these days, the global political economy could not exist without activity in and links into the "microspaces" of everyday life, which take place at small scales. Even the virtual world of "around-the-clock" stock markets are, ultimately, populated by living individuals who, when they eat, drink, sleep, love, and buy, interact socially with others in shared places. The physical spaces that are the material foundation of such microspaces, whether they be apartments, factories, schools, think tanks, bureaucracies or farms, are the building blocks of the global political economy.

Intersocietal relations

Second, the metaphor of the City offers to us a different conception of intersocietal politics, one in which societies are distinct yet not separate. The City is comprised of many distinct places, differentiated by function, cityscape, ethnicity, income, and so on, each of which contributes to individual and collective identities. There may be friction, tension, and even violence between the residents of these different places, and there is certainly no assurance of equity or, for that matter, fairness in the distribution of resources arising from these places. Neighborhood politics can be quite rough and tumble and, sometimes, there are invisible borders that one dare not cross. At the same time, however, there is a sensibility among its residents that the City is a place in which fates are shared--even as individuals experience their individual fates--and that the City's politics must reflect this. If parts of the whole are dangerous or blighted or in decline, the entire City suffers, not only because of possible "spillover" but also from the sense of siege and depression that results. The rich can shield themselves from that which offends or threatens them, but such defenses detract from the quality of life for all. It is better, therefore, to pursue a politics not based on "beggaring-thy-neighbor," even if the cost in money is quite high.

By the same token, in world politics there are intra-societal and inter-societal matters, and the two are not independent of each other. It is not, however, the possibility of disruption in one society spilling over into another that is so critical; it is the psychological and social impacts on the whole that matter. Somalia is not a threat to the world because it lacks a state; it is a problem because of the example it offers to others. It is of no real concern to the world how the Somali people decide to organize their polity; it is of concern if such organization facilitates theft, murder, and injustice and those practices affect other societies, either through spillover or as a model. The world's interest in places such as Somalia is, therefore, only marginally about security and much more about justice (of which more, below).

Third, the metaphor of the City suggests a different relationship between the places of societies and the spaces of societal politics. Most cities, but not all, are governed by some kind of centralized executive, answerable to a municipal legislature. Cities are territorially-bounded entities, but within metropolitan areas, one is usually hard-put to say where one unit ends and the next one begins. Transboundary issues are legion, and the City is transected by a large number of boundaries, some juridical and administrative, some cultural and social, others organized around physical infrastructure. These alternative units often have their own governing institutions, with varying responsibilities and capabilities. Within the multiplicity of spaces and places we find in the City, live its residents. The boundaries of these spaces and places help to structure the identities of the people who live in them, but also facilitate multiple identities and permit a high degree of spatial mobility. Not everyone feels comfortable with these possibilities; in the United States, as noted earlier, there is a growing trend toward gated communities, a process that replicates the exclusionary state at the local level. It could also be argued that the openness and fluidity of City life are made possible only by virtue of central government and police power (see below). I do not deny or minimize this last point, but the ways in which government and power are deployed within the City is a social choice, and not something that is given.

Under generally-assumed conditions of international anarchy, the exclusiveness of the state, maintained by government and force, is supposed to be tempered by economic and cultural exchange (I address the question of citizenship, below). This results in the much-labored contradiction between the function of borders in demarcating zones of sovereignty and the growing permeability of these borders to all sorts of transnational flows. Borderlands become an especially vexing matter, inasmuch as national and individual sovereignty operate at cross-purposes in these regions. Government and police power are especially problematic where the fiction of closed borders clash with the realities of open economies. The European Union's approach to this matter--a combination of national and local citizenships--is especially interesting, although it is also subject to this "inside/outside" contradiction (Walker, 1992).

Fourth, the metaphor of the City also points toward a more fluid and labile conception of societal membership--what we otherwise call "citizenship"--and suggests some innovative ideas about the movement of people between societies. In line with my comments about borders and boundaries, above, the physical and social structures of the City facilitate and foster the development of multiple identities and memberships. Some are political, some are social, others cultural, economic, and spatial. Residents adopt one or another is response to context and contingency. Such multiplicity stands in stark contrast to the exclusiveness of national citizenship, which notionally combines some set of these elements in one package and marginalizes all others. Nor is this notion of societal membership the same as pluralism, which is organized around competing interest groups, however they are defined.

