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False friends: Leftist nationalism and the project of transnational solidarity

False friends: Leftist nationalism and the project of transnational solidarity A growing number of left-wing scholars criticize practices of transnational solidarity. Pointing to the cooptation of “globalism” by neoliberal capitalism, these scholars utilize this critique to advance leftwing nationalism. In this article, I reconstruct symptomatic texts of this genre and identify the critique of (liberal) cosmopolitanism as the common denominator in their calls for nationalizing the Left. As a consequence of their opposition to cosmopolitanism, these authors reject freedom of movement or global justice activism. In order to examine whether the project of transnational solidarity is affected by this critique, I reconstruct its justifications in Critical Theory and postcolonial-feminist theory. Hauke Brunkhorst and Chandra Mohanty exemplarily theorize transnational solidarity in different ways, but each based on a substantial critique of liberal cosmopolitanism. By that, I show that a principled return to nationalism derived from a critique of cosmopolitanism is informed by coincidental evidence that rejects practices of transnational solidarity because of their alleged embeddedness in cosmopolitan reason. Drawing on La Via Campesina, I illustrate principles of a transnational solidarity project that is not justified with liberal cosmopolitan ideas. Their experiences challenge the nationalist/statist critique while not falling back into naïve and/or neoliberal cosmopolitanism. Keywords Activism, cosmopolitanism, nationalism, solidarity, state Introduction Politics of the last decade have been strongly shaped by battles over migration and free- dom of movement. While the fault lines in these debates do generally map on the Corresponding author: Felix Anderl, Philips-Universität Marburg, Center for Conflict Studies, Ketzerbach 11, 35032 Marburg, Germany. Email: felix.anderl@uni-marburg.de 2 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) political Left (pro freedom of movement) and Right (against), some have suggested that cosmopolitanism versus communitarianism might be an increasingly influential cleav- age running across these political camps (Zürn and de Wilde, 2016). This would explain why there has been considerable controversy on the Left about how to position oneself in this debate. Some leftist politicians and parties in Europe and the US have flirted with explicitly xenophobic positions or turned partly nationalist. In Germany, the initiative “Aufstehen” [Rise up] within the party Die Linke [The Left] was an organized (if failed) attempt to cohere the societal Left around a nationalist agenda. Bernie Sanders, in 2019, said in an interview that he did not support open borders, yet discarding that position later in the year. Labor in the UK had a similarly confusing trajectory. While tradition- ally in favor of open borders, in April 2019, the party proclaimed a stance against free- dom of movement, and Jeremy Corbyn—presumably catering to increasingly large numbers of Labor supporters who favored Brexit—failed to engage in pro-immigration, or pro-refugee policies. In the Labor Conference following his statements, the party (still under Corbyn) made yet another U-turn and created one of the most progressive policies of any European party, particularly endorsing freedom of movement. These political zig-zag routes are not easy to analyze, but they show that many left- wing parties have become less steadfast in their rejection of nationalism (Walia 2021, 14). As I will show in this article, this trend is not a spontaneous tactical bow to the surg- ing extreme Right. Rather, it has been theoretically prepared and intellectually supported by a leftist critique of transnationalism. A growing number of publications by left-wing intellectuals hint at the problems involved in solidarity across borders, both practically and normatively. They suggest that the Global Justice Movement has failed largely because of its “globalist” approach lacking an anchor in local or national struggles. It is suspected that the movement was co-opted by the institutions of neoliberal capitalism who share this globalist analysis of the world, losing its critical sting in the process and becoming reformist rather than a radical alternative. Furthermore, scholars hint at the dangers of immigration to domestic workers and put into question whether it is a reason- able position to advocate for freedom of movement which, in their analysis, helps capital more than labor. On these grounds, they argue that left-wing politics should be oriented at the nation-state while allowing for, or explicitly endorsing, the exclusions produced by such an orientation. These scholars point at the wishful thinking involved in the project of global justice—and the negative unintended consequences of these “impossible soli- darities” (Dhawan, 2013). In this article, I reconstruct key leftist critiques of transna- tional solidarity, identifying the common denominator in their calls for re-nationalizing the political Left. This analysis elucidates that, on a theoretical level, the main target of their critique is liberal cosmopolitanism and its empirical failure. Although there are cosmopolitan projects which are positioned decidedly outside the liberal tradition (e.g. Celikates 2019; Harvey, 2009; Valdez, 2019), these critics do not make such an analyti- cal distinction, suggesting that the aspiration of global justice itself is problematic and shares the pathologies of globalist thinking with the liberal projects that they oppose. They argue that cosmopolitan thinking, by assuming “sameness” across borders, flattens differences and hence tends to be imperialist, forcing an image of the self on the world at large. As a consequence of this opposition to cosmopolitanism, furthermore, these Anderl 3 authors reject transnational solidarity in the form of freedom of movement (e.g. Wolfgang Streeck) or global justice activism (e.g. Nikita Dhawan). Such criticisms of transnational solidarity touch the essence of the political Left whose very project is arguably to organize solidarity across difference, both vertically (against societal stratification) and horizontally (across regions and borders). The second part of the article therefore asks whether and how the project of transnational solidarity is affected by this critique. For this purpose, I engage in a reconstruction of the project of transnational solidarity as formulated in critical and feminist-postcolonial theories. Drawing exemplarily on Hauke Brunkhorst and Chandra Mohanty, I carve out that these approaches to transnational solidarity are equally opposed to liberal cosmopolitanism. In fact, they build their concepts of solidarity on a refusal of the liberal-cosmopolitan assumption that we are “all in one boat.” In contrast, the universalism underlying such cosmopolitan theories is inverted in these critical theories. Rather than assuming same- ness as a given precondition for solidarity, equality for all is the political aspiration ren- dering transnational solidarity necessary in the first place. Importantly, this understanding of equality does not endorse a flattening of differences but builds solidarity based on mutual recognition and positional reflexivity. Building on this discussion, I argue that the principled return to nationalism based on the critique of (one kind of) cosmopolitanism is informed by coincidental evidence that rejects practices of solidarity across difference because of their alleged grounding in cosmopolitan reason. How, then, is transnational solidarity possible? Based on this theoretical clarification, the third part of this article sketches principles of a solidarity project that is not justified on the basis of liberal cosmopolitan ideas. Such a project must not be made up on the academic drawing board but should be inspired by actual practices of solidarity across difference. Therefore, I do this by referencing a social movement which has been engaged in such practices for decades. Drawing on the transnational activism of the peasant movement La Via Campesina, I show how they have been able to ground their activism in local struggles while identifying with a common global struggle. These practical expe- riences of La Via Campesina repudiate the critique of transnational solidarity while not falling back into naïve and/or neoliberal cosmopolitanism. Reconstructing leftist nationalism The political confusion in leftist parties whether to discard their progressive border poli- cies in favor of turning nationalist has been accompanied by several outspoken leftist intellectuals. Mason (2018), for instance, made the claim that a neoliberal formation of the social is necessarily connected with nationalistic and xenophobic attitudes on the part of the excluded. According to him, this necessitates left-wing policies that face the nar- rative conflict in which this connection had its roots. Thus, he suggests that “we need to [. . .] adopt industrial policies that bring productive jobs back to the global north, regard- less of its effects on GDP per capita growth in the global south.” Along these lines, Nagle (2018) has proclaimed that “open borders and mass immigration are a victory for the bosses” who thrive on the cheap reservoir of never-ending labor—while the globalist leftists, whose claim for open borders happens to coincide with those of the “bosses,” are “useful idiots.” 4 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) What is going on here? Why—in a time shaped by the rise of the nationalistic Right and increasingly fierce border policing—do leftists adopt methodological nationalism? To understand this leftist nationalist turn and what it entails for the theory and practice of transnational solidarity, I will in the following focus on two authors in particular, Nikita Dhawan and Wolfgang Streeck. I choose these two because they both belong to the political Left while impersonating two very different historical and political strands of left-wing politics. With “left” I mean that they share a normative commitment to put their research at the service of social equality, and that they share an emphasis on the material conditions in which struggles for social justice are pursued. Nevertheless, they diverge strongly in their intellectual trajectories and normative commitments. While Dhawan builds her critique on postcolonial theory of activism and has a strong emphasis on the politics of representation, Streeck works on the political economy of Europe and empha- sizes the importance of macroeconomic steering. In that, they also impersonate two dif- ferent styles of left-wing politics: Dhawan is closer to the autonomous politics of (often anti-institutionalist) social movements, Streeck represents a statist, social democratic perspective that is closer to political parties. One could say that Streeck stands for the “old Left” and Dhawan for the “new Left.” This is significant because the surprising commonality in their critiques of transnational solidarity shows that this debate is rele- vant for a broad spectrum of the left-wing political sphere. Streeck: National responsibility Streeck (2014) has been one of the most influential intellectuals in Europe, particularly after his book on the financial crisis in 2008. Importantly, he has also been influencing political discourse, particularly the political party Die Linke in Germany, and left-wing Brexiteers in the UK. Streeck criticizes the current trajectory of the European Left for being heavily governed by wishful thinking and faux by moralist arguing. He argues that in order to revitalize capitalism, neoliberals had “smuggled in” a concept of solidarity that frees them of “moral particularisms” of any kind in favor of a “cosmopolitanism or cosmoliberalism” (Streeck, 2021: 32). Naïve leftists, according to this narrative, have taken over the neoliberal frame of reference and strive for global justice—not noticing that they only pave the way for global capital. In the context of Brexit, for instance, Streeck contrasts arguments for national rule with those of a worldwide republic in which all historical, normative, and economic-structural differences may no longer play a role. Invoking such hypothetical thought experiments as arguments in defense of nationalist politics, he argues that the choice is between national democracy and capital- ist globalism (Streeck, 2021: 5). Streeck recently went beyond his well-known economic realist positions and made a culturalist turn, assuming, firstly, that so called “no border” leftists wanted to flatten differences, while, secondly, the individual felt alone and pow- erless when deprived of closed borders. Quoting Theresa May, he stresses that a citizen of the world is a citizen of nowhere (Streeck, 2018a). Based on the claim that “all politics is local,” his main concern is that responsibility is a limited good. A personal sense of responsibility is hence necessarily tied to a national society because nobody can feel responsible for everything, a point that he illustrates with regard to the Vietnam War: “I think it’s a moral and political disaster. But I do not feel responsible for it – quite Anderl 5 different from the massacre that ‘we’ [Germans] have executed, even though I was as little involved in the latter as I was in the former” (Streeck, 2018a). Furthermore, he argues that those who endorse pluralism must necessarily endorse borders, distinctions between inside and outside, and particularity. Mocking cosmopolitans for their naivety, he posits that “[y]ou can only be a cosmopolitan – in the sense of global governance – if you believe that a free run of a globalized economy left to its own devices ends in an equilibrium that makes everyone equally happy” (Streeck, 2021: 13). Since “all politics is local,” the political Left cannot only stand for universal human rights but must, first and foremost, fight for local justice. “Universal rights should, therefore, not be pitted against local rights” (Streeck, 2018a). Conflating “local” and “national,” Streeck ignores academic discussions on the co-constitution of political scales (see e.g. Conway, 2008) for the benefit of a strong contrast between “local” and “global,” as if these were fixed and pre-given levels of analysis. In effect, Streeck upgrades the nation state normatively in distinction from everything “global.” The implications of this argument are far-reach- ing, for he explicitly utilizes it to deny transnational migrants their universal human rights on the basis of the “local right” of cohering around an internally responsible but closed society, parochially pitting the latter against the former. But Streeck has a more compelling, non-culturalist, argument against open borders. He refers to Slobodian’s (2018) book Globalists, in which the author shows how econo- mists of the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS) used national and international institutions to hollow out the state. Their trajectory was surprisingly global from their start in