Is There a Place for New Zealand in a Globalising World?

A Spirited Conversation: 7 April 2008.

<>Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Literature and Culture; Political Economy & History;

<>When I began the study which led to my book, Globalisation and the Wealth of Nations, I assumed that ultimately globalisation would destroy nations. I knew that globalisation had created the modern nation-state, which hardly existed before the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was driven by the falling costs of distance, which not only brought countries together – so that Britain is less than a couple of days from New Zealand by air, a couple of milliseconds electronically – but it also led to the integration within nations, as it became easier for citizens to connect, making it a greater challenge to control them and yet easier to reach them.

<>But if the costs of distance continued to fall, would not the same processes lead to an integration of the citizens in different countries, and eventually lead to a world government? Perhaps ultimately that will happen, but I am reasonably confident that it will not happen in the lifetime of most of this audience. The reasons, set out in the book, are complex, but they are symbolised as to what is happening in Europe. Given its size and population density one might expect it to succumb to the integrational forces of globalisation; and indeed there is the rhetoric of the European Union becoming the United States of Europe.

<>Yet the forces of nationalism remain a central part of the EU story. Certainly there are integrationist forces, in economic policy and migration, but the political structure and practices leave considerable power in the hands of individual nation-states. The EU is unlikely to become like the United States of America, whose constitution was established before the existence of the modern nation-state. The thirteen foundation states, not nation-states at the time, had neither the power nor the presence to resist the federalisation of America despite, ironically, many preferring a confederation similar to that of the European Union.

<>The point is nicely illustrated by the fact that the states of the USA do not have foreign missions, and as a general rule their governors are not knowledgeable about foreign policy, as is often illustrated when a governor runs for president. Every nation-state of the European Union has a foreign minister, and they have different foreign policies as indicated by the split in the EU in response to such issues as Iraq.

<>Nevertheless, the EU well demonstrates an important trend of globalisation: the increasing inability of nation-states to control economic policy where border transactions are involved. Globalisation and the Wealth of Nations sees such institutions as the WTO, the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, and free trade agreements as the political economy consequences of the falling costs of distance, rather than the independent drivers. The consequence of trade between partners is a rule of law framework, and in order to avoid complexity while maintaining a sort of equity, unrestrained trading relations tend to be the lowest common denominator. Nation-states are no longer able to close off their domestic economies from the commercial actions of other economies.

<>Initially I saw this increasing impotence as leading to the demise of the nation-state. My Nationbuilders book argued that economic policy was central in the development of the New Zealand nation-state from the 1930s to the early 1980s. If an independent policy became impossible, as for instance the Rogernomes argued in the late 1980s and 1990s, what was the future for the nation-state?

<>Part of the answer is implicit in the economic policies of the last decade, and evident throughout the world. This Labour-led government has still found ways of influencing the economy positively, ranging from sound macro-economic policy, supporting research, science and technology, promoting the acquisition of skills and education, building infrastructure, and of course public expenditure and distributional policies. It is only harder, not impossible, to run an economic policy without the border protection instruments, as this government has shown.

<>Indeed Labour has gone a step further in its commitment to the Doha Round and free trade agreements. What is going on here – as discussed in Globalisation and the Wealth of Nations – is an economic growth strategy built on the identification of specialisation, economies of scale and the economies of agglomeration plus technological innovation. The essence of the government’s economic policy is what I called in an earlier book of that name, ‘open growth’: national success requires engagement with the rest of the world.

<>Now it is not my task here to defend or explain the government’s economic policy, but what I have done I hope, is suggest that the destruction of independent economic policy in a nation-state is not inevitable even though there is a far less ability to control border policy today.

<>However, the survival of the nation-state cannot depend upon such a negative conclusion. It requires positive reasons for existence. The book groups them into two:

<>The first reason is that those who belong to a particular nation-state must have a sense of identity with the others who belong, and with the state as a whole; the second reason is that the nation-state must be able to deliver services to individuals so there is a purpose in their belonging to it.

<>The second reason can be explained more readily than the first, so let me do so briefly. The modern nation-state supports its citizens’ education and acquisition of skills, it reduces the insecurities of poor health, old age, unemployment and other adverse events, it nurtures its young not least because it requires them as future citizens, it promotes economic development, it protect’s the nation’s interests, and it promotes the national culture and heritage.