In terms of world politics, citizenship is currently conceptualized as a combination of entitlements and nationality (Lipschutz, 1999b). From the former arise political, civil, and social rights, from the latter, belonging and exclusivity. Generally speaking, however, it is nationality, in a narrow sense, that grants access to most entitlements and generates the resentments that are visible in almost all of the world's societies. So long as citizenship is linked to territorial and cultural exclusivity, the contradiction remains; if, however, the two can be decoupled, multiple "citizenships" become possible. In the European Union, with its internally-open borders, for example, "citizens" of the Union possess national citizenship in their home countries and municipal entitlements within the cities where they live (which may be in a different host country). This principle is not without its difficulties and problems, but it suggests ways in which citizenship might be treated independently of geopolitics.

Finally, the City metaphor implicates us in an ethical, rather than a purely interest-based, relationship with fellow residents. In the case of the City, residents have an interest in the life conditions of other residents, if only because these tend to affect City life as a whole. At the same time, however, there is usually a felt responsibility to fellow residents; a City should not be so mean as to permit its inhabitants to live in squalor and go hungry. Consequently, Cities have welfare programs and pay attention to the conditions and circumstances of everyday life, through various regulatory and social policies. Not everyone feels that the City should be engaged in these matters, and many Cities do not have the resources to ameliorate the conditions of the poor and homeless. Nonetheless, the widely-held sense of a shared place and its fate sensitizes the City resident to her ethical responsibilities to the City, and its residents, as a whole.

In world politics, there is a growing sense of shared place and fate, although this is mostly treated as a matter of interests rather than ethics. The condition of the poor and the weak is of concern only as it threatens the position of the rich and powerful. Containment and exclusivity become the means whereby both cognitive and physical separation are maintained. Yet, I would argue, containment works both ways, and fortresses are sterile places. It is the ethical commitment to respect for all human beings that mandates responsibility for their conditions of everyday life. In other words, the issue here is neither historical responsibility (reparations) nor distributive justice (Rawls "Veil of Ignorance") but, rather, the principle that the respect we each expect and demand in our daily lives--civil behavior and civic virtue--is also due to all others, wherever they live.

Obviously, a metaphor can only be stretched so far before it deforms or breaks, and the "City," by itself, probably appears too idealized as presented here. it is for that reason that I utilized the modified metaphor of the "Naked City." The Naked City represents my acknowledgement that city and international life remain quite different. At the same time, it is intended to stand for a politics rooted in really-existing social institutions and collectivities as well as material infrastructures, but conceptualized in terms different from the dangerous worlds, coming anarchies, civilizational clashes, unipolar moments, rogue threats, world states, republican federations, or other notions that have been popularized in the academic, policy, and popular literatures of the 1990s. The global political and social environment of the 21^st century is more like the Naked City in the making, I would argue, than it is the "Dangerous World" so beloved and feared by American defense analysts and foreign policymakers.

As I suggested earlier, the Naked City is not a place of complete safety; there are dangers, risks, uncertainties. Not all of the Naked City's "neighborhoods" are safe ones, and not all of the residents of specific neighborhoods get along with one another. Indeed, some areas, at some times, are in a condition approaching social or civil warfare. For the most part, however, even these are far from the "state of nature" caricatured in conventional international relations. There are vast differences in the wealth and living standards of the Naked City's inhabitants, and while some travel in limousines, others lack even sufficient food, much less a modicum of comfort. And, in the Naked City, justice is available to those who can afford it, with the result that the poor and weak lack any power to change their condition, short of invading the richer precincts of the city. Extending the metaphor of the Naked City, I propose that the premier "security" problematic we face in this new century is, as in the Naked City, not peace but justice.

Philosophically, as residents of the Naked City, we should be concerned about the life conditions of our fellow residents, whether they live next door or far away. This is a simple consequence of the principle of mutual respect which all individuals should observe and expect in return from their fellow human beings. Conditions of poverty and violence constitute the absence of such respect and we are bound, not from interests but duty, to try to redress these. Of course, the rich and powerful residents of many really-existing cities (especially in the United States), concerned only for their own interests, are indifferent to such conditions and pursue containment through home security strategies, gated communities, and militarization of police forces, among other things. Yet, such policies do not eliminate the threat felt by the rich toward the poor who, it would seem, can never be completely ignored.