the 1920s, hence the name of the book, and they were strategic in the way they infiltrated and changed institutions, from Western governments to the League of Nations and the World Trade Organization (WTO). For Streeck (2019: 2), their global and universalistic outlook is the decisive point: “Anything particularistic, like national states, was and is considered to be a threat to the grand design of a borderless Weltwirtschaft that was expected to restore the golden age of unbounded 19th century liberalism.” Largely ignoring the dia- lectics at play in the states’ active role in undermining themselves through spreading neoliberal economics, as well as these economists’ outright racism meticulously ana- lyzed by Slobodian, Streeck (2019: 3) highlights that at its core this globalism is hostile to democracy, for the latter, “inevitably national, can coexist with capitalism as long, and only as long, as it is restricted to the cultivation of folkloristic passions untainted by particularistic interests of class or country.” Streeck’s (2019) main argument is hence that the political Right has clearly under- stood the critical conflict between capitalism and democracy while parts of the Left are dreaming of “an international capitalism with a ‘social dimension’, if not a human face” (p. 5). The political practice that, according to Streeck (2019), follows from this neolib- eral dream leads to nothing less than “restoring stock owners’ cosmopolitan paradise” (p. 2). He is bewildered by the extent to which today’s Left has incorporated what he calls the “globalist doctrine” into their thinking. In an argumentative strategy of equalizing coincidence with causation, Streeck (2019) complains that the Left “rallies behind a ‘no border’ program it believes to be anti-capitalist, unaware that the abolition of the nation state is a dream that capitalists dreamed of long before them” (p. 8). While he notes that throughout the book, Slobodian distinguishes between pro-capitalist and anti-capitalist 6 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) anti-nationalism, Streeck does not deem this distinction important enough to contem- plate it further. As a consequence of this critique of globalist thinking, Streeck attacks solidarity with migrants. In order to do that, he offers an almost conspiracy-theoretical account of how the Left is fooled by neoliberals to buy into the globalist framework which only serves to undermine their interest: “Failing [to undermine the basic functions of the state], immigration across open borders as a universal human right under international law was kept in reserve, as an additional means to soften up national solidarity by importing the international market for labor into the national political economy. When it came down to the capitalist basics, the practical men from the MPS not only aban- doned ‘racist’ objections to ‘multiculturalism’ and the like, but denounced them with much the same rhetoric as their apparent opponents on the non-centrist radical Left” (Streeck, 2019: 8). What if the compassion of the “no border Left” only enables the competitiveness- seeking mechanisms of globalized capitalism? This suspicion is the underlying driver of Streeck’s critique of transnational solidarity. He introduces a table that shows how differ- ent political groups cope with the four freedoms (goods, services, capital, labor) (Streeck, 2019: 10). While neoliberals want to preserve both freedom of movement and freedom of goods/services/capital, nationalists (“full Brexit”) want to suspend both. Liberal cen- trists on the other hand want to suspend freedom of movement while keeping the other three freedoms. Finally, the so-called “no border Left,” according to Streeck, wants to keep freedom of movement while suspending the other freedoms. Questioning whether “a country [can] re-establish ‘economic nationalism’ without having control over immi- gration,” Streeck is convinced that the answer is “No.” Calls for open borders must therefore be “cheap virtue” (Streeck, 2018a), void of politics. Politics are local, after all, and to challenge borders therefore means to deprive oneself of the opportunity to fight capitalism. Dhawan: Decolonizing activism From a different vantage point, Dhawan similarly critiques the cosmopolitan baggage on the Left, focusing on “global justice” activism. Dhawan is a professor for political theory and a prominent scholar of postcolonial theory and gender studies. She is well-known for combining the study of various forms of discrimination such as gender and race and has made several public interventions on the European ignorance regarding its colonial his- tory. Dhawan’s theory has a strong emphasis on anti-racism. In contrast to Streeck, her critique of transnationalism is not driven by culturalist considerations. Rather, she makes a tactical argument for a more nationally oriented Left. After the euphoria around trans- national organizing within the framework of global justice in the 1990s and early 2000s, she now puts into question such a framing. Dhawan (2013: 143) connects the underlying spirit of transnational solidarity movements, particularly street protests, to the liberal cosmopolitanism of theorists like Martha Nussbaum and Ulrich Beck. She reconstructs how these authors instrumentalize common threats in a globalized world as a baseline for a cosmopolitan moment in a “world risk society” (Beck, 2009). The globalization of risk, in this reading (for instance from climate change), had to lead to a globalization of Anderl 7 compassion: our common vulnerability in the face of risk brings us together in these accounts (Dhawan, 2013: 145). Tellingly, Kofi Annan used the metaphor of the single boat in which “we all” supposedly sit. Using the image of the Titanic, Dhawan rejects this metaphor, highlighting that depending on which deck of the Titanic one were to be seated, the chances of survival turned out to be empirically higher or lower. Dhawan hence rebuffs the position of cosmopolitanism because, according to her, it fails to address the historicity producing particular individuals who are then in the position to express global solidarity and universal benevolence, arguing that it reinforces the divi- sion between those who give and those who receive. She thus exposes the complicities of liberal cosmopolitan articulations of solidarity with the global structures of domina- tion that they claim to resist. This solidarity, she argues, is based on global capital as a “necessary precondition for the emergence of contemporary cosmopolitan sensibility” (Dhawan, 2013: 140). This cosmopolitan compassion leaves intact the privileges of the global elite and erases the “continuities between cosmopolitanism, neocolonialism, and economic globalization” (Dhawan, 2013: 140). For a postcolonial justice activism, then, the “horizontal organizing” and “spontaneous solidarity” which is proclaimed with regard to transnational protest movements (Butler and Athanasiou, 2013) must be a chi- mera: through the veiling of power structures within “civil society,” these transnational happenings actually reproduce subalternity. Dhawan criticizes the supposed division on the Left between the “good” civil society and the “bad” state which can have, she argues, neo-imperialist and neocolonial conse- quences for subaltern groups. Solidarity, her argument goes, cannot be conditional upon a certain behavior of the receiver because this reinstates the sovereignty on the one side and the dependence on the other. If solidarity is conditional upon a certain behavior that is defined by the giver, this reinscribes such power relations. Since the “cosmopolitan” protest movements are, however, highly stratified, the privilege of setting the terms often remains with the elite in the center. Believing this connection between transnational soli- darity movements and the perpetuation of global power structures to be causal, Dhawan opts to reject the former. Therefore, instead of concentrating on “global solidarity,” activ- ists should focus on changing their own nation states. Without the integration of subal- tern groups into hegemonic (state) structures, emancipatory politics will continue to reproduce feudal relations despite contrary intentions (Dhawan, 2013: 140). In this view, transnational global justice protests are therefore misguided and the activist practice should rather be dedicated to changing states instead of arousing the self in “the erotics of resistance” (Dhawan, 2015). The global solidarity politics, in this reading, mainly benefit those activists who are privileged and can afford to think in “global” terms, by that self-servingly reaffirming their own compassionate character. There is a surprising parallelism in the two critiques of transnational solidarity by Streeck and Dhawan. Although they hail from very different theoretical positions and analyze different social contexts, both of them express a frustration with the “global soli- darity” that is underlying what Streeck deems naïve “no border leftism” on the one hand, and the unreflective usage of a “global justice” framework analyzed by Dhawan on the other. In both accounts, a cosmopolitan rallying cry for solidarity fails to materialize for those who are in need, because it only reinstates neoliberal penetration of markets through the backdoor (Streeck); or it maintains colonial hierarchies by empowering 8 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) those who express solidarity while holding down those who supposedly benefit from it (Dhawan). The common denominator of these interventions is a critique of liberal cosmopolitan reason. Streeck argues that cosmopolitanism is effectively anti-democratic because only within a delineated society can citizens feel responsible and act accordingly. In a global utopia on the other hand, he does not only expect a flattening of cultural difference but mainly fears the undermining of the state which is, according to him, the only institution that can guarantee redistribution, and organize democracy. The “no border left”, in con- trast, plays into the hands of capitalists who use the open borders only to double down on exploitation. Dhawan also attacks cosmopolitanism for its false pretenses. She argues that the “flat hierarchies” in transnational social movements only perpetuate actually existing hierarchies because liberal and rich subjects dominate these spaces while not effectively challenging hegemonic structures which made these hierarchies possible in the first place. Global justice activism across borders is therefore complicit with uphold- ing global structures of domination due to their cosmopolitan theories of solidarity whose main effect is to morally elevate those who articulate them. Both critiques directly con- clude that the state should be endorsed rather than undermined in order to organize an effective, “possible” solidarity. Theorizing transnational solidarity without liberal cosmopolitanism These critiques offer a necessary irritation to the theory and practice of transnational soli- darity. Therefore, I want to take their substantial criticism seriously: based on the inclu- sion of a political economy perspective and postcolonial theory, an explicit or implicit cosmopolitanism in the theory and practice of solidarity is problematic if it does not explicitly take into account the different subject positions involved in “global” organiz- ing (see also Anderl and Witt, 2020). Such a conception of transnational solidarity has no proper way of dealing with the given structural asymmetries. Hence it also has no means of controlling for unintended outcomes, such as the free movement of capital. Rethinking solidarity without such liberal cosmopolitan pitfalls is therefore necessary. However, the two authors’ criticisms do not work because they lump different possible cosmopolitan- isms together and impute their liberal pretenses, that is a naïve globalism based on indi- vidual rights where everyone is the same “unlimited everywhere and everywhere equally” (Streeck, 2018a). But even if we assume that cosmopolitan virtues automati- cally imply such a liberal baggage, Streeck and Dhawan are missing their target because in their approaches, the critique of cosmopolitanism and the critique of transnational solidarity fall into one. In contrast, as I show with the following two examples, the idea of transnational solidarity can and should be understood not to derive from, but to under- mine such cosmopolitanism and its liberal idea of progress. I do this, in analogy to the above, by sketching the positions of two theoretical approaches on transnational solidar- ity that differ from their intellectual vantage point while both belonging to the political Left broadly speaking: Hauke Brunkhorst is a prominent proponent of Frankfurt School critical theory. He analyzes solidarity in a framework of social progress, criticizing naïve Anderl 9 cosmopolitanism in the process of constructing a theory of transnational solidarity. Chandra Mohanty is a feminist postcolonial scholar. Her take on transnational solidarity is developed through a critique of Western feminism. She equally critiques liberal cos- mopolitanism while pushing the boundaries of transnational feminist solidarity. Brunkhorst on progress In the spirit of the Enlightenment, liberal theories of international cooperation have pre- sumed that increasing economic cooperation will lead to mounting solidarity and inter- dependence and, hence, will make wars disappear. This focus on (social) progress through (economic) interdependence has been proven wrong not only by the continua- tion of war but also by increasingly interconnected economic worlds in the second half of the twentieth century which did not lead to a globalized solidarity. Beyond the practi- cal failure of this project, postcolonial scholars have argued that the expansionist claim to the global itself has led to colonial projects and instantiates colonial epistemic norms until this day (Spivak, 1999). In line with this critique, the idea of bridging difference— the practice necessary for any kind of solidarity with others—is itself being under suspi- cion to be of imperialist nature (Vrasti, 2013: 51). Although it is possible to find these problems in empirical solidarity research, to theo- rize the concept accordingly is to assess a phenomenon on the basis of one of its possible manifestations. The assumption of progress through interconnection can be found also in critical theories, yet in an altered way. The generalization of solidarity is the core of what Hegel called “progress in the consciousness of freedom,” hence an expansion of solidarity amongst friends toward solidarity with strangers. Yet, as Brunkhorst (1997: 8) has shown, the generalization in this context does neither necessitate a pre-established community nor a given telos. In contrast to liberal cosmopolitanism which formulates solidarity with reference to an extended communitarianism (“we are all in the same boat”), Brunkhorst’s approach to solidarity starts exactly at the recognition of difference. In contrast to histori- cal materialism, furthermore, solidarity does not necessitate a pre-defined common goal; solidarity materializes in a common practice rather than in its effects. Brunkhorst theorizes a pragmatist account of solidarity that is freed of its communi- tarian limits. Counterintuitively, the mobilizing capacity of this framework lies in the lack of a pre-defined telos. Moving away from the historical-materialist notion of mecha- nistic historical progress makes it possible to hold dear the idea of emancipating the weak and humiliated, even if the factual historical situation makes this seem unlikely by moving ever further away from it. This wrests progress from its descriptive weight and renders it a practical concept (Brunkhorst, 1997: 14). Historical experience is therefore neither the mainspring of progress, nor can it be the ground of its rejection because expe- rience itself has come about under conditions of domination. We cannot even anticipate today which expansion of freedom we will be able to generate tomorrow, argues Brunkhorst (1997: 16). This idealist tendency is couched in a deliberational approach: The core of progress is to generalize, but what is to be generalized can never be a given and continues to be contested. This process of contestation is therefore at the core of soli- darity practice: progress is a project. 