American Exceptionalism
A conversation I was having the other day took a familiar turn when I brought up the topic of World Poverty and Human Rights. The person with whom I was conversing, after hearing my brief description of the topics of the course, responded by saying, “Whenever somebody complains to me about something wrong with America, I tell them, ‘Show me another country that treats its women and children so well, that has so many rights for its citizens.’” Without making too big a splash, I suggested that basically all Western, developed nations have all the things we have in the U.S. – a democratic government, a well established judicial system, protection of human rights, access to good health care, etc. I could have mentioned that there are many countries that actually have better social structures than the U.S., like those with universal health care, but I didn’t want to become combative. The conversation ended shortly thereafter, but the comment stuck with me and made me think of the many examples of American Exceptionalism I have encountered, especially the example that Steven Marks addressed in The Human Right to Development: Between Rhetoric and Reality which he wrote in 2004 about the U.S. government’s approach to the right to development. It seems a common feeling amongst Americans is that our way of doing things is the best, it needs no improvement, and it can and should be imposed on any nation seeking our aid. I don’t know if the sentiment was first encouraged by the government, if it developed naturally over time, or is a recent phenomenon, but it doesn’t seem conducive to successful participation in development, through a rights-based approach or otherwise.
Since the introduction of the Right to Development by the UN in the 1980′s the U.S. government has been opposed to its implementation and has consistently voted against resolutions regarding it (Marks, p 143), yet in March 2002 president George W. Bush said, “Developed nations have a duty not only to share our wealth, but also to encourage sources that produce wealth: economic freedom, political liberty, the rule of law and human rights,” and proposed a $5 billion annual increase of Overseas Development Assistance through a new Millennium Challenge Account (Marks, p 156). This is not the first time the U.S. has been inconsistent in its support of human rights. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948, the U.S. has been reticent to join other nations in support of the human rights laid out therein. Due partly to U.S. resistance, it took eighteen years for two separate covenants on human rights to be adopted, one of which has never been ratified by the U.S. (Uvin, p 10), nor did the U.S. ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 (Uvin, p 13). With this track record the U.S. certainly has no right to assert itself as an authority on human rights, or expect the world to look to it for leadership on development.
One might argue that the amount of aid that the United States provides to developing nations counterbalances this sense of “exceptionalism,” that the ideological stance does not matter as long as policy and overall impact are positive. However, according the Center for Global Development, out of the 22 richest countries in the world the U.S. ranks only 17th in development commitment. The index ranks countries on seven indicators, one of which is aid. Both quantity and quality are measured to produce the score, and many may be surprised to find that the U.S. is not a leader in either quantity or quality. “The dramatic differences between countries in raw aid quantity heavily influence the overall aid scores. The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands take the top four slots on aid, while Japan and the United States place near the bottom. But quality matters, too. Norway would rank first on sheer aid quantity as a share of GDP, but falls to third for funding smaller projects and being less selective. And the United States would score higher if it did not tie some 26 percent of its aid and if it gave less to corrupt or undemocratic governments in Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, and elsewhere.” It seems quite clear that both the ideology and the impact of U.S. development support leave much to be desired.
The U.S. remains one of the wealthiest nations in the world and is therefore relied upon for international aid, but the “U.S. unwillingness to join other nations in reaffirming [the right to development] and human rights more generally in the context of major conferences also contributes to resentment against the United States” (Marks, p 160). Americans can go on believing that the U.S. is the greatest country in the world, that there is no need for us to engage with the international community, and that our way of doing things is the best way possible, but we shouldn’t be surprised to find that we are ill adored by those we claim to help. Instead we could engage with the international community and have some humility when attempting to improve the lives of those less fortunate. Peter Uvin suggests that development agencies “would benefit enormously if they managed to create an atmosphere of critical internal debate” (p 152), and I suggest that governments and citizenries could benefit from the same. The first step in gaining respect in the international community and therefore becoming a more effective agent of positive change in the world is a willingness to evaluate and learn from our own shortcomings.
In the U.S. we don’t have to look far to find some shortcomings. Amartya Sen in Development as Freedom points out that the U.S. is not as perfect as we’d like to think. We still struggle with gender inequality (p 89), racial inequality (p 96), and inadequate health care coverage (p 98), to name a few. The basic principles of a rights-based approach to development involve self-examination, inclusion of historically disempowered groups, cooperation, and accountability (Uvin p 165). All of these principles could be well applied to the U.S. practice of international aid to the benefit of developing countries, international organizations, and (not least of all) U.S. foreign relations and the international perception of Americans.
Works Cited
Center for Global Development. Commitment to Development Index 2009 Brief, p 4. www.cgdev.org.
Marks, S. (2004). The Human Right to Development: Between Rhetoric and Reality. Harvard Human Rights Journal , 17, 137-168.
Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. New York, NY: Anchor Books.
Uvin, P. (2004). Human Rights and Development. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, Inc.
© 2010, Suzanna Blahna. All rights reserved.