In practical terms, we have come too far to be able to maintain separations among different parts of the world. Not only are many of the problems listed by strategic analysts to be found "at home"--teenage hackers, for example--there is little standing in the way of flows moving through space, from one society to another. Indeed, there is ample evidence to suggest that without the flows of immigrants, both legal and illegal, from poor areas to rich, whole economies would be afflicted by labor shortages. The intermingling of cultures, and their commodification and "normalization," are products of globalization and capitalism. The ability of individuals and groups from one society to commit violence in another is, in part, a consequence of the same processes, as is the role of ethnic diasporas in disseminating conflict and violence far beyond their territories of origin. It is in our interest, therefore, to acknowledge that such conditions are an unavoidable feature of 21^st century international life and, to adopt another metaphor, this time from environmental policy, we need to go beyond "end of pipe" solutions--control of pollution--to the equivalent of "ecological modernization"--changes in practices. Developing the international equivalent of ecological modernization requires that we get away from thinking about the hammer (Abraham Kaplan: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail") and broaden our choice of tools. This extends, again, to some of the methods used to address the kinds of interpersonal and infrastructural problems that arise in the Naked City.

In offering a security agenda for the 21^st century organized around the metaphor of the Naked City, I want to reiterate that I do not envision organizing a global political community along City lines. A metaphor rarely makes a good model. But there are specific features of existing cities that bear thinking about in terms of global politics. I want to highlight here three models of spatial organization, drawn from existing urban areas, that are worth pondering. Each offers a somewhat different approach to spatial relations among units aggregated into a metropolis. Each, moreover, offers a different approach to unit interactions, mobility, and governmental institutions.

The first is that offered by Greater Los Angeles, in which a central, hegemonic "core" is surrounded by hundreds of smaller units (about 180) of varying size and wealth, divided into larger "regional" units (i.e., counties). While these units share a bounded geophysical environment, are highly integrated into a single economic system, and are linked together through a vast network of transportation channels. Mobility is high but costly, and therefore somewhat limiting in terms of access. There is no central government, per se, although there are institutions responsible for functional regional management of water, transportation, and other services. There is also a "Southern California Association of Governments" (SCAG), which covers six countries, 38,000 square miles, and some 15 million persons, and appears to be responsible largely for monitoring and planning, but has no specific legal or police authority (http://www.scag.ca.gov/index.htm). Conflict among the units is endemic, as is cooperation, but each unit pursues its own interests as far as possible. Civil violence is common; social warfare is infrequent but not unheard of. The police forces of the units are uncoordinated and, for the most part, are not well-socialized into the communities they patrol. As a result, there is considerable antagonism within the core unit. Interpersonal relations are highly-fragmented by class and ethnicity, and there are limited opportunities for interactions among different groups. Civil behavior is often at a premium.

London is somewhat more centralized than Los Angeles. There is a central core of autonomously-governed units--32 boroughs--surrounded by rings of cities and towns. The entire city functions as a single economic unit, although there is great variation in wealth among the boroughs. Culture is highly-concentrated. There is no central government, per se. Until the mid-1980s, there was a weak metropolitan council (Greater London Council; GLC), which was disbanded by the Thatcher government and replaced by an even more toothless organization. The Blair government created the Greater London Authority (GLA), which includes a Mayor, an Assembly, and four functional agencies (transport, development, policy, and fire and emergency services). Beyond this, the GLA does not appear to have a great of power (http://www.london.gov.uk/). There are a number of centralized functional institutions that ties the boroughs and units together. These are somewhat autonomous, a number have been privatized, and some public ones are notionally under the jurisdiction of the national government. Mobility is high, but transportation channels are stratified and fairly expensive. Internal conflict is common but muted; social warfare is infrequent. The police comprise a single unit; traditionally, they have been well-socialized into the subunits, with some exceptions. They are, however, beginning to adopt some American tactics which may serve to distance them from city residents. Class and ethnic separation remains relatively strong, although there is a high degree of civility.