10 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) This project is continually being revised, for as soon as it becomes mechanistic, the Enlightenment-trap does away with totalitarianism only to reinvent it in a rationalized, and hence ever more pervasive form. Encountering these dangers, Brunkhorst introduces a Deweyan perspective on democracy, not as a style of government but as a way of life. In contrast to liberal democracy, it is, then, not gutted to a compromising force, but rather has as its aim to find institutional arrangements that create a democratic public. This project is however not perfectionist for it does not seek a final solution, but it tries to include ever more and ever newer interests and needs, and is home to a growing number of those who were excluded or carelessly pushed to the side so far (Brunkhorst, 1997: 31). This concept of progress hence builds on the epistemic widening of its subjects in the expansion of solidarity among friends toward solidarity among strangers. The new genre of left-wing nationalism criticizes diverse forms of transnational soli- darity. I have reconstructed based on Streeck and Dhawan that their critique is actually directed at liberal cosmopolitanism which they see as the underlying driver of these forms of solidarity. My argument, in contrast, is that transnational solidarity can also be justified in alternative ways. Based on a critical theory approach such as Brunkhorst’s, solidarity is a practice that is neither based on the assumption of “all being in the same boat,” nor is it oriented at flattening difference. In contrast, “solidarity among stran- gers” is a practice that fundamentally assumes difference to begin with—and does not aim at overcoming this difference. Because of its recognition of difference, the core practice of solidarity is to deal with the norms and needs of others and the constant negotiation of common interest, without ever reaching a conclusion. Solidarity is prac- ticed in the encounter among equals (the latter, again, not as a descriptive but ascriptive category). The epistemic widening that occurs for all participants of this process is what can be called progress. During these processes, wider normative communities are constructed; a generaliza- tion of norms that is progressive because all the included parties had to reflect upon given epistemic and moral norms in order to reach this (reversible) generalization, with- out having to give up their subject position for a pre-defined common good. This process hence democratizes reason through participation and engaged listening, and it renders the common position more rational because it is not justified by tradition (family; nation etc.) but by an exchange of ideas whose contradictions necessitate a more general one. For these processes to be established, common goals are necessary because they make it possible to define a direction of critique and social change, that is to generalize across difference. Yet, the definition of this direction is constantly contested in a process of exchange that does not flatten differences but coheres around a common perspective in difference. Therefore, no moral universalism is underlying this approach to solidarity— only the practical goal of “widening our own narrow-minded local context as far as pos- sible” (Brunkhorst, 1997: 130). Mohanty on feminism without borders Mohanty (2003: 10) is concerned with the practice of feminism across national and cul- tural divisions. In similarity to Dhawan (see above), Mohanty develops her argument based on a critique of the Global Justice Movement, that is the baggage of the “global Anderl 11 justice” idea which has often been invoked for a “border-less” feminism by Western liberal feminists, who used the framework to police others in hierarchical and imperialist ways. According to Mohanty, notions of complete identification with the other—in a vague category of global sisterhood—are therefore blurring the view for what it actually takes to create feminist solidarity across these lines. To the opposite, Mohanty argues that such vague ascriptions lead to the appropriation of the experiences of Non-Western feminists and their struggles by hegemonic white women’s movements (Mohanty, 2003: 18), and may reify the very categories they aimed to overcome: by contrasting the “Third World Woman” with the liberated Western feminist, the latter alone become the subjects of any counter-history (Mohanty, 2003: 39). The “strategic” move of categorizing all women as global sisters, connected through the same oppression, has often been used to elevate those Westerners who believe that they have liberated themselves more from the common oppression, hence objectivizing Southern sisters as victims. Mohanty (2003: 33) shows that this move—irrespective of the intentions—has been counterproductive as a political strategy. Instead, she proposes that “it is only by understanding the contradic- tions inherent to women’s location within various structures that effective political action and challenges can be devised.” This critique of cosmopolitanism—on first view—resembles that of Streeck when Mohanty observes that in neoliberal feminist discourse “identity is seen as either naïve or irrelevant, rather than as source of knowledge and a basis for progressive mobiliza- tion” (Mohanty, 2003: 6). Therefore, scholars have utilized her work to criticize global justice activism as parochial practice and suggested to concentrate on the “local” in order to circumvent these pathologies (Felski, 1997). Yet, in a passage of Mohanty’s reflection that receives less attention, she cautions against such a rushed criticism which has been performed by utilizing her original essay. Although she reaffirms her core critique of Western, universalist feminism and is generally happy that it found its way into the main- stream of feminist discourses, she is struck by the prominent tendency to interpret her embrace of the particularism, the local, and the different as a normative end in itself, and—as a consequence—reads it as a rejection of the general, the systemic, the global: “I did not argue against all forms of generalization, nor was I privileging the local over the systemic, difference over commonalities [. . .]. I did not write [. . .] that there would be no possibility of solidarity between Western and Third World feminists. Yet, this is often how the essay is read and utilized. I have wondered why such a sharp opposition has developed” (Mohanty, 2003: 224). Rather than succumbing to the counter-productive flattening of difference by retreat- ing from solidarity across borders, Mohanty posits her understanding of feminism which acknowledges borders in their multiple forms as “lines between and through nations, races, classes, sexualities, religions and disabilities” (Mohanty, 2003: 2). Because these lines are real, she argues that feminist solidarity must work across these lines of division rather than pretending their inexistence. This would require concrete forms of solidarity which acknowledge the differences produced and mirrored by these borders instead of utilizing “vague assumptions of sisterhood or images of complete identification with the other” (Mohanty, 2003: 3). Yet, in contrast to Dhawan, Mohanty does not conclude in her analysis that an inward-looking vision of activism focused on “the own” state instead of crossing borders would be advisable. Rather to the opposite, 12 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) she proposes to overcome the prescriptive and naïve aspects of second wave white feminism by practicing solidarity “in terms of mutuality, accountability, and the recog- nition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse communities” (Mohanty, 2003: 7). This approach to solidarity highlights “the centrality of self-reflexive collective prac- tice in the transformation of the self, reconceptualization of identity, and political mobi- lization as necessary elements of the practice of decolonization” (Mohanty, 2003: 8). Such an approach is difficult work by necessity, because it neither presupposes equality and understanding, nor does it weaponize difference as argument against collective prac- tice across borders. This work, therefore, forces activists to overcome the categories of “local” versus “global” in favor of a concept of solidarity that is generalizing and yet necessarily located in the particular (Anderl, 2020). In Mohanty’s field, this means to reorient feminist practice toward an internationalist anti-capitalist struggle (Mohanty, 2003: 12), which does not mean to overcome a localized feminist identity. Rather to the opposite: in the practice of collectively mobilizing and reflecting upon the own frame- works of reference in dialogue with comrades from other backgrounds, a common hori- zon of action can be constructed. This will have to be a reversible, constantly reflected-upon framework for common political practice across difference, a “nonhe- gemonic feminist practice” (Mohanty, 2003: 10) of solidarity that is surely complicated, but not “impossible” (Dhawan, 2015) to reach. Practicing transnational solidarity after liberal cosmopolitanism I have outlined Streeck’s and Dhawan’s analyses of transnational solidarity and their conclusion that left-wing activists should reorient their practices toward “their own” nation state. I have shown that in both cases, this conclusion only makes sense because their critique of transnational solidarity is in fact a critique of liberal cosmopolitanism. Therefore, building on Brunkhorst and Mohanty, I have offered two theoretical concep- tions of solidarity across borders that are based in a critique of liberal cosmopolitanism, showing that there are other ways to justify and conceptualize transnational solidarity. These are, however, conditional upon more complex political processes of establishing mutuality. Transnational solidarity, defined in such a way, is therefore more challenging and can be expected to be empirically less common than the frequent invocation of the word would suggest. Yet, the fact that it is more challenging does neither mean that it is analytically impossible, nor that it is not normatively desirable. In the following, I refer to the example of La Via Campesina’s solidarity practice that, I hope, illustrates how transnational solidarity can be practiced beyond a liberal- cosmopolitan frame. La Via Campesina is a transnational peasant movement with more than 180 member organizations from 79 countries. It strives for land reform, peasant rights and food sovereignty and opposes the neoliberal organization of agriculture. The peasant movement has coalesced across the Global North and South around a set of common objectives which included a rejection of the neoliberal model of rural develop- ment, a refusal of being excluded from agricultural policy formulation, and a strong determination to work together across borders in order to empower peasant voices for Anderl 13 an alternative model of agriculture (Rosset, 2005: 9). La Via Campesina is a specific case, and it is not chosen on the basis of a systematic least likely case selection process. Other cases of transnational movements would show other relationships to both the state and to cosmopolitan ideals. I chose this case because it illustrates the claim that there are ways of practicing transnational solidarity that are not dependent on liberal- cosmopolitan values but mobilize alternative ideas and practices which political theory can learn from, because the activists refute the simple dualism of nationalism and globalism. Instead, they mobilize new ways of transnational solidarity that take differ- ence seriously while seeking commonality as I show in the following. “Global” and particular La Via Campesina’s engagement is a good example for a network that builds on strong transnational ties and that conceives itself as a “global” movement. The need for such an approach is evident in both global capitalist structures which they oppose, and the rules for agriculture which are made in supranational institutions such as the G20, the WTO, the World Bank Group, and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). But neither is this “global” approach to peasant solidarity based on a narrative of sameness, nor do the movement groups aspire a flattening of difference. In contrast, their activism works on the basis of a strong premise of the particularity of its members. La Via Campesina as a platform enables peasant movements from various backgrounds to engage in debates, exchange and reflection on their common framework, that is food sovereignty. “These practices [. . .] are rooted in particular places and they are performed by actors with no formal status in political institutions. [In that way,] practices of peasant resistance have extended resistance transnationally through horizontal forms of movement extension and knowledge exchange” (Dunford, 2016: 44, italics as original). This leads to lengthy pro- cesses of translation, debate, and mutual learning at their congresses, involving not only the exchange of policy positions but discussions on norms, exchange of ideas, cultural practices, and bodily engagement. The identities of the respective participants do not merge into a cosmopolitan peasant. Rather, the movement emphasizes the strong varia- tion of peasant lifestyles, a feature almost self-evident given the geographical and politi- cal diversity of its members. La Via Campesina “groups nationally- or regionally-based organizations to struggle together on common issues at the international level, and the autonomy of these member organizations is carefully respected” (Rosset, 2005: 6). National or sub-national member organizations have a strongly particular identity, but the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo in Nicaragua, and the UK-based