<>This last function is part of the response to the first issue of giving a commonality to the citizens of the nation. I shall give the rest of this paper to this topic because it is a large and difficult one, although extremely important.

<>Globalisation and the Wealth of Nations discusses two sorts of cohesion strategies. I am going to read a section at the end of Chapter 12. The chapter is about Germany which is used as an example of the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century, for there was no German nation-state before 1871 and hardly any sense of German nationalism a hundred years earlier except perhaps by the intellectual elite. Germany went on to a terrible sort of nationalism under Hitler, which the book calls ‘ethnic nationalism’ and which it contrasts with the admirable civic nationalism of post-war Germany, a nationalism which emphasises citizenship and political and social participation. The book goes on:

<>Aristotle tells us that society is not a market, because we can do business with foreigners; it is not a mutual security pact, because we can have military alliances with foreigners; it is not intermarriage, because one can marry a foreigner; it is not occupying the same territory, because neighbours can treat one another like the occupants of the same city can treat one another as if they were enemies; it is not doing no harm to one another, because one can be kind to foreigners. There must be a cherished way of life woven out of friendships, civic cooperation, and social pursuits; but even this is not enough, unless it is crowned by mutual moral concern among fellow citizens. All must be seen count as worthy of justice: none must be denied full political and social participation.

<>In such a society there is a sharing of common values, a sense of belonging to a community, and an allegiance to a nation which is typically, but not always, the nation-state of residence. A key common value for a civic nationalism is tolerance of diversity, a tolerance which perhaps makes possible the hierarchy of allegiances …

<>Even so, civic nationalism (or ‘positive nationalism’, as John Ralston Saul calls it) has a tension that cannot be easily resolved. Ethnic and civic nationalism might be thought of as analogous to Karl Popper’s closed and open societies. Ethnic (or ‘negative’) nationalism limits the possibilities for change in a manner similar to what occurs in closed societies. At its worst, the leader is an ideologue who claims to know absolute truth; and its crowds can be just as intolerant of difference. In an open society, nobody has a monopoly on the truth, different people have different views and different interests, and there are institutions that allow them to live together in peace.

<>Peter Munz cautions that open societies can be too open. Living together also involves common rules and understandings about how the members of a society are to function. Such institutions are integral to culture, yet their very existence limits the openness of society. (Consider the example of legislation against hate speech – an intolerance of intolerance.)

<>Often the rules and understandings entailed in civic nationalism are informal. They are never entirely rational; there is an emotional as well as a rational commitment to civic nationalism. … civic nationalism needs a mythic narrative to explain its heritage and future. (pages 83-84)

<>I want to apply these principles to New Zealand, which the book does not do because it is written for an international audience, even though New Zealand preoccupations loom large on every page.

<>I am going to focus on ethnic nationalism. There are parallel situations where the dividers are language as in Belgium, religion as in Iraq and Northern Ireland, and race as in Burundi and Fiji. Each instance might be an example of an opposition to civic nationalism, although the Belgians have shown the tensions can be overcome with toleration: one prays that the Northern Irish are learning the lesson.

<>The mention of race reminds us that ethnicity is different from race. While race involves a genetic and factual notion, ethnicity is self-ascribed, reflecting what people want to call themselves.

<>Our single most importance source of ethnicity data is the quinquennial Population Census. Unfortunately the census question gives no indication of what it means by ethnicity. Probably some people think it is a question about race, but others do not. Some people who say they are of Maori descent do not give ‘Maori’ as an ethnicity, and some who give Maori ethnicity say they are not of Maori descent, reminding us that ethnicity is not race.

<>(In passing I mention that it is not uncommon for other surveys to compare their responses to ethnicity questions in the census, even though they are asking different questions or coding the response in a different way. It seems likely, too, that people will code their ethnicity differently in different circumstances. We know that is true on death certificates.)

<>There is only one place in official New Zealand which uses the concept of race. You will find it in the Population Census, where there is a box where one ticks if one is of Maori descent. Since this is separate from the Census ethnicity question, it shows that ethnicity is not the same thing as descent or race. The decent question is used for deciding the number of Maori seats. Time forbids going through the story of why there are Maori seats – they were originally established to protect the interests of European settlers. The reason they are allocated on a racial rather than ethnicity basis is, I suppose, that descent is a fact testable in court, whereas ethnicity is much more attitudinal and untestable.

