| 来源类型 | Report |
| 规范类型 | 报告 |
| Partnership in peril: The populist assault on the transatlantic community | |
| Danielle Pletka; Dalibor Rohac; Vikram Singh | |
| 发表日期 | 2018-07-31 |
| 出版年 | 2018 |
| 语种 | 英语 |
| 摘要 | Download the PDF. Introduction Populism, in and of itself, is not inherently bad. However, authoritarian populists who deny their political opponents’ legitimacy and divide society into a group of good, ordinary people and a corrupt, out-of-touch elite pose a threat to democracy and tend to degrade democratic institutions once in power. In Turkey and Hungary, for example, populist leaders have subverted independent institutions and weakened checks on executive power.1 Beyond frequently attacking domestic media, stacking their courts, and oppressing political opposition, authoritarian populists also often rail against multinational organizations and agreements.2 In earlier publications this year, a joint Center for American Progress and American Enterprise Institute team examined what is driving the success of populists in the United States3 and Europe.4 This report examines how populism on both sides of the Atlantic has weakened core transatlantic institutions such as the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and emboldened the West’s adversaries, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Until the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the EU in June 2016 — also known as Brexit — populist attacks on traditional structures of international affairs such as the EU, international trade regimes, or NATO appeared to be second-order concerns. Multinational organizations have always been a political punching bag, but the political rhetoric did not translate into reality. Brexit intensified pressure on transatlantic ties by showing that fragmentation of these structures was possible. Although many European nations had grown closer over the 70 years following World War II, Brexit showed that consolidation is not inevitable. Soon after Brexit, former U.S. Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton joined her opponent, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, in rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),5 foreshadowing the Trump administration’s flirtation with protectionism, including a possible exit from the World Trade Organization (WTO).6 The backlash against international cooperation, multilateralism, and the transatlantic alliance was long in the making. For decades, European allies have failed to invest in their military capabilities, relying instead on the U.S. security guarantees extended through NATO.7 U.S.- and European-led military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya have mired the United States and Europe in long and unpopular wars. Limited intervention in Syria similarly failed and led to much of the refugee crisis that hit Europe’s shores in the summer of 2015. Such foreign policy failures coincided with a deepening frustration over the transformation of the international trading system and integrated capital markets. Globalization ushered in unprecedented worldwide growth and broadened prosperity, helping to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty.8 However, it also led to economic stagnation and structural unemployment, particularly in the West. This is to say nothing of the global financial crisis of 2008 and its impact on the middle class in developed economies as well as on the confidence in the free enterprise system’s ability to deliver shared prosperity. The shortcomings of the EU, NATO, WTO, and other forms of international cooperation have provided a fertile ground for those calling to upend existing structures. Every day, the crisis seems to be reaching new depths. Speculations about America’s commitment to NATO are rampant, not least because of President Trump’s transactional attitude toward the United States’ European allies and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. “Will they reimburse the U.S.?” he asked on Twitter ahead of the alliance’s summit in July 2018.9 Showing a fundamental mis- understanding of the purpose of NATO, President Trump claimed the alliance’s newest member, Montenegro, could drag America into a catastrophic war: “They have very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and congratulations, you’re in World War III.”10 Of course, it is Russia that attacked non-NATO countries, including Georgia and Ukraine; conducted cyberattacks against NATO members such as Estonia; and attacked elections across the United States and Europe.11 Montenegro’s NATO membership deters such aggression and reduces rather than increases the likelihood of war. President Trump’s assault on Europe is being met by growing anti-Americanism across the Atlantic, reminiscent of public opinion in the run-up to the Iraq War.12 Moreover, President Trump’s counterproductive trade war against America’s allies as well as its adversaries is another source of new economic vulnerabilities and tensions. The United States and its partners across Europe suffer from conflicting views on whether to stand up to or appease an aggressive Russia, with several European nations agreeing with President Trump on a conciliatory stance toward President Putin. Within European nations, political parties on the left and right also argue against standing up to Russia. Collectively, the transatlantic community finds itself more dysfunctional than ever before and unable to respond to common challenges: Russia’s belligerence, the rise of China, cyberthreats, Iran’s destabilizing regional behavior, or nuclear proliferation. Hungarian President Viktor Orbán went so far as calling for the creation of an illiberal state that is free of what he calls “Western European dogmas.”13 Instead of making futile attempts to conserve the status quo, American and European leaders have to think about what comes next. The transatlantic partnership as we have known it may be ending, but rising demagogues cannot have the last word. The goal of this report is to start building a positive agenda for how the transatlantic partnership can be reinvigorated in a politically sustainable, even populist, way. Vigorous support for cooperation among transatlantic partners and a proactive agenda for reform and modernization to address the real concerns that populists exploit can turn the tide and ensure a renewed transatlantic community preserves peace and builds broad prosperity for decades to come. NATO needs to adapt to the new security environment and ensure a greater alignment of understanding of existing security threats as well as of shared values. The EU needs to complete its institutional infrastructure to become a coherent, governable body that does not stumble from one crisis to the next. A sensible, nondoctrinaire approach to immigration is necessary to harness its benefits without alienating the electorate. Furthermore, both the political right and left need to make a stronger case for economic openness as a cornerstone of the West’s prosperity. |
| 主题 | Europe and Eurasia |
| 标签 | authoritarian populism ; Defending Democracy ; European Union (EU) ; NATO ; populism |
| URL | https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/partnership-in-peril-the-populist-assault-on-transatlantic-community/ |
| 来源智库 | American Enterprise Institute (United States) |
| 资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/206579 |
| 推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Danielle Pletka,Dalibor Rohac,Vikram Singh. Partnership in peril: The populist assault on the transatlantic community. 2018. |
| 条目包含的文件 | ||||||
| 文件名称/大小 | 资源类型 | 版本类型 | 开放类型 | 使用许可 | ||
| SinghAuthoritarianPo（1256KB） | 智库出版物 | 限制开放 | CC BY-NC-SA | 浏览 | ||
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