The Conflict Between Freedom and Security in Contemporary Liberal Democracies - Essay Example

Freedom and Security in Liberal Democracies Introduction: In increasingly insecure society the liberal democracies are facing a dilemma between freedom and security. The people cannot get access to their leaders as they have security problems. The leaders are not able to trust their people who gave mandate to them due to the threat to their lives from the terrorists, who are very few in number. Though the number of the people who pose threat to the lives of the people, leaders and cause loss of property are less in number, their nature of not having concern for their own life is posing threat to majority people’s freedom. The very essence of the democracy, the freedom is suffering a severe blow in the hands of people resorting to terrorist activities. The reason is the dissatisfaction in a section of people, the lack of moral education that develops self control, the lack of openness in the public life, the effect of bureaucracy in some developing countries can be termed as main causes for the problem of clash between freedom and security in contemporary democracies. The above mentioned topics need a multi faceted strategy to deal with. The strategy involves different departments also. So it can be termed as multifaceted, multi departmental and multi angled strategy. The abuse of human rights, high handedness of the armed forces in doing their duty, the negligence of government machinery in meeting the needs of the people, the reluctance of political leadership in dealing with the issues regarding common good can be considered as main reasons that develop violent feelings in the minds of the dissatisfied young people. Many analysts suggest that the money is not only the thing that instigates the youth towards terrorism. It may be true up to some extent. Economic development gives security. The people who are threats to the security of the majority are the people who have no security of employment, life and work. Discussion: The social context and social implications of law, its enforcement and legal process also are some of the points that develop threats to the society. The disparities in the development of different areas, changes that are inevitable and not welcomed are capable of threatening security if the voices of the suffering people are not heard. When the socio legal processes do not address the problems of the people in a comprehensive manner, the conflict between freedom and security arise. The freedom has no meaning, when there is poverty. They cannot enjoy the pleasure from the freedom without having food security. They cannot have the feel of freedom when they have no employment or if they are under employed. The socio legal processes must take into consideration all the above issues while dealing with the enforcement of activities of the administration and the laws passed by it.1 The analysis of a range of specific themes that constitute the different sections of the society is a must. The following can be discussed when the enforcement of the laws in liberal democracies are concerned. They are: The concept of equal opportunities and discrimination in enforcing the law The powers awarded to the police and their practice Applying the international law, locally The reforms in the legal profession and the services offered by the professionals practicing law The disparities in the laws, the grievances caused due to that The procedures that address the grievances and the accountability of the leadership The implications of socio legal processes and the consequences of the technology of criminal justice The systems of justice delivery The processes of prosecution and trial The effectiveness of the punishment awarded by the Judiciary The law regarding immigration War on Terror: Amoore proposes the concept of biometric border to follow a dual faced strategy in the contemporary war on terrorism. He proposes that the use of bio power will make the migrants and the travellers the sites of multiple encoded boundaries. This in turn implements scientific technologies and managerial expertise in the politics regarding the border management. The political leadership or the governments, who boast to save the lives of the people of the country, cannot assure security for the lives of army personnel who fight in the war of terror. According to the norms of ‘United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, the article proposes some central themes regarding the politics of bio metric border.1 The leisure and business are considered as legitimate mobilities and terrorism and illegal immigration are considered as illegal mobilities. The reason is that the former topics will enhance the development of economy and ensure peace and security. The later topics will develop terror and insecure feeling in the lives and minds of the people. The representation of biometrics and the bodies will make the identity assumed as anchored as a source of prediction and prevention. When this authorisation of biometrics will develop techniques, the surveillance of mobility can be practised by the private security firms and the government security render services in a like manner. According to Amoore the biometric border is an almost ubiquitous boundary in the war on terrorism. It appears everywhere; it is hostile, termed as aggressive and uncertain. This made it contestable and debatable. In criticising United State’s response to 9/11 attacks Agamben Warned US against generalisation of the state of exception. The state of exception was brought with the help of laws like USA Patriot Act. This talks about permanent instalment of martial law and emergency powers. The criticism regarding the above topics has a broader scope than that of war on terrorism. The state of exception rule has become common after first world war and was generalised. In the later period it was abused.1 The procedure of judicial photography used to be applied for the criminals in the past. The increasing insecurity in the society due to terror acts was compelling the government to put whole people under surveillance. This considers all the people as suspects. When the people are the suspects the political body can be considered as criminals. In that context according to the Agamben, the larger philosophical critique of the concept of the sovereignty itself was related to the state of exception. According to him the treating of human beings will not result in ethical environment. This increases the technical values even in the context where, ethics are necessary. According to the policies followed by the administrations in various countries, one’s possibility of own existence depends upon the potentiality. Even the potentiality will pose threat after a certain level. The situation of the people was reduce to bare life and was deprived of rights