Landworkers Alliance are nevertheless equally “proud to be a member of La Via Campesina.” Similarly, there are strongly different grievances within the network. Take for example the Pakistan Kissan Rabta Committee (PKRC) on the one hand and the German Aktionsgemeinschaft Bäuerliche Landwirtschaft (ABL) on the other. Both of these groups are dealing with problems around land access in a highly skewed system of land tenure. Yet, while peasants in PKRC are frequently exposed to violent attacks by land- lords, the military and/or business groups who force them out of their premises, ABL is often disadvantaged due to a subsidy system that discriminates against small farms. Their solidarity is not built around sameness, because it would make no sense to claim 14 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) that their fight is the same. Rather, they are looking for commonalities in the sources of these grievances and for possibilities of learning from each other in difference. Their solidarity practice is oriented at widening their own normative and political frameworks for a common articulation of peasant politics that emerges from these particular trajectories. Globalizing solidarity, protecting difference The transnational peasant movement arguably started out of desperation, but it has quickly accelerated into a positive project of “global peasant rights.” Building on an understanding that Streeck would call “local rights”, the movement has decided to criti- cally engage with the framework of universal human rights, and for this purpose has invested heavily into transnational consolidation and advocacy. Yet, they highlight their particular positions vis a vis the world economy as “feeders of the world” (Sabarini, 2011) and consciously counter global neoliberalism with their own concept of global solidarity: “Globalizing the struggle also means globalizing solidarity, and the hope of the peoples of the world.” The norms of a different globality therefore strongly inform their transnational solidarity work. Yet, what exactly this globality means is not substan- tially defined but articulated as a solidarity practice, the goal of which is mainly to pro- tect rural lifestyles and gain autonomy over the land and the means of production. In contrast to leftist nationalists who aim at slowing down the transnational exploitation with stronger borders, La Via Campesina have come to conclude that in order to protect their local lifestyles from international norm setting machines such as the WTO, they themselves need to globalize, too. Yet, common positions are carefully created “by artic- ulating the concerns of the base within each national organization, bringing them to table [. . .], and having a dialog to reach common positions” (Rosset, 2005: 12). The differences brought to the table are not only geographical, but also political. The ideological commitments of its member organizations vary strongly, “from those coming from the communist party-based frameworks to those of the anarcho-syndicalist tradi- tion, from those of broadly liberal provenance to those arising from environmental activ- ism” (Borras, 2004: 9). Despite these significant differences regarding geographical, social, and political backgrounds, the movement has successfully stressed and developed unifying commonalities. The major difference to a heavily reified version of leftist nationalism is that political identities, especially commonalities, are not simply assumed as givens, but they are commonly constructed in tedious discussions in which particulari- ties are always the starting point for reflexive dialogues, the results of which have been “more than the sum total of the different agendas and goals of its member associations [. . .]. They are part of the shaping and reshaping of the collective identity of Vía Campesina” (Borras, 2004: 9). Politics is local, and power is in generalizing While La Via Campesina has been enormously successful as a “global” network, shaping the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Peasant through a concerted advo- cacy strategy within the UN (Suárez, 2013), it celebrates the particular culture of its Anderl 15 members, because the flattening of difference through the external interreference in rural lifeworlds by neoliberal globalization is actually one of the movement’s major griev- ances. Their internal difference is hence one of the movements building blocks for becoming a unified movement (Desmarais, 2007: 39). Its major substantial claim, food sovereignty, is at its core a call for difference. “Taking back control” (Claeys, 2015) therefore—on first sight—resembles nationalist campaigns such as Brexit: they do not only demand a secure access to food for rural areas but the right to decide what kind of food can be produced in what way. This is directly opposed to the current international food system. Therefore, La Via Campesina has consistently rallied around the message “For Food Sovereignty, WTO Out of Agriculture!.” Yet, in stark contrast to nationalist causes, this framework is deeply grounded in mutuality and a process of generalization. The movement-building around food sover- eignty is not a means to decouple the self and focus on domestic issues. While they do support protectionist policies for food, they justify this not from a national vantage point. Rather to the opposite, they look at food systems from a view of individual peas- ants, regions and consumers. These do not adhere to national borders but their fulfil- ment need to be planned in accordance with specific needs which can sometimes be very local (on a village level) and sometimes transnational, yet the formulation of these positions needs to happen in view of the needs of others’, not “regardless” (Mason, 2018) of them. This is what they mean when they proclaim, “globalize Solidarity, local- ize Agriculture.” Having been so successful in influencing the international right of the peasants, the movement currently expands beyond its agrarian origins (Claeys and Duncan, 2018), because it has from its outset been about a “convergence of demands” (Pinheiro Machado Brochner, 2014: 261). The involved agrarian movements are not motivated by an urge to sovereignty defined as delineation, but rather came up with this political framework because it offers a means to overcome fragmentation by respecting each other’s struggles and build convergence in diversity (Amin, 2011). As the French peasant activist Jose Bové put it: “It’s a real farmers’ International, a living example of a new relationship between North and South.” (Bové, 2001: 96). While La Via Campesina has hence con- verged around of food sovereignty as a common framework that allows to take the speci- ficity of each different place into account (Rosset and Martínez-Torres, 2014: 143), the transnational solidarity of peasants enables them to reclaim power of unity, and to over- come the fragmentation resulting from neoliberal globalization. Conclusion Liberal cosmopolitanism is in crisis. The premise that “we are all in the same boat” has lost its political credibility and mobilizing capacity for left-wing social movements. This crisis has triggered different political projects on the Left, each formulating a claim to solidarity that leaves the liberal-cosmopolitan notion of sameness behind. On the one hand, some leftist thinkers have inferred from the crisis that the Left should reject trans- national solidarity projects and instead embrace nationalism. On the other hand, theorists and movements have come up with more complex ways of coalition-building across difference: solidarity practices that are based in particularity but aspire to formulate 16 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) common interests in political practice. These transnational solidarity relations are hard work because they must be renegotiated constantly. Streeck is a prominent example of the former logic. He has publicly attacked the pro- gressive Left and argued that in order to regain trust of working-class voters, left-wing parties “may require a kind of symbolic politics that may seem dirty to outside observ- ers.” He justifies this position by equalizing the proponents of freedom of movement with privileged neoliberals who “have an interest in more inequality – to be able to eat cheaper in restaurants and have their homes cleaned more affordably – this may indicate a real conflict over what kind of society one wants to be, social democratic or neoliberal” (see Note 11). Dhawan operates with the dichotomy of naïve and paternalist global jus- tice activism which mainly helps those activists in the center, and an activist reorienta- tion at the state. These dualistic analyses perceive transnational solidarity to be motivated by liberal-cosmopolitan virtue. As I have reconstructed, the critique of transnational soli- darity by these authors is therefore mainly directed at cosmopolitanism which they see as the underlying ideological framework of solidarity across borders. On the basis of their analyses, the only possible counter-framework that these authors propose is a retreat to the nation. In contrast to these criticisms, I have outlined theoretical perspectives that justify solidarity across difference without the liberal baggage. In a critical theory perspec- tive, in contrast to liberal cosmopolitanism, the generalization of solidarity is not deduced from a supposedly common positionality. To the contrary, it is a project that involves the practice of listening, contesting, and a reflexive widening of epistemic norms. It is in these practices that solidarity across difference can be observed. In a postcolonial-feminist perspective, cosmopolitan virtue is attacked as a veil for imperi- alist tendencies in white second wave feminism, which assumed a shared sisterhood at the cost of recognizing class, race and gender. On the basis of this analysis, feminist solidarity must be grounded in intersectional analysis, putting reflexive positionality at the core of any solidarity project. Yet, rather than to fetishize locality, this upgrading of the particular is understood as a struggle of “specifying and illuminating the univer- sal” (Mohanty, 2003: 224). Solidarity across borders is enabled rather than undermined through such a focus on the local—a perspective entirely different from nationalist theories which assume that the fight against neoliberal globalization could be won by fortifying the self, or retreating to the state. I supported these theoretical clarifications by introducing La Via Campesina as a practical movement that engages in this complicated practice of solidarity across bor- ders. Their outlook is decidedly global, stimulating constant exchange and friction of their members who are, however, strongly grounded in their particularity, both in terms of a peasant subjectivity, but also as subjects with particular grievances. They hence engage in a conscious effort to globalize solidarity and to widen their epistemic frameworks during this process, yet with the aim of protecting their geographical and political difference. While they would easily agree with Streeck’s catchphrase that all politics is local, the activists know that nationalism is a false friend for a solidarity movement. They therefore do not develop a politics of distinction but mobilize their particularity in a widening of solidarity toward strangers in order to “globalize the struggle, globalize hope.” Anderl 17 Author’s Note Felix Anderl is now affiliated to Center for Conflict Studies, Philipps-Universität Marburg. ORCID iD Felix Anderl https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3536-8898 Notes 1. For critical and helpful comments and discussions, I would like to thank Federico Brandmayr, Carlotta Caciagli, Donatella della Porta, Engin Isin, Julia Leser, Julia Rone, Lucia Rubinelli, Elias Steinhilper, Farooq Tariq, and two anonymous reviewers. 2. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/08/bernie-sanders-open-borders-1261392 (accessed 8 May 2019). 3. https://labourlist.org/2019/04/labour-confirms-it-wants-to-end-freedom-of-movement/ (accessed 8 May 2019). 4. See for instance his lecture on Brexit in 2019: https://wolfgangstreeck.com/2019/03/23/tak- ing-back-control-brexit-and-the-future-of-europe/ (accessed 30 August 2021). 5. All translations by the author of this article. 6. See for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55DFl5N_oJ0 (last access 09 February 2022). 7. Dhawan, Nikita (2018): Lecture on Transnational Justice and Gendered Vulnerability. Central European University Budapest, 3 May 2018. Online at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=hgafacZ_RuE (accessed 21 October 2019). 8. It is not implied by Mohanty that transnational solidarity can only be shaped in the South, or that it is imperial if coming “from the North.” The problem has been a lack of mutuality in a structure dominated by Northern interests. Interests of Northerners were empirically con- sidered while the ones from the South less so, that is campaigns were not actually solidarity campaigns despite being called as such. Thanks to one reviewer for pointing me toward this clarification. 9. https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/ (accessed 12 May 2019). 10. See: https://viacampesina.org/en/la-via-campesina-xv-navarra-international-prize-for-solidarity/ (accessed 9 March 2019). 11. https://viacampesina.org/en/wto-kills-peasants-21-years-enough-wto-out-of-agriculture-la- via-campesina-to-step-up-its-resistance-during-the-xi-ministerial-conference/ (accessed 27 February 2020). 12. See online at: https://viacampesina.org/en/its-time-to-transform-its-time-to-globalize-soli- darity-localize-agriculture/ (accessed 30 August 2021). 13. https://www.ipg-journal.de/interviews/artikel/realistischer-antikapitalismus-statt-moralis- che-umerziehungsversuche-3645/ (accessed 25 February 2020). 14. Elizabeth Mpofu, globalize the struggle, globalize hope https://thousandcurrents.org/glo- balise-the-struggle-globalise-hope/ (accessed 10 May 2019). 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Butler J and Athanasiou A (2013) Dispossession: The Performative in the Political. Cambridge: Polity. Celikates R (2019) Three Types of Cosmopolitanism? Liberalism, Democracy, and Tian-xia. Yearbook for Eastern and Western Philosophy 4: 208–220. Claeys P (2015) Human Rights and the Food Sovereignty Movement: Reclaiming Control. London: Routledge. Claeys P and Duncan J (2019) Do we need to categorize it? Reflections on constituencies and quotas as tools for negotiating difference in the global food sovereignty convergence space. The Journal of Peasant Studies 46(7): 1477–1498. Conway J (2008) Geographies of transnational feminisms: The politics of place and scale in the world march of women. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender State & Society 15(2): 207–231. Desmarais AA (2007) La Vía Campesina: Globalization and the Power of Peasants. Halifax: Fernwood. Dhawan N (2013) Coercive cosmopolitanism and impossible solidarities. 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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vrasti W (2013) Universal but not truly ‘global’: Governmentality, economic liberalism, and the international. Review of International Studies 39(1): 49–69. Walia H (2021) Border & Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Zürn M and de Wilde P (2016) Debating globalization: Cosmopolitanism and communitarianism as political ideologies. Journal of Political Ideologies 21(3): 280–301. Author biography Felix Anderl is a Professor at the Center for Conflict Studies, Philipps Universität Marburg. His research focuses on conflicts over land, food, and rural development. He links the disciplines of social movement studies, international relations, and conflict research, particularly concentrating on social movements and the institutions they oppose http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of International Political Theory SAGE