<>(Some think the Tiriti o Waitangi settlements are race based. They are not. They provide compensation to families who had great wrongs imposed on them in the past, typically by the seizure of their property without compensation. If the same thing happened to my Easton ancestors, my wider family would be demanding compensation too, although in our case we would have to go through a court or petition a select committee.)

<>The Census gives a number of ethnicity options to respond to, but there is also the option to write in a response. Many people use the option, and in the last (2006) Census around 15 percent of respondents wrote they were ‘New Zealanders’.

<>Unfortunately the census cannot give people the opportunity to explain why they respond in the way they do. Some of my friends whom I admire called themselves ‘New Zealanders’ in the Census, so I do not think we need necessarily think that response was as assimilationist as I shall describe shortly.

<>Indeed, if I am overseas and am asked my nationality, I reply ‘New Zealander’. But for the ethnicity question in the census I wrote in ‘Pakeha’ – I am certainly not a European, the offered option, except by descent. I choose Pakeha because it identifies me as a New Zealander, albeit one whose ways are affected by European origins. The term ‘Pakeha’ is used in the Tiriti o Waitangi, so it is a label has been used respectfully for 170 years.

<>The reason I answer the Census differently, is because the circumstances are different. I write in ‘Pakeha’ as an act of solidarity with those New Zealanders who think of themselves as Maori, or Samoan New Zealanders or Chinese New Zealanders or whatever. They are proud to be New Zealanders, as I am (usually), but they want to say that in various ways they see themselves as ethnically or culturally distinct from other New Zealanders. (Another place I use the phrase is a response to the follow-up question by a foreigner, who having been told I am a New Zealander, wonders whether I am a Maori. ‘No, I am a Pakeha’.)

<>What is worrying about the New Zealander census response is its assimilationist overtone. The assimilation versus integration debate occurred in the 1960s. The assimilationist group wanted the Maori to become like Europeans except for their brown skins. The outcome would have been a disaster, because the Maori have subsequently given us so much which was distinctive to them and has contributed so much to making New Zealanders distinctive from the rest of the world. The integrationist strategy, which was to acknowledge there were differences, to tolerate the differences, to respect them and to celebrate them, won out.

<>However it unintentionally led to biculturalism, which categorised New Zealanders into being Maori or non-Maori, and which tended to equate the non-Maori with those of British descent. Those who think of themselves as Samoan, Tongan, Chinese, or Indian New Zealanders get lost in biculturalism, but so do those who celebrate the Danish, Dutch, Jewish, or Polish in themselves. Even those whose background is Celtic – the Irish, Scots and Welsh – grumble that their differences are not sufficiently recognised, but subsumed under the English umbrella, and there are those like myself, whose background is Yorkshire and Somerset (and Irish), think too much weight is given to London English.

<>What a polyglot of cultural influences we New Zealanders are, and yet there are commonalities. For instance once we have been here for a couple of generations, we all sound much alike.

<>Civic nationalism tolerates these differences in a way that ethnic nationalism does not. Its aim is not to make us a people with one ethnicity, but to celebrate the differences and see in the mix a truth of the variety of New Zealanders in which there is a commonality so we can call ourselves New Zealanders, comfortable that within New Zealand our differences are recognised.

<>In a sense bi-culturalism is the new assimilationism. You must belong to one category or one other – Aryan or Jew in Hitler’s Germany – without any acknowledgement that there is also considerable diversity within each category.

<>The story of how we statistically trapped ourselves into this dichotomy is yet to be written. Let me sketch it.

<>Until about 1981, the Population Census collected on a racial basis which was jokingly called the ‘hydrological test’, because one was classified as Maori on the basis of proportion of ancestors who were Maori, so it was the proportion of Maori blood – hydrologically – which determined one’s race. The criterion was abandoned in 1986 in favour of self ascribed ethnicity.

<>Now some people want to give themselves more than one ethnicity. In the most recent census some people who wrote in ‘New Zealander’ and also said they were Maori, or Pakeha or Chinese whatever, which is a reminder that you cannot assume that the New Zealander category necessarily means ‘racist’. So the Census gives each respondent the opportunity to chose more than one ethnicity.