New York represents the most concentrated and centralized approach to political organization of the three cities. Here, there is an economic and cultural core (Manhattan), surrounded by the four boroughs, of varying wealth, size, and population (I ignore the outer units). There is a central government, as well as much weaker administrations for each borough. This government has a strong leader who, as chief executive, oversees all kinds of functions for the entire system; the City Council is a weak one (http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/; http://council.nyc.ny.us/ ). The linkages among the five units are much tighter and the entire unit is more accessible to all residents. Mobility is high and reasonably inexpensive, but limited by residential stratification and employment opportunities. There is some degree of internal conflict and social warfare breaks out periodically. The single police force is better coordinated and more-socialized into subunits, but not without its problems. While there is a high degree of separation between classes and ethnicity, there are also many more opportunities for interaction than in Los Angeles. Behavior is more civil.

These three types of spatial organization, and the social institutions and relations they support, parallel, in some respects, the kind of world toward which, it is often said, we are moving: a dominant economic and cultural core; transborder rich and poor classes; fragmented governance; growing and ever-cheaper mobility; disorganized policing; and different degrees of civility. Each has both attractive and distasteful features. Together, however, they suggest some ideas about how to work toward security in the Naked City. There are three aspects that merit particular attention: (1) government and governance; (2) openness to movement; (3) social relations among units and people.

As is ritually observed in the international relations literature, there is no world government, and one is not likely to emerge during the first part of the 21^st century. There is, however, an ever-increasing number of agencies, organizations, and institutions engaged in what Michel Foucault (1991) called "governmentality" (i.e., governmental rationality) and others call "global governance" (Lipschutz, 1996, forthcoming; see also Dillon & Reid, 2000). There is a considerable amount of collaboration among specific actors, usually around functional matters, although turf conflicts are not unknown. What is largely absent in this mix is effective central coordination. The United Nations fulfills this role only partially, but its various agencies are engaged in a constant struggle with each other as well as its more powerful member states. The latter remain reluctant to yield much in the way of sovereign privileges unless there is a clear benefit. A greater degree of planning and coordination among these many governmental actors could, under some circumstances, have laudable consequences for addressing various types of transnational disorders and externalities.

The three cities described above offer some ideas about how such coordination might be organized. For the moment, Los Angeles comes closest to the pattern of existing world politics. The global economy is increasingly integrated, and borders are in decline as obstacles to the movement of goods and capital. Transborder effects are commonplace. But regional cooperation is limited, and usually dominated by a local or global hegemon. Such cooperation as does occur between units takes place through a variety of supra-"urban" agencies responsible for management of different functional matters. While cooperation is frequent among these agencies, especially when responsibilities overlap or come into conflict, it is constrained by a variety of factors. Most of all, there is no coordinating organization, even though some agencies purport to engage in some coordination across specific issue areas (e.g., UNEP for the environment; WHO for health). As an experiment in global governmentality, it might be worthwhile to ponder methods of fostering greater coordination among institutions, across selected issue areas, through something along the lines of the Greater London Authority.

To this, one might respond that the United Nations meets much of this requirement and, to some extent, it does. Yet, there are few among us who would argue that the UN represents the people of the world. There is growing social representation in its various agencies and even the General Assembly but there is no sense that national delegations, national movements, or non-governmental organizations are representative in the same way as, for example, the European Parliament. There is no sense, either, that UN agencies serve specific functional interests in which the world's people have a stake (that is, we are not "stakeholders" in those agencies). Most observers agree that any kind of global election would be difficult, if not impossible, to organize, yet political legitimacy is not easily created by other means.

With respect to most cities, freedom of movement is taken for granted. Given even limited means of transportation, people will commute long distances to and from work (usually as a function of income). Indeed, while the availability of a large-scale transportation infrastructure appears to increase traffic volume across urban regions, it does not result in permanent movements of people from poor to rich neighborhoods (for obvious reasons). At a larger scale, movement within countries from one region to another do result in large-scale changes in population distributions but most people stay put. Mobility is most often a consequence of unemployment and lack of opportunities and, all else being equal, most people would prefer not to move. This suggests, therefore, that a focus on immigration exclusive of economy is shortsighted.

The broadest objection to full freedom of movement across state borders has to do with the impacts on resources within the receiving country. Arguments made against immigration (I exclude here refugee movements) are often couched in terms of "floods" and "waves" that threaten to inundate rich countries. The evidence supporting such fears is, however, rather thin. The data on whether or not immigrants consumer more than their fair share of welfare services is highly contested. And the argument that people move from one country to another on a permanent basis is not fully-supported by evidence, either. For example, most of the individuals who seek to cross the U.S.-Mexico border eventually succeed, which suggests that barriers to entry are rather low. Many who cross illegally do so multiple times, moving back and forth between their home and host countries. Evidently, fully-open borders are neither likely nor necessarily desirable, but a freer global migration regime would help to address some of the gross distributive disparities that now exist between and within countries.