due to insecurity. This deprivation of rights brings lack of freedom in the lives of the people. The main argument in the above topics is that, when an individual is accused of committing a crime, he looses the chance of expressing himself before the judiciary or in the society. The occurrence of hunger strikes even in the prisons like Guantanamo Bay, suggest that the actions of dissent of individuals make their own body suffer. This represents complete inability in expressing himself against law. This again gives rise to lawlessness. The news paper articles which report about the forced feeding in guantanamo bay can be considered as breach of law and power of the government. These types of actions are against the rights of the prisoners. Even the people living in the society are not getting their human rights. The people lost confidence in the words of political leadership as they talk according to the context and the situation. They are not assurances, but only can be considered as impulses. The people habituated to acknowledge the tradition of political theory to the likeness of prevailing political realities. According to Arendit, even the people in the liberal democracies live on shaky foundations of moral casuists, philosophers and ideologues. These people find more and more theories on a wider range to deal with the changes and new problems that are appearing in the society. The trauma of the last century that caused two world wars did not end even in the present century. It started with attacks on a democracy and war on autocracy. Even after these two things the liberal democracies of the world are not able to show the essence of democracy on the international screen. 1 The concepts, methods and values in the last century came along with us to the present century. In the increasing atmosphere of insecurity both in political class and the society, even the theory of a philosophy was not possible. Any theory that involves the political leadership and the society will remove the human interaction. In some societies the human interaction was being spoiled by the insecurity feeling and selfishness in the leadership or the people. Pleasure comes from the extreme awareness of reality. This comes out from the passion for the openness to the world. In the present world the openness was being dominated by or covered by the insecure feeling of one type or the other. The main reason can be attributed to the politics which lack a moral law that governs them supremely. When politics associate itself with pleasure activities, it develops a passion to dominate its subjects. This gives rise to identity politics. This is because the identity politics will give rise to domination over the needy. In this atmosphere the people also try to assert the right of pleasures. In attaining them they try to flout the acceptable norms. In this context the pleasure is considered an enhanced awareness of reality. When pleasure can be considered as enhanced awareness of reality, the ontology and epistemology will replace the morality. The pleasure experienced by any body is out of the norms of the accepted morals. Every happiness and pleasure comes as a consequence of passion but not moral or ethics. This intangible component of consciousness is not related to public or political component. Arendit’s views on reality, passion, pleasure and consciousness were related to the tragedy caused by the pleasure. Her views implicitly emphasise that the pleasure due to above qualities have a consequence as a tragedy. The above mentioned tragedies can be minimised by the effects of globalisation. In the processes that implement globalisation processes in industrialisation and business, the sovereignty will be reworked as the ordering principle. This will be the principle of international political economy. The economical agreements and their implementation will be done according to the internationally accepted sovereignty. This model of reworking of the sovereignty can be seen offshore. The reason is that the sovereignty is unbundled there. In this context the sovereignty is more legal than fiscal. The sovereign countries have to enter into agreements according to their fiscal needs. The sovereignty will give them authority to enter into agreements and the clauses in the agreements will favour the countries which are fiscally strong. Other than legal sovereignty, the actual sovereignty is economical sovereignty. This is capable of bringing changes in practices and understandings of rights regarding the property. This induces some prosperity in the countries that are economically weak, but their understanding of rights and conception of the property and freedom will change. These changes will bring commonality between different countries and economies and shapes international political economy.1 These commonalities are capable of inducing security and enhancing the feeling of freedom. This takes considerable time to take shape in a complete manner. In the course of time the incidents, which are consequences of conflict between freedom and security possibly, occur. The globalisation is capable of bringing multilevel governance in economically successful and liberal democracies. The multilevel governance consists of overlapping authorities and the competence between competencies. 2 The globalisation will gradually bring an end to the anarchy. Even the conventional hierarchy will find some transformation in the process of globalisation. The reason is that in the context of globalisation large number of people will be benefited and that requires radical change in systems and conventions. The process will move beyond the dichotomy of hierarchy and anarchy to differentiate the domestic and international areas. This can be termed as quick transformation of Westphalia system that is capable of undermining the sovereignty of the state. Though the fiscal sovereignty is undermined, the definitions and understandings about the freedom are taking a broader meaning. For example, in case of Europe the countries agreed to be satisfied with legal sovereignty and are acting collectively in the case of fiscal sovereignty. This is not happening in the case of Asian countries. The economic maturity results in legal sovereignty and fiscal freedom, which bothers less about the fiscal sovereignty. The developing economies that have liberal democracies like Europe were far from the achievement of European Union. The reason is that they stress more on sovereignty and do not differentiate legal and fiscal matters. If the sovereignty view is resilient the economies develop collectively and speedily without loosing the essence of freedom. By considering the sovereign statehood as a process of institutional fact, the multilevel governance can be achieved. In addition to the business activities due to the globalisation process the social service sector is also