False friends: Leftist nationalism and the project of transnational solidarity

Anderl, Felix
Journal of International Political Theory , Volume 19 (1): 19 – Feb 1, 2023
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Abstract

A growing number of left-wing scholars criticize practices of transnational solidarity. Pointing to the cooptation of “globalism” by neoliberal capitalism, these scholars utilize this critique to advance leftwing nationalism. In this article, I reconstruct symptomatic texts of this genre and identify the critique of (liberal) cosmopolitanism as the common denominator in their calls for nationalizing the Left. As a consequence of their opposition to cosmopolitanism, these authors reject freedom of movement or global justice activism. In order to examine whether the project of transnational solidarity is affected by this critique, I reconstruct its justifications in Critical Theory and postcolonial-feminist theory. Hauke Brunkhorst and Chandra Mohanty exemplarily theorize transnational solidarity in different ways, but each based on a substantial critique of liberal cosmopolitanism. By that, I show that a principled return to nationalism derived from a critique of cosmopolitanism is informed by coincidental evidence that rejects practices of transnational solidarity because of their alleged embeddedness in cosmopolitan reason. Drawing on La Via Campesina, I illustrate principles of a transnational solidarity project that is not justified with liberal cosmopolitan ideas. Their experiences challenge the nationalist/statist critique while not falling back into naïve and/or neoliberal cosmopolitanism. Keywords Activism, cosmopolitanism, nationalism, solidarity, state Introduction Politics of the last decade have been strongly shaped by battles over migration and free- dom of movement. While the fault lines in these debates do generally map on the Corresponding author: Felix Anderl, Philips-Universität Marburg, Center for Conflict Studies, Ketzerbach 11, 35032 Marburg, Germany. Email: felix.anderl@uni-marburg.de 2 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) political Left (pro freedom of movement) and Right (against), some have suggested that cosmopolitanism versus communitarianism might be an increasingly influential cleav- age running across these political camps (Zürn and de Wilde, 2016). This would explain why there has been considerable controversy on the Left about how to position oneself in this debate. Some leftist politicians and parties in Europe and the US have flirted with explicitly xenophobic positions or turned partly nationalist. In Germany, the initiative “Aufstehen” [Rise up] within the party Die Linke [The Left] was an organized (if failed) attempt to cohere the societal Left around a nationalist agenda. Bernie Sanders, in 2019, said in an interview that he did not support open borders, yet discarding that position later in the year. Labor in the UK had a similarly confusing trajectory. While tradition- ally in favor of open borders, in April 2019, the party proclaimed a stance against free- dom of movement, and Jeremy Corbyn—presumably catering to increasingly large numbers of Labor supporters who favored Brexit—failed to engage in pro-immigration, or pro-refugee policies. In the Labor Conference following his statements, the party (still under Corbyn) made yet another U-turn and created one of the most progressive policies of any European party, particularly endorsing freedom of movement. These political zig-zag routes are not easy to analyze, but they show that many left- wing parties have become less steadfast in their rejection of nationalism (Walia 2021, 14). As I will show in this article, this trend is not a spontaneous tactical bow to the surg- ing extreme Right. Rather, it has been theoretically prepared and intellectually supported by a leftist critique of transnationalism. A growing number of publications by left-wing intellectuals hint at the problems involved in solidarity across borders, both practically and normatively. They suggest that the Global Justice Movement has failed largely because of its “globalist” approach lacking an anchor in local or national struggles. It is suspected that the movement was co-opted by the institutions of neoliberal capitalism who share this globalist analysis of the world, losing its critical sting in the process and becoming reformist rather than a radical alternative. Furthermore, scholars hint at the dangers of immigration to domestic workers and put into question whether it is a reason- able position to advocate for freedom of movement which, in their analysis, helps capital more than labor. On these grounds, they argue that left-wing politics should be oriented at the nation-state while allowing for, or explicitly endorsing, the exclusions produced by such an orientation. These scholars point at the wishful thinking involved in the project of global justice—and the negative unintended consequences of these “impossible soli- darities” (Dhawan, 2013). In this article, I reconstruct key leftist critiques of transna- tional solidarity, identifying the common denominator in their calls for re-nationalizing the political Left. This analysis elucidates that, on a theoretical level, the main target of their critique is liberal cosmopolitanism and its empirical failure. Although there are cosmopolitan projects which are positioned decidedly outside the liberal tradition (e.g. Celikates 2019; Harvey, 2009; Valdez, 2019), these critics do not make such an analyti- cal distinction, suggesting that the aspiration of global justice itself is problematic and shares the pathologies of globalist thinking with the liberal projects that they oppose. They argue that cosmopolitan thinking, by assuming “sameness” across borders, flattens differences and hence tends to be imperialist, forcing an image of the self on the world at large. As a consequence of this opposition to cosmopolitanism, furthermore, these Anderl 3 authors reject transnational solidarity in the form of freedom of movement (e.g. Wolfgang Streeck) or global justice activism (e.g. Nikita Dhawan). Such criticisms of transnational solidarity touch the essence of the political Left whose very project is arguably to organize solidarity across difference, both vertically (against societal stratification) and horizontally (across regions and borders). The second part of the article therefore asks whether and how the project of transnational solidarity is affected by this critique. For this purpose, I engage in a reconstruction of the project of transnational solidarity as formulated in critical and feminist-postcolonial theories. Drawing exemplarily on Hauke Brunkhorst and Chandra Mohanty, I carve out that these approaches to transnational solidarity are equally opposed to liberal cosmopolitanism. In fact, they build their concepts of solidarity on a refusal of the liberal-cosmopolitan assumption that we are “all in one boat.” In contrast, the universalism underlying such cosmopolitan theories is inverted in these critical theories. Rather than assuming same- ness as a given precondition for solidarity, equality for all is the political aspiration ren- dering transnational solidarity necessary in the first place. Importantly, this understanding of equality does not endorse a flattening of differences but builds solidarity based on mutual recognition and positional reflexivity. Building on this discussion, I argue that the principled return to nationalism based on the critique of (one kind of) cosmopolitanism is informed by coincidental evidence that rejects practices of solidarity across difference because of their alleged grounding in cosmopolitan reason. How, then, is transnational solidarity possible? Based on this theoretical clarification, the third part of this article sketches principles of a solidarity project that is not justified on the basis of liberal cosmopolitan ideas. Such a project must not be made up on the academic drawing board but should be inspired by actual practices of solidarity across difference. Therefore, I do this by referencing a social movement which has been engaged in such practices for decades. Drawing on the transnational activism of the peasant movement La Via Campesina, I show how they have been able to ground their activism in local struggles while identifying with a common global struggle. These practical expe- riences of La Via Campesina repudiate the critique of transnational solidarity while not falling back into naïve and/or neoliberal cosmopolitanism. Reconstructing leftist nationalism The political confusion in leftist parties whether to discard their progressive border poli- cies in favor of turning nationalist has been accompanied by several outspoken leftist intellectuals. Mason (2018), for instance, made the claim that a neoliberal formation of the social is necessarily connected with nationalistic and xenophobic attitudes on the part of the excluded. According to him, this necessitates left-wing policies that face the nar- rative conflict in which this connection had its roots. Thus, he suggests that “we need to [. . .] adopt industrial policies that bring productive jobs back to the global north, regard- less of its effects on GDP per capita growth in the global south.” Along these lines, Nagle (2018) has proclaimed that “open borders and mass immigration are a victory for the bosses” who thrive on the cheap reservoir of never-ending labor—while the globalist leftists, whose claim for open borders happens to coincide with those of the “bosses,” are “useful idiots.” 4 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) What is going on here? Why—in a time shaped by the rise of the nationalistic Right and increasingly fierce border policing—do leftists adopt methodological nationalism? To understand this leftist nationalist turn and what it entails for the theory and practice of transnational solidarity, I will in the following focus on two authors in particular, Nikita Dhawan and Wolfgang Streeck. I choose these two because they both belong to the political Left while impersonating two very different historical and political strands of left-wing politics. With “left” I mean that they share a normative commitment to put their research at the service of social equality, and that they share an emphasis on the material conditions in which struggles for social justice are pursued. Nevertheless, they diverge strongly in their intellectual trajectories and normative commitments. While Dhawan builds her critique on postcolonial theory of activism and has a strong emphasis on the politics of representation, Streeck works on the political economy of Europe and empha- sizes the importance of macroeconomic steering. In that, they also impersonate two dif- ferent styles of left-wing politics: Dhawan is closer to the autonomous politics of (often anti-institutionalist) social movements, Streeck represents a statist, social democratic perspective that is closer to political parties. One could say that Streeck stands for the “old Left” and Dhawan for the “new Left.” This is significant because the surprising commonality in their critiques of transnational solidarity shows that this debate is rele- vant for a broad spectrum of the left-wing political sphere. Streeck: National responsibility Streeck (2014) has been one of the most influential intellectuals in Europe, particularly after his book on the financial crisis in 2008. Importantly, he has also been influencing political discourse, particularly the political party Die Linke in Germany, and left-wing Brexiteers in the UK. Streeck criticizes the current trajectory of the European Left for being heavily governed by wishful thinking and faux by moralist arguing. He argues that in order to revitalize capitalism, neoliberals had “smuggled in” a concept of solidarity that frees them of “moral particularisms” of any kind in favor of a “cosmopolitanism or cosmoliberalism” (Streeck, 2021: 32). Naïve leftists, according to this narrative, have taken over the neoliberal frame of reference and strive for global justice—not noticing that they only pave the way for global capital. In the context of Brexit, for instance, Streeck contrasts arguments for national rule with those of a worldwide republic in which all historical, normative, and economic-structural differences may no longer play a role. Invoking such hypothetical thought experiments as arguments in defense of nationalist politics, he argues that the choice is between national democracy and capital- ist globalism (Streeck, 2021: 5). Streeck recently went beyond his well-known economic realist positions and made a culturalist turn, assuming, firstly, that so called “no border” leftists wanted to flatten differences, while, secondly, the individual felt alone and pow- erless when deprived of closed borders. Quoting Theresa May, he stresses that a citizen of the world is a citizen of nowhere (Streeck, 2018a). Based on the claim that “all politics is local,” his main concern is that responsibility is a limited good. A personal sense of responsibility is hence necessarily tied to a national society because nobody can feel responsible for everything, a point that he illustrates with regard to the Vietnam War: “I think it’s a moral and political disaster. But I do not feel responsible for it – quite Anderl 5 different from the massacre that ‘we’ [Germans] have executed, even though I was as little involved in the latter as I was in the former” (Streeck, 2018a). Furthermore, he argues that those who endorse pluralism must necessarily endorse borders, distinctions between inside and outside, and particularity. Mocking cosmopolitans for their naivety, he posits that “[y]ou can only be a cosmopolitan – in the sense of global governance – if you believe that a free run of a globalized economy left to its own devices ends in an equilibrium that makes everyone equally happy” (Streeck, 2021: 13). Since “all politics is local,” the political Left cannot only stand for universal human rights but must, first and foremost, fight for local justice. “Universal rights should, therefore, not be pitted against local rights” (Streeck, 2018a). Conflating “local” and “national,” Streeck ignores academic discussions on the co-constitution of political scales (see e.g. Conway, 2008) for the benefit