It helps, of course, that the political units comprising large cities do not arm against each other (at least, not in the military sense). That this is not an automatic consequence of City life is clearly seen in places such as Belfast, Jerusalem, and Jaffna, where the standard approach to intraurban violence is exclusion and containment. It is simple to argue that cities exist within the realm of sovereignty and, therefore, enjoy the protection offered by Leviathan (so to speak). But even in the absence of an overarching sovereign, most countries, most of the time do not exist in a state of hostility with each other and, where they do, the sources of conflict are as likely to arise from domestic causes as mutual antagonism. As has been widely observed, most of the 40-odd wars underway around the world today are intra- rather than inter-state. This does not mean that there are no tense borders as, for example, that between India and Pakistan. But even the bad relations within the subcontinent are, in large part, a result of domestic relations among peoples within the individual countries. And this should compel us to think about those relations, rather than the ones between countries

During the 1990s, the standard response--when there was one--to civil and social violence was the deployment of peacemaking and peacekeeping forces to patrol borders established between warring sides. This approach has met with only limited success for reasons that I need not enumerate here (see, e.g., Lipschutz & Jonas, 1998; Dillon & Reid, 2000). But one illuminating and alarming discovery resulting from the indiscriminate application of such forces is that, rather then remaining "neutral," they often become embroiled in the very conflicts they are meant to prevent, on one side or the other, or both. In a situation in which authority is dispersed, as is the case in civil conflicts, peacekeeping and peacemaking forces represent external power, and they use threats of force as a deterrent against further combat. Paradoxically, however, such forces are often permitted to use force only for self-protection, in which case they have no deterrent value. If they do use military force against either side, as in Kosovo, they inevitably come to be seen as favoring one side or the other.

Why does this problem arise? Most of the civil conflicts of contemporary concern are better understood in urban terms than interstate ones. Members of different groups are, or have been, living in mixed neighborhoods (Bosnia) or cities (Jaffna), and violence inevitably engulfs individual households. People become alienated from one another, flee their homes, are embroiled in a growing trauma of anger and hate. These are not problems that can be addressed by military force (except in the case of full separation). What is needed is restoration of the inter-personal conditions existing prior to the onset of violence. Admittedly, these were rarely ideal, and re-establishing them is no easy task, but the penchant for applying military power arise more from possession of the means than thoughtful consideration of the desired ends.

An example may illuminate this point. Several years ago, as the war in Bosnia was nearing the end of its most violent phase, Michael Mandelbaum (1996), the "Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, and Director of the Project on East-West Relations at the Council on Foreign Relations," attacked the Clinton Administration for conducting "foreign policy as social work." Responding to then-National Security Advisor Anthony Lake's questionable argument that "I think Mother Teresa and Ronald Reagan were both trying to do the same thing," Mandelbaum (1996:18) riposted

In writing this, not only did Mandelbaum ignore the role of the American state in fostering the "noble profession" of social work, he also fell into the traditional realist trap of regarding such intervention as unworthy of state attention, presumably seeing it as an activity fit only for non-state actors. As a self-declared realist, Mandelbaum argued that U.S. foreign policy in "far-away places" should take cognizance of national self-interest and nothing else. Perhaps. But, if the fundamental reasons for organized violence within a society originate in its historical inequities and recent enmities, maintenance of a domestic "balance-of-power" would require arming every household with more and more weaponry without any prospect of disarmament or reconciliation. This very outcome is manifest in peace settlements in places such as Angola and Israel/Palestine, where ample weaponry has made it possible for fighting to continue endlessly.

But, in his cynical treatment of "foreign policy as social work," Mandelbaum completely ignores the need for social work as foreign policy, through social reconciliation and domestic restructuring (as opposed to peacemaking or conflict resolution). To be sure, this is not a matter of parachuting in a brigade of Licensed Clinical Social Workers to provide counseling to traumatized civilians or aspiring warlords; outsiders cannot possibly understand the pre-conflict dynamics of a society at war with itself. Nevertheless, therapy of a sort is not to be sneered at. More to the point, early therapeutic intervention might have the salutary effect of conflict avoidance.