<>How do we count the multiple scores? Today, Statistics New Zealand simply reports all the responses, so its ethnicity statistics add up to 121 percent of the population, as a result of the double and triple recordings.

<>That is better than what it used to do. In the past there was a prioritisation procedure, which said that all people who called themselves Maori were classified as Maori, even if they said they were something else beside. Of the remainder, those who called themselves Pacific Islanders (but did not mention Maori) were classified as Pacific Islanders, even if they mentioned other ethnicities; then a similar thing was done for Asians (and a group of ‘other ethnicities’) ; and finally there was the residual of those classified as Europeans (including those of us who wrote in Pakeha) who did not mention any other ethnicity.

<>The overruling of individual choices on such a self-classified characterisation is ethically wrong. Statistically prioritisation of Maori skewed the statistics making the Maori group relatively larger and the European group relatively smaller. That skewing also appears in the ethnic forecasts. The claim that by around the 2050 year that ‘European’ (whatever that means) will be less than half the New Zealand population, ignores the use of the prioritisation rule, and that there are those who have called themselves Pakeha and Maori, or Pakeha and Pasifika, or Pakeha and Chinese and so on. In any case we are projecting forward not the fact of race, but the self-ascription of ethnicity, and who knows how people will describe themselves in 40 years?

<>A particular issue is the group who are prioritised Maori. We dont have the details for the 2006 census, but in the 2001 census only 56 percent of those who categorised themselves as Maori, said they were only Maori. That means almost half ascribed another ethnicity. The most common pairing was Maori-Pakeha with 5.6 percent of all New Zealanders giving that classification (and more coupling it with a third ethnicity). Nobody has looked at this group closely, but my guess is that we will find them demographically and socially different from the sole Maori and the sole European – perhaps between them. We need to think more about this group, for it is they and perhaps Pasifika-Palangi and even Chinese-Kiwi who are likely to be important in the future of New Zealand over the next few decades. This is not in any way to diminish the significance of those who describe themselves of sole Pakeha or sole Maori or sole Pasifika ethnicity. I am guessing these joint ethnicity groups are going to play a more important role in our cultural development than we currently think.

<>My impression is that the Maori renaissance – one of the things which a New Zealander must surely celebrate – has primarily depended upon those who describe their ethnicity as sole-Maori (although I recall once at an exhibition seeing an artist include in her whakapapa ‘Ngati Yorkshire’, which is one of my iwi). The Maori are, of course, our first peoples and are unique to New Zealand. As such, they offer a source of identity which is unique to New Zealand’s cultural development. Already we are drawing on it.

<>Moreover, the Maori renaissance is based on a melding of Maori and European culture, as a number of Maori artists make clear in their work. at the same time key Pakeha artists – Colin McCahon and Gordon Walters come immediately to mind – operating in the same melding tradition have done so much for New Zealand art. Indeed they contributed to the Maori renaissance.

<>But ultimately, the future is not Maori. If there is to be a single ethnicity in our future it is Maori-Pakeha. I hope there is not. To have the future depend on one particular ethnicity, even a mixed one, is ethnic nationalism rather than civic nationalism. It is the interaction and flux of the evolving ethnicities which holds the promise for New Zealand’s future.

<>I need, especially after some of the events of last week, to say a little about our Asian ethnic future. You will recall that it was predicted that there would be 790,000 Asians in 2026, or 16.6 percent of the total numbers of New Zealanders, allowing that there will be some double counting. This projection suffers from all the caveats I expressed earlier. Additionally it lumps all Asians – Chinese, Indians, smaller groups – together, and it includes those who do not have permanent residencies – say, visiting students – with others.

<>When the figures were released, some concern was expressed at the future size of the Asian population, and we had a desultory debate on the issue – almost all of which was uninformed and some of which were close to moderately racist.

<>Now it seems likely that migration into New Zealand will continue. Some immigrants will come from Europe and North America, and some from Polynesia, although there are various limits on how many we can draw off from there. Indeed we may want to consider a greater draw-off of migrants from Melanesia and Micronesia to ease the pressures on Polynesia.

<>Some will come from Asia. Whether the official projections have the proportions right is a matter which only time will tell.

<>We can influence these outcomes to some extent through migration policy. Globalisation and