of a strong contrast between “local” and “global,” as if these were fixed and pre-given levels of analysis. In effect, Streeck upgrades the nation state normatively in distinction from everything “global.” The implications of this argument are far-reach- ing, for he explicitly utilizes it to deny transnational migrants their universal human rights on the basis of the “local right” of cohering around an internally responsible but closed society, parochially pitting the latter against the former. But Streeck has a more compelling, non-culturalist, argument against open borders. He refers to Slobodian’s (2018) book Globalists, in which the author shows how econo- mists of the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS) used national and international institutions to hollow out the state. Their trajectory was surprisingly global from their start in the 1920s, hence the name of the book, and they were strategic in the way they infiltrated and changed institutions, from Western governments to the League of Nations and the World Trade Organization (WTO). For Streeck (2019: 2), their global and universalistic outlook is the decisive point: “Anything particularistic, like national states, was and is considered to be a threat to the grand design of a borderless Weltwirtschaft that was expected to restore the golden age of unbounded 19th century liberalism.” Largely ignoring the dia- lectics at play in the states’ active role in undermining themselves through spreading neoliberal economics, as well as these economists’ outright racism meticulously ana- lyzed by Slobodian, Streeck (2019: 3) highlights that at its core this globalism is hostile to democracy, for the latter, “inevitably national, can coexist with capitalism as long, and only as long, as it is restricted to the cultivation of folkloristic passions untainted by particularistic interests of class or country.” Streeck’s (2019) main argument is hence that the political Right has clearly under- stood the critical conflict between capitalism and democracy while parts of the Left are dreaming of “an international capitalism with a ‘social dimension’, if not a human face” (p. 5). The political practice that, according to Streeck (2019), follows from this neolib- eral dream leads to nothing less than “restoring stock owners’ cosmopolitan paradise” (p. 2). He is bewildered by the extent to which today’s Left has incorporated what he calls the “globalist doctrine” into their thinking. In an argumentative strategy of equalizing coincidence with causation, Streeck (2019) complains that the Left “rallies behind a ‘no border’ program it believes to be anti-capitalist, unaware that the abolition of the nation state is a dream that capitalists dreamed of long before them” (p. 8). While he notes that throughout the book, Slobodian distinguishes between pro-capitalist and anti-capitalist 6 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) anti-nationalism, Streeck does not deem this distinction important enough to contem- plate it further. As a consequence of this critique of globalist thinking, Streeck attacks solidarity with migrants. In order to do that, he offers an almost conspiracy-theoretical account of how the Left is fooled by neoliberals to buy into the globalist framework which only serves to undermine their interest: “Failing [to undermine the basic functions of the state], immigration across open borders as a universal human right under international law was kept in reserve, as an additional means to soften up national solidarity by importing the international market for labor into the national political economy. When it came down to the capitalist basics, the practical men from the MPS not only aban- doned ‘racist’ objections to ‘multiculturalism’ and the like, but denounced them with much the same rhetoric as their apparent opponents on the non-centrist radical Left” (Streeck, 2019: 8). What if the compassion of the “no border Left” only enables the competitiveness- seeking mechanisms of globalized capitalism? This suspicion is the underlying driver of Streeck’s critique of transnational solidarity. He introduces a table that shows how differ- ent political groups cope with the four freedoms (goods, services, capital, labor) (Streeck, 2019: 10). While neoliberals want to preserve both freedom of movement and freedom of goods/services/capital, nationalists (“full Brexit”) want to suspend both. Liberal cen- trists on the other hand want to suspend freedom of movement while keeping the other three freedoms. Finally, the so-called “no border Left,” according to Streeck, wants to keep freedom of movement while suspending the other freedoms. Questioning whether “a country [can] re-establish ‘economic nationalism’ without having control over immi- gration,” Streeck is convinced that the answer is “No.” Calls for open borders must therefore be “cheap virtue” (Streeck, 2018a), void of politics. Politics are local, after all, and to challenge borders therefore means to deprive oneself of the opportunity to fight capitalism. Dhawan: Decolonizing activism From a different vantage point, Dhawan similarly critiques the cosmopolitan baggage on the Left, focusing on “global justice” activism. Dhawan is a professor for political theory and a prominent scholar of postcolonial theory and gender studies. She is well-known for combining the study of various forms of discrimination such as gender and race and has made several public interventions on the European ignorance regarding its colonial his- tory. Dhawan’s theory has a strong emphasis on anti-racism. In contrast to Streeck, her critique of transnationalism is not driven by culturalist considerations. Rather, she makes a tactical argument for a more nationally oriented Left. After the euphoria around trans- national organizing within the framework of global justice in the 1990s and early 2000s, she now puts into question such a framing. Dhawan (2013: 143) connects the underlying spirit of transnational solidarity movements, particularly street protests, to the liberal cosmopolitanism of theorists like Martha Nussbaum and Ulrich Beck. She reconstructs how these authors instrumentalize common threats in a globalized world as a baseline for a cosmopolitan moment in a “world risk society” (Beck, 2009). The globalization of risk, in this reading (for instance from climate change), had to lead to a globalization of Anderl 7 compassion: our common vulnerability in the face of risk brings us together in these accounts (Dhawan, 2013: 145). Tellingly, Kofi Annan used the metaphor of the single boat in which “we all” supposedly sit. Using the image of the Titanic, Dhawan rejects this metaphor, highlighting that depending on which deck of the Titanic one were to be seated, the chances of survival turned out to be empirically higher or lower. Dhawan hence rebuffs the position of cosmopolitanism because, according to her, it fails to address the historicity producing particular individuals who are then in the position to express global solidarity and universal benevolence, arguing that it reinforces the divi- sion between those who give and those who receive. She thus exposes the complicities of liberal cosmopolitan articulations of solidarity with the global structures of domina- tion that they claim to resist. This solidarity, she argues, is based on global capital as a “necessary precondition for the emergence of contemporary cosmopolitan sensibility” (Dhawan, 2013: 140). This cosmopolitan compassion leaves intact the privileges of the global elite and erases the “continuities between cosmopolitanism, neocolonialism, and economic globalization” (Dhawan, 2013: 140). For a postcolonial justice activism, then, the “horizontal organizing” and “spontaneous solidarity” which is proclaimed with regard to transnational protest movements (Butler and Athanasiou, 2013) must be a chi- mera: through the veiling of power structures within “civil society,” these transnational happenings actually reproduce subalternity. Dhawan criticizes the supposed division on the Left between the “good” civil society and the “bad” state which can have, she argues, neo-imperialist and neocolonial conse- quences for subaltern groups. Solidarity, her argument goes, cannot be conditional upon a certain behavior of the receiver because this reinstates the sovereignty on the one side and the dependence on the other. If solidarity is conditional upon a certain behavior that is defined by the giver, this reinscribes such power relations. Since the “cosmopolitan” protest movements are, however, highly stratified, the privilege of setting the terms often remains with the elite in the center. Believing this connection between transnational soli- darity movements and the perpetuation of global power structures to be causal, Dhawan opts to reject the former. Therefore, instead of concentrating on “global solidarity,” activ- ists should focus on changing their own nation states. Without the integration of subal- tern groups into hegemonic (state) structures, emancipatory politics will continue to reproduce feudal relations despite contrary intentions (Dhawan, 2013: 140). In this view, transnational global justice protests are therefore misguided and the activist practice should rather be dedicated to changing states instead of arousing the self in “the erotics of resistance” (Dhawan, 2015). The global solidarity politics, in this reading, mainly benefit those activists who are privileged and can afford to think in “global” terms, by that self-servingly reaffirming their own compassionate character. There is a surprising parallelism in the two critiques of transnational solidarity by Streeck and Dhawan. Although they hail from very different theoretical positions and analyze different social contexts, both of them express a frustration with the “global soli- darity” that is underlying what Streeck deems naïve “no border leftism” on the one hand, and the unreflective usage of a “global justice” framework analyzed by Dhawan on the other. In both accounts, a cosmopolitan rallying cry for solidarity fails to materialize for those who are in need, because it only reinstates neoliberal penetration of markets through the backdoor (Streeck); or it maintains colonial hierarchies by empowering 8 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) those who express solidarity while holding down those who supposedly benefit from it (Dhawan). The common denominator of these interventions is a critique of liberal cosmopolitan reason. Streeck argues that cosmopolitanism is effectively anti-democratic because only within a delineated society can citizens feel responsible and act accordingly. In a global utopia on the other hand, he does not only expect a flattening of cultural difference but mainly fears the undermining of the state which is, according to him, the only institution that can guarantee redistribution, and organize democracy. The “no border left”, in con- trast, plays into the hands of capitalists who use the open borders only to double down on exploitation. Dhawan also attacks cosmopolitanism for its false pretenses. She argues that the “flat hierarchies” in transnational social movements only perpetuate actually existing hierarchies because liberal and rich subjects dominate these spaces while not effectively challenging hegemonic structures which made these hierarchies possible in the first place. Global justice activism across borders is therefore complicit with uphold- ing global structures of domination due to their cosmopolitan theories of solidarity whose main effect is to morally elevate those who articulate them. Both critiques directly con- clude that the state should be endorsed rather than undermined in order to organize an effective, “possible” solidarity. Theorizing transnational solidarity without liberal cosmopolitanism These critiques offer a necessary irritation to the theory and practice of transnational soli- darity. Therefore, I want to take their substantial criticism seriously: based on the inclu- sion of a political economy perspective and postcolonial theory, an explicit or implicit cosmopolitanism in the theory and practice of solidarity is problematic if it does not explicitly take into account the different subject positions involved in “global” organiz- ing (see also Anderl and Witt, 2020). Such a conception of transnational solidarity has no proper way of dealing with the given structural asymmetries. Hence it also has no means of controlling for unintended outcomes, such as the free movement of capital. Rethinking solidarity without such liberal cosmopolitan pitfalls is therefore necessary. However, the two authors’ criticisms do not work because they lump different possible cosmopolitan- isms together and impute their liberal pretenses, that is a naïve globalism based on indi- vidual rights where everyone is the same “unlimited everywhere and everywhere equally” (Streeck, 2018a). But even if we assume that cosmopolitan virtues automati- cally imply such a liberal baggage, Streeck and Dhawan are missing their target because in their approaches, the critique of cosmopolitanism and the critique of transnational solidarity fall into one. In contrast, as I show with the following two examples, the idea of transnational solidarity can and should be understood not to derive from, but to under- mine such cosmopolitanism and its liberal idea of progress. I do this, in analogy to the above, by sketching the positions of two theoretical approaches on transnational solidar- ity that differ from their intellectual vantage point while both belonging to the political Left broadly speaking: Hauke Brunkhorst is a prominent proponent of Frankfurt School critical theory. He analyzes solidarity in a framework of social progress, criticizing naïve Anderl 9 cosmopolitanism in the process of constructing a theory of transnational solidarity. Chandra Mohanty is a feminist postcolonial scholar. Her take on transnational solidarity is developed through a critique of Western feminism. She equally critiques liberal cos- mopolitanism while pushing the boundaries of transnational feminist solidarity. Brunkhorst on progress In the spirit of the Enlightenment, liberal theories of international cooperation have pre- sumed that increasing economic cooperation will lead to mounting solidarity and inter- dependence and, hence, will make wars disappear. This focus on (social) progress through (economic) interdependence has been proven wrong not only by the continua- tion of war but also by increasingly interconnected economic worlds in the second half of the twentieth century which did not lead to a globalized solidarity. Beyond the practi- cal failure of this project, postcolonial scholars have argued that the expansionist claim to the global itself has led to colonial projects and instantiates colonial epistemic norms until this day (Spivak, 1999). In line with this critique, the idea of bridging difference— the practice necessary for any kind of solidarity with others—is itself being under suspi- cion to be of imperialist nature (Vrasti, 2013: 51). Although it is possible to find these problems in empirical solidarity research, to theo- rize the concept accordingly is to assess a phenomenon on the basis of one of its possible manifestations. The assumption of progress through interconnection can be found also in critical theories, yet in an altered way. The generalization of solidarity is the core of what Hegel called “progress in the consciousness of freedom,” hence an expansion of solidarity amongst friends toward solidarity with strangers. Yet, as Brunkhorst (1997: 8) has shown, the generalization in this context does neither necessitate a pre-established community nor a given telos. In contrast to liberal cosmopolitanism which formulates solidarity with reference to an extended communitarianism (“we are all in the same boat”), Brunkhorst’s approach to solidarity starts exactly at the recognition of difference. In contrast to histori- cal materialism, furthermore, solidarity does not necessitate a pre-defined common goal; solidarity materializes in a common practice rather than in its effects. Brunkhorst theorizes a pragmatist account of solidarity that is freed of its communi- tarian limits. Counterintuitively, the mobilizing capacity of this framework lies in the lack of a pre-defined telos. Moving away from the historical-materialist notion of mecha- nistic historical progress makes it possible to hold dear the idea of emancipating the weak and humiliated, even if the factual historical situation makes this seem unlikely by moving ever further away from it. This wrests progress from its descriptive weight and renders it a practical concept (Brunkhorst, 1997: 14). Historical experience is therefore neither the mainspring of progress, nor can it be the ground of its rejection because expe- rience itself has come about under conditions of domination. We cannot even anticipate today which expansion of freedom we will be able to generate tomorrow, argues Brunkhorst (1997: 16). This idealist tendency is couched in a deliberational approach: The core of progress is to generalize, but what is to be generalized can never be a given and continues to be contested. This process of contestation is therefore at the core of soli- darity practice: progress is a project. 10 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) This project is continually being revised, for as soon as it becomes mechanistic, the Enlightenment-trap does away with totalitarianism only to reinvent it in a rationalized, and hence ever more pervasive form. Encountering these dangers, Brunkhorst introduces a Deweyan perspective on democracy, not as a style of government but as a way of life. In contrast to liberal democracy, it is, then, not gutted to a compromising force, but rather has as its aim to find institutional arrangements that create a democratic public. This project is however not perfectionist for it does not seek a final solution, but it tries to include ever more and ever newer interests and needs, and is home to a growing number of those who were excluded or carelessly pushed to the side so far (Brunkhorst, 1997: 31). This concept of progress hence builds on the epistemic widening of its subjects in the expansion of solidarity among friends toward solidarity among strangers. The new genre of left-wing nationalism criticizes diverse forms of transnational soli- darity. I have reconstructed based on Streeck and Dhawan that their critique is actually directed at liberal cosmopolitanism which they see as the underlying driver of these forms of solidarity. My argument, in contrast, is that transnational solidarity can also be justified in alternative ways. Based on a critical theory approach such as Brunkhorst’s, solidarity is a practice that is neither based on the assumption of “all being in the same boat,” nor is it oriented at flattening difference. In contrast, “solidarity among stran- gers” is a practice that fundamentally assumes difference to begin with—and does not aim at overcoming this difference. Because of its recognition of difference, the core practice of solidarity is to deal with the norms and needs of others and the constant negotiation of common interest, without ever reaching a conclusion. Solidarity is prac- ticed in the encounter among equals (the latter, again, not as a descriptive but ascriptive category). The epistemic widening that occurs for all participants of this process is what can be called progress. During these processes, wider normative communities are constructed; a generaliza- tion of norms that is progressive because all the included parties had to reflect upon given epistemic and moral norms in order to reach this (reversible) generalization, with- out having to give up their subject position for a pre-defined common good. This process hence democratizes reason through participation and engaged listening, and it renders the common position more rational because it is not justified by tradition (family; nation etc.) but by an exchange of ideas whose contradictions necessitate a more general one. For these processes to be established, common goals are necessary because they make it possible to define a direction of critique and social change, that is to generalize across difference. Yet, the definition of this direction is constantly contested in a process of exchange that does not flatten differences but coheres around a common perspective in difference. Therefore, no moral universalism is underlying this approach to solidarity— only the practical goal of “widening our own narrow-minded local context as far as pos- sible” (Brunkhorst, 1997: 130). Mohanty on feminism without borders Mohanty (2003: 10) is concerned with the practice of feminism across national and cul- tural divisions. In similarity to Dhawan (see above), Mohanty develops her argument based on a critique of the Global Justice Movement, that is the baggage of the “global Anderl 11 justice” idea which has often been invoked for a “border-less” feminism by Western liberal feminists, who used the framework to police others in hierarchical and imperialist ways. According to Mohanty, notions of complete identification with the other—in a vague category of global sisterhood—are therefore blurring the view for what it actually takes to create feminist solidarity across these lines. To the opposite, Mohanty argues that such vague ascriptions lead to the appropriation of the experiences of Non-Western feminists and their struggles by hegemonic white women’s movements (Mohanty, 2003: 18), and may reify the very categories they aimed to overcome: by contrasting the “Third World Woman” with the liberated Western feminist, the latter alone become the subjects of any counter-history (Mohanty, 2003: 39). The “strategic” move of categorizing all women as global sisters, connected through the same oppression, has often been used to elevate those Westerners who believe that they have liberated themselves more from the common oppression, hence objectivizing Southern sisters as victims. Mohanty (2003: 33) shows that this move—irrespective of the intentions—has been counterproductive as a political strategy. Instead, she proposes that “it is only by understanding the contradic- tions inherent to women’s location within various structures that effective political action and challenges can be devised.” This critique of cosmopolitanism—on first view—resembles that of Streeck when Mohanty observes that in neoliberal feminist discourse “identity is seen as either naïve or irrelevant, rather than as source of knowledge and a basis for progressive mobiliza- tion” (Mohanty, 2003: 6). Therefore, scholars have utilized her work to criticize global justice activism as parochial practice and suggested to concentrate on the “local” in order to circumvent these pathologies (Felski, 1997). Yet, in a passage of Mohanty’s reflection that receives less attention, she cautions against such a rushed criticism which has been performed by utilizing her original essay. Although she reaffirms her core critique of Western, universalist feminism and is generally happy that it found its way into the main- stream of feminist discourses, she is struck by the prominent tendency to interpret her embrace of the particularism, the local, and the different as a normative end in itself, and—as a consequence—reads it as a rejection of the general, the systemic, the global: “I did not argue against all forms of generalization, nor was I privileging the local over the systemic, difference over commonalities [. . .]. I did not write [. . .] that there would be no possibility of solidarity between Western and Third World feminists. Yet, this is often how the essay is read and utilized. I have wondered why such a sharp opposition has developed” (Mohanty, 2003: 224). Rather than succumbing to the counter-productive flattening of difference by retreat- ing from solidarity across borders, Mohanty posits her understanding of feminism which acknowledges borders in their multiple forms as “lines between and through nations, races, classes, sexualities, religions and disabilities” (Mohanty, 2003: 2). Because these lines are real, she argues that feminist solidarity must work across these lines of division rather than pretending their inexistence. This would require concrete forms of solidarity which acknowledge the differences produced and mirrored by these borders instead of utilizing “vague assumptions of sisterhood or images of complete identification with the other” (Mohanty, 2003: 3). Yet, in contrast to Dhawan, Mohanty does not conclude in her analysis that an inward-looking vision of activism focused on “the own” state instead of crossing borders would be advisable. Rather to the opposite, 12 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) she proposes to overcome the prescriptive and naïve aspects of second wave white feminism by practicing solidarity “in terms of mutuality, accountability, and the recog- nition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse communities” (Mohanty, 2003: 7). This approach to solidarity highlights “the centrality of self-reflexive collective prac- tice in the transformation of the self, reconceptualization of identity, and political mobi- lization as necessary elements of the practice of decolonization” (Mohanty, 2003: 8). Such an approach is difficult work by necessity, because it neither presupposes equality and understanding, nor does it weaponize difference as argument against collective prac- tice across borders. This work, therefore, forces activists to overcome the categories of “local” versus “global” in favor of a concept of solidarity that is generalizing and yet necessarily located in the particular (Anderl, 2020). In Mohanty’s field, this means to reorient feminist practice toward an internationalist anti-capitalist struggle (Mohanty, 2003: 12), which does not mean to overcome a localized feminist identity. Rather to the opposite: in the practice of collectively mobilizing and reflecting upon the own frame- works of reference in dialogue with comrades from other backgrounds, a common hori- zon of action can be constructed. This will have to be a reversible, constantly reflected-upon framework for common political practice across difference, a “nonhe- gemonic feminist practice” (Mohanty, 2003: 10) of solidarity that is surely complicated, but not “impossible” (Dhawan, 2015) to reach. Practicing transnational solidarity after liberal cosmopolitanism I have outlined Streeck’s and Dhawan’s analyses of transnational solidarity and their conclusion that left-wing activists should reorient their practices toward “their own” nation state. I have shown that in both cases, this conclusion only makes sense because their critique of transnational solidarity is in fact a critique of liberal cosmopolitanism. Therefore, building on Brunkhorst and Mohanty, I have offered two theoretical concep- tions of solidarity across borders that are based in a critique of liberal cosmopolitanism, showing that there are other ways to justify and conceptualize transnational solidarity. These are, however, conditional upon more complex political processes of establishing mutuality. Transnational solidarity, defined in such a way, is therefore more challenging and can be expected to be empirically less common than the frequent invocation of the word would suggest. Yet, the fact that it is more challenging does neither mean that it is analytically impossible, nor that it is not normatively desirable. In the following, I refer to the example of La Via Campesina’s solidarity practice that, I hope, illustrates how transnational solidarity can be practiced beyond a liberal- cosmopolitan frame. La Via Campesina is a transnational peasant movement with more than 180 member organizations from 79 countries. It strives for land reform, peasant rights and food sovereignty and opposes the neoliberal organization of agriculture. The peasant movement has coalesced across the Global North and South around a set of common objectives which included a rejection of the neoliberal model of rural develop- ment, a refusal of being excluded from agricultural policy formulation, and a strong determination to work together across borders in order to empower peasant voices for Anderl 13 an alternative model of agriculture (Rosset, 2005: 9). La Via Campesina is a specific case, and it is not chosen on the basis of a systematic least likely case selection process. Other cases of transnational movements would show other relationships to both the state and to cosmopolitan ideals. I chose this case because it illustrates the claim that there are ways of practicing transnational solidarity that are not dependent on liberal- cosmopolitan values but mobilize alternative ideas and practices which political theory can learn from, because the activists refute the simple dualism of nationalism and globalism. Instead, they mobilize new ways of transnational solidarity that take differ- ence seriously while seeking commonality as I show in the following. “Global” and particular La Via Campesina’s engagement is a good example for a network that builds on strong transnational ties and that conceives itself as a “global” movement. The need for such an approach is evident in both global capitalist structures which they oppose, and the rules for agriculture which are made in supranational institutions such as the G20, the WTO, the World Bank Group, and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). But neither is this “global” approach to peasant solidarity based on a narrative of sameness, nor do the movement groups aspire a flattening of difference. In contrast, their activism works on the basis of a strong premise of the particularity of its members. La Via Campesina as a platform enables peasant movements from various backgrounds to engage in debates, exchange and reflection on their common framework, that is food sovereignty. “These practices [. . .] are rooted in particular places and they are performed by actors with no formal status in political institutions. [In that way,] practices of peasant resistance have extended resistance transnationally through horizontal forms of movement extension and knowledge exchange” (Dunford, 2016: 44, italics as original). This leads to lengthy pro- cesses