What can the metaphor of the City offer in this regard? The City, conceived of as both government and residents, relies on several different forms of "social work" to prevent outbreaks of violence, to monitor conditions "on the street," and to intervene if necessary. These services are offered by both public agencies and private institutions, which often work together. First, there are cadres of social workers and the like who fulfill important monitoring and protective functions. The poor, weak, and marginalized are provided for--albeit often minimally--through social agencies and organizations. Where they discover circumstances in which domestic violence is likely to occur or has taken place, they have the authority to intervene in order to protect victims. Finally, among many other services, social agencies and organizations can mediate conflicts within families and between neighbors, and monitor such situations in case further involvement is required.

Under some circumstances, policing can be seen as a second form of "social work," although it is more problematic, involving as it does the state's monopoly of force and violence. In many places, police are regarded as no more than forces of occupation; indeed, in some cities, they have begun to arm themselves with military paraphernalia and train in military tactics. Ideally, police serve not only to "defend and protect" as the slogan has it, but also to provide something akin to social work on the street. They watch, analyze, listen, and intervene before a crisis breaks out and, it is to be hoped, render violence unnecessary. A visible foot patrol presence, composed of individuals who are familiar with neighborhoods and the people who live there, and who, in the best of circumstances, are not drawn from the dominant forces in society, can provide reassurance rather than deterrence or defense. If the use of force becomes necessary, it can be applied at a low level designed to defuse immediate provlems. (The mere presence of military power is said to provide such reassurance, although it can also become an attractive nuisance.)

While such forms of involvement have received a good deal of bad press in the United States--especially when interventions fail--they nonetheless play an essential role in maintaining a modicum of social peace and stability in cities. They also fulfill, if only in part, the responsibilities that better-off residents have toward the City as a whole. Finally, these types of activities contribute to the overall quality of life. The domestication of international relations should build on this model of social work practice in the City, applied to the Naked City. This would require a rethinking of the relationship between military power and social authority, and the restructuring of ontologies of national defense and methodologies of force application. Such a proposal might seem radical and wholly unlikely, but the first steps in this direction appear to be taking place, as various countries contemplate the future of peacekeeping.

To paraphrase the tag line of The Naked City: there are at least eight million things we could incorporate into a security agenda for the 21^st century. For the most part, we have a pretty good idea of the problems we face and what to do about them. The difficulty is where to begin, and how? One often hears about how we lack "political will" to take on these tasks, and that "leadership" is required. I disagree. It is not will that is lacking, but a sense of our collective stake in the future. It is too easy to invoke the "national interest," discover that there is none, and turn away. In developing the metaphor of the Naked City, I propose to alter the terms of the discussion. I have suggested that we might first consider what is possible in terms of political relations among people and polities, with a minimum requirement of respect (which is, after all, what each of us would expect from each other). Although some might criticize the metaphor of the Naked City as utopian, I disagree. Realism is utopian; neo-liberalism is utopian. Really-existing politics is not. The world is not a city, and it will never be one. But the politics of the City provide an architecture around which we can begin to build security in this new century.

There is and will be a good deal of resistance to even the first steps in such an agenda, most of it centered around, on the one hand, the sanctum sanctorum of national sovereignty and, on the other hand, the protection of wealth and power accumulated by those who rule. Justifiably, those now governing unstable states feel threatened by those who wish to stabilize them, for instability is part of the mechanism of maintaining power in these latter places (Dillon & Reid, 2000). But what, exactly, are our obligations to our fellow human beings? If we fail to act, many will remain poor and hungry, and many more will die. I am no fan of American dominance in international politics but, the establishment of the Naked City requires foresight, leadership, commitment, and wealth. If the 21^st century is to be a secure one, we must find ways to foster those qualities in whomever is willing to take on the task.

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-----. 2000b. "With Warlords at Home, Somalis Talk Peace," New York Times, August 8, at: www.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/080600somalia-government.html (8/30/00).

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 -----. 1998a. "Seeking a State of One's Own: An Analytical Framework for Assessing `Ethnic and Sectarian Conflict," pp. 44-77, in: Beverly Crawford & Ronnie D. Lipschutz (eds.), The myth of "ethnic conflict": politics, economics, and "cultural" violence (Berkeley: Institute of International & Area Studies, UC-Berkeley). at: http://escholarship.cdlib.org/ias/crawford/crawford02.html

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