finding its international presence. People of developing countries are witnessing the funds flowing from the MNCs on the name of social work projects. This institutionalises both social work and business of those MNCs and a favourable atmosphere for the countries to which the MNCs belong. In developing countries, which have liberal democracies the freedom of living is threatened due to the decrease of funds for the welfare schemes. This gap was being filled by international social services activities.1 Due to the economic globalisation, new global areas are emerging and the local social problems in liberal democracies are being globalised. This may be termed as loss of freedom by some people, but it results in incoming of international funds for the social welfare. This consolidates the peace and solidarity by upholding human rights regarding food and shelter. The international social work can be considered as a project partnership between different social actors. The practitioners, universities, local governments are the actors who should cooperate between themselves to achieve the freedom and security regarding the economic issues. In talking about from freedom, security, economic freedom along with legal and sovereign securities, liquid modernity comes to the fore proposed by Zygmunt Bauman. He suggests that in a rapidly changing order the notions of durability are undermined. According to his view the social construction will become rootless.1 This may be due to the notion of his views about social construction. Any process will have a social construction of its own. The social construction is different in developing and developed economies. It is different in eastern and western countries. It is different in democracies and communist countries. If a model is dominating the existing one and prevailing over it, the social construction regarding the old one will disappear and a new construction begins. One should view the new construction along with the destruction of the old one. This is due to the liquidity of modernity, which causes rapid changes due to the needs of increasing population. The nuances of social change in terms of the interplay between the solid and liquid aspects of modernisation can be discussed.2 The work of Bauman about post modernity to liquid modernity brings him closer to the theories of development. He raised the questions about the expansion of markets, effects of labour, the level of poverty, new construction of class lines and contradictions of consumption. Modernity will be solid when the institutional power is centralised. This existed in traditional, legal bureaucratic and charismatic authorities. In the course of transition from traditional to legal bureaucratic authority also the modernity remained solid. This is due to the solid nature of the bureaucratic structures. The only thing that can affect the bureaucratic solidity is the charisma of the authority. The combined power of capitalism, industrialisation, surveillance and the military will make the modernity solid. This will make a view that the western expansion cannot be resisted. This cannot be a universal truth. The western suffered a set back in Vietnam in the past and was suffering huge losses in Iraq. Though it was a military victory in Iraq, there was no victory regarding social construction. Gradually the notions of the military superiority will be nullified in increasingly economically sovereign and legally matured world. The fact that the legalities are not finding any value before the solidity of military is a temporary fact. The continuous failures of the expansions will result in collaborative attitudes. In this course of time some expansions will result in temporary threat to security and freedom of the few. This in course of time transforms the solid modernity to liquid modernity. When the social changes are not compromising with the changes in environment, it is due to the solid nature of the modernity. In course of time charisma and at times reflexivity will dissolve the existing institutional that impart solidity to modern structures. This in turn brings about the required changes inline with the environment and results in liquidity of the modernity. The inability of the powers that constitute the solidity to oppose the charisma and reflexivity will result in liquidity of modern society. In this context it will be felt that the power is something that is exercised rather than possessed (Foucault).1 The above fact results in incorporation of power in a number of practices and processes. The power possession shifts from the individuals to the processes. The processes were performed by individuals but they do not possess the power with the practices and processes. This results in continuous change regarding development and in this course the notions of sovereignty, freedom and security will change. The power equations will be heterogeneous that challenge the impression of solidity in the administration. The administrations regarding countries and organisations are compelled to be liquid in nature to promote the changes that make the way for the economic development. Conclusion: The conflict between the freedom and security in liberal democracies is due to the changes that occur according to the environment. The changing social constructions result in the destruction of the old ones and the persons who want to safeguard the old ones will fell the solidity of the modernisation and the conflict between the freedom and security. If the countries having same types of necessities form a group and act according to differentiation of legal and fiscal sovereignties the development regarding fiscal issues will give freedom of life and economic security. References: 1. J.carrier, S. Savage, 2004, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF LAW, Elsevier.com, ,electronic, 6-12-06, http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622848/description#description 2. Amoore L. 2006, Biometric Borders: Governing Mobilities in the war on Terror. Political Geography, Durham university, ,electronic, 6-12-06, http://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/research/researchclusters/?mode=pdetail&pdetail=44621 3.Media Wiki, 2006, Giorgio Agamben, Wiki Pedia, ,electronic, 6-12-06, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Agamben 4. Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Wallace Stevens, 2001, Worldly pleasure, University of California at Berkeley, ,electronic, 6-12-06, http://homepage.mac.com/fmdolan/.Public/Work%20in%20Progress/Worldly%20Pleasure.pdf 5. Alan Hudson, 2000, Offshoreness, Globalization and Sovereignty: A Postmodern Geo-Political Economy, Black well Synergy, volume25, issue 3, electronic, 6-12-06, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0020-2754.2000.00269.x?journalCode=tran 6. 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