of translation, debate, and mutual learning at their congresses, involving not only the exchange of policy positions but discussions on norms, exchange of ideas, cultural practices, and bodily engagement. The identities of the respective participants do not merge into a cosmopolitan peasant. Rather, the movement emphasizes the strong varia- tion of peasant lifestyles, a feature almost self-evident given the geographical and politi- cal diversity of its members. La Via Campesina “groups nationally- or regionally-based organizations to struggle together on common issues at the international level, and the autonomy of these member organizations is carefully respected” (Rosset, 2005: 6). National or sub-national member organizations have a strongly particular identity, but the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo in Nicaragua, and the UK-based Landworkers Alliance are nevertheless equally “proud to be a member of La Via Campesina.” Similarly, there are strongly different grievances within the network. Take for example the Pakistan Kissan Rabta Committee (PKRC) on the one hand and the German Aktionsgemeinschaft Bäuerliche Landwirtschaft (ABL) on the other. Both of these groups are dealing with problems around land access in a highly skewed system of land tenure. Yet, while peasants in PKRC are frequently exposed to violent attacks by land- lords, the military and/or business groups who force them out of their premises, ABL is often disadvantaged due to a subsidy system that discriminates against small farms. Their solidarity is not built around sameness, because it would make no sense to claim 14 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) that their fight is the same. Rather, they are looking for commonalities in the sources of these grievances and for possibilities of learning from each other in difference. Their solidarity practice is oriented at widening their own normative and political frameworks for a common articulation of peasant politics that emerges from these particular trajectories. Globalizing solidarity, protecting difference The transnational peasant movement arguably started out of desperation, but it has quickly accelerated into a positive project of “global peasant rights.” Building on an understanding that Streeck would call “local rights”, the movement has decided to criti- cally engage with the framework of universal human rights, and for this purpose has invested heavily into transnational consolidation and advocacy. Yet, they highlight their particular positions vis a vis the world economy as “feeders of the world” (Sabarini, 2011) and consciously counter global neoliberalism with their own concept of global solidarity: “Globalizing the struggle also means globalizing solidarity, and the hope of the peoples of the world.” The norms of a different globality therefore strongly inform their transnational solidarity work. Yet, what exactly this globality means is not substan- tially defined but articulated as a solidarity practice, the goal of which is mainly to pro- tect rural lifestyles and gain autonomy over the land and the means of production. In contrast to leftist nationalists who aim at slowing down the transnational exploitation with stronger borders, La Via Campesina have come to conclude that in order to protect their local lifestyles from international norm setting machines such as the WTO, they themselves need to globalize, too. Yet, common positions are carefully created “by artic- ulating the concerns of the base within each national organization, bringing them to table [. . .], and having a dialog to reach common positions” (Rosset, 2005: 12). The differences brought to the table are not only geographical, but also political. The ideological commitments of its member organizations vary strongly, “from those coming from the communist party-based frameworks to those of the anarcho-syndicalist tradi- tion, from those of broadly liberal provenance to those arising from environmental activ- ism” (Borras, 2004: 9). Despite these significant differences regarding geographical, social, and political backgrounds, the movement has successfully stressed and developed unifying commonalities. The major difference to a heavily reified version of leftist nationalism is that political identities, especially commonalities, are not simply assumed as givens, but they are commonly constructed in tedious discussions in which particulari- ties are always the starting point for reflexive dialogues, the results of which have been “more than the sum total of the different agendas and goals of its member associations [. . .]. They are part of the shaping and reshaping of the collective identity of Vía Campesina” (Borras, 2004: 9). Politics is local, and power is in generalizing While La Via Campesina has been enormously successful as a “global” network, shaping the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Peasant through a concerted advo- cacy strategy within the UN (Suárez, 2013), it celebrates the particular culture of its Anderl 15 members, because the flattening of difference through the external interreference in rural lifeworlds by neoliberal globalization is actually one of the movement’s major griev- ances. Their internal difference is hence one of the movements building blocks for becoming a unified movement (Desmarais, 2007: 39). Its major substantial claim, food sovereignty, is at its core a call for difference. “Taking back control” (Claeys, 2015) therefore—on first sight—resembles nationalist campaigns such as Brexit: they do not only demand a secure access to food for rural areas but the right to decide what kind of food can be produced in what way. This is directly opposed to the current international food system. Therefore, La Via Campesina has consistently rallied around the message “For Food Sovereignty, WTO Out of Agriculture!.” Yet, in stark contrast to nationalist causes, this framework is deeply grounded in mutuality and a process of generalization. The movement-building around food sover- eignty is not a means to decouple the self and focus on domestic issues. While they do support protectionist policies for food, they justify this not from a national vantage point. Rather to the opposite, they look at food systems from a view of individual peas- ants, regions and consumers. These do not adhere to national borders but their fulfil- ment need to be planned in accordance with specific needs which can sometimes be very local (on a village level) and sometimes transnational, yet the formulation of these positions needs to happen in view of the needs of others’, not “regardless” (Mason, 2018) of them. This is what they mean when they proclaim, “globalize Solidarity, local- ize Agriculture.” Having been so successful in influencing the international right of the peasants, the movement currently expands beyond its agrarian origins (Claeys and Duncan, 2018), because it has from its outset been about a “convergence of demands” (Pinheiro Machado Brochner, 2014: 261). The involved agrarian movements are not motivated by an urge to sovereignty defined as delineation, but rather came up with this political framework because it offers a means to overcome fragmentation by respecting each other’s struggles and build convergence in diversity (Amin, 2011). As the French peasant activist Jose Bové put it: “It’s a real farmers’ International, a living example of a new relationship between North and South.” (Bové, 2001: 96). While La Via Campesina has hence con- verged around of food sovereignty as a common framework that allows to take the speci- ficity of each different place into account (Rosset and Martínez-Torres, 2014: 143), the transnational solidarity of peasants enables them to reclaim power of unity, and to over- come the fragmentation resulting from neoliberal globalization. Conclusion Liberal cosmopolitanism is in crisis. The premise that “we are all in the same boat” has lost its political credibility and mobilizing capacity for left-wing social movements. This crisis has triggered different political projects on the Left, each formulating a claim to solidarity that leaves the liberal-cosmopolitan notion of sameness behind. On the one hand, some leftist thinkers have inferred from the crisis that the Left should reject trans- national solidarity projects and instead embrace nationalism. On the other hand, theorists and movements have come up with more complex ways of coalition-building across difference: solidarity practices that are based in particularity but aspire to formulate 16 Journal of International Political Theory 00(0) common interests in political practice. These transnational solidarity relations are hard work because they must be renegotiated constantly. Streeck is a prominent example of the former logic. He has publicly attacked the pro- gressive Left and argued that in order to regain trust of working-class voters, left-wing parties “may require a kind of symbolic politics that may seem dirty to outside observ- ers.” He justifies this position by equalizing the proponents of freedom of movement with privileged neoliberals who “have an interest in more inequality – to be able to eat cheaper in restaurants and have their homes cleaned more affordably – this may indicate a real conflict over what kind of society one wants to be, social democratic or neoliberal” (see Note 11). Dhawan operates with the dichotomy of naïve and paternalist global jus- tice activism which mainly helps those activists in the center, and an activist reorienta- tion at the state. These dualistic analyses perceive transnational solidarity to be motivated by liberal-cosmopolitan virtue. As I have reconstructed, the critique of transnational soli- darity by these authors is therefore mainly directed at cosmopolitanism which they see as the underlying ideological framework of solidarity across borders. On the basis of their analyses, the only possible counter-framework that these authors propose is a retreat to the nation. In contrast to these criticisms, I have outlined theoretical perspectives that justify solidarity across difference without the liberal baggage. In a critical theory perspec- tive, in contrast to liberal cosmopolitanism, the generalization of solidarity is not deduced from a supposedly common positionality. To the contrary, it is a project that involves the practice of listening, contesting, and a reflexive widening of epistemic norms. It is in these practices that solidarity across difference can be observed. In a postcolonial-feminist perspective, cosmopolitan virtue is attacked as a veil for imperi- alist tendencies in white second wave feminism, which assumed a shared sisterhood at the cost of recognizing class, race and gender. On the basis of this analysis, feminist solidarity must be grounded in intersectional analysis, putting reflexive positionality at the core of any solidarity project. Yet, rather than to fetishize locality, this upgrading of the particular is understood as a struggle of “specifying and illuminating the univer- sal” (Mohanty, 2003: 224). Solidarity across borders is enabled rather than undermined through such a focus on the local—a perspective entirely different from nationalist theories which assume that the fight against neoliberal globalization could be won by fortifying the self, or retreating to the state. I supported these theoretical clarifications by introducing La Via Campesina as a practical movement that engages in this complicated practice of solidarity across bor- ders. Their outlook is decidedly global, stimulating constant exchange and friction of their members who are, however, strongly grounded in their particularity, both in terms of a peasant subjectivity, but also as subjects with particular grievances. They hence engage in a conscious effort to globalize solidarity and to widen their epistemic frameworks during this process, yet with the aim of protecting their geographical and political difference. While they would easily agree with Streeck’s catchphrase that all politics is local, the activists know that nationalism is a false friend for a solidarity movement. They therefore do not develop a politics of distinction but mobilize their particularity in a widening of solidarity toward strangers in order to “globalize the struggle, globalize hope.” Anderl 17 Author’s Note Felix Anderl is now affiliated to Center for Conflict Studies, Philipps-Universität Marburg. ORCID iD Felix Anderl https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3536-8898 Notes 1. For critical and helpful comments and discussions, I would like to thank Federico Brandmayr, Carlotta Caciagli, Donatella della Porta, Engin Isin, Julia Leser, Julia Rone, Lucia Rubinelli, Elias Steinhilper, Farooq Tariq, and two anonymous reviewers. 2. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/08/bernie-sanders-open-borders-1261392 (accessed 8 May 2019). 3. https://labourlist.org/2019/04/labour-confirms-it-wants-to-end-freedom-of-movement/ (accessed 8 May 2019). 4. See for instance his lecture on Brexit in 2019: https://wolfgangstreeck.com/2019/03/23/tak- ing-back-control-brexit-and-the-future-of-europe/ (accessed 30 August 2021). 5. All translations by the author of this article. 6. See for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55DFl5N_oJ0 (last access 09 February 2022). 7. Dhawan, Nikita (2018): Lecture on Transnational Justice and Gendered Vulnerability. Central European University Budapest, 3 May 2018. Online at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=hgafacZ_RuE (accessed 21 October 2019). 8. It is not implied by Mohanty that transnational solidarity can only be shaped in the South, or that it is imperial if coming “from the North.” The problem has been a lack of mutuality in a structure dominated by Northern interests. Interests of Northerners were empirically con- sidered while the ones from the South less so, that is campaigns were not actually solidarity campaigns despite being called as such. Thanks to one reviewer for pointing me toward this clarification. 9. https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/ (accessed 12 May 2019). 10. See: https://viacampesina.org/en/la-via-campesina-xv-navarra-international-prize-for-solidarity/ (accessed 9 March 2019). 11. https://viacampesina.org/en/wto-kills-peasants-21-years-enough-wto-out-of-agriculture-la- via-campesina-to-step-up-its-resistance-during-the-xi-ministerial-conference/ (accessed 27 February 2020). 12. See online at: https://viacampesina.org/en/its-time-to-transform-its-time-to-globalize-soli- darity-localize-agriculture/ (accessed 30 August 2021). 13. https://www.ipg-journal.de/interviews/artikel/realistischer-antikapitalismus-statt-moralis- che-umerziehungsversuche-3645/ (accessed 25 February 2020). 14. Elizabeth Mpofu, globalize the struggle, globalize hope https://thousandcurrents.org/glo- balise-the-struggle-globalise-hope/ (accessed 10 May 2019). 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Journal

Journal of International Political Theory – SAGE

Published: Feb 1, 2023

Keywords: Activism; cosmopolitanism; nationalism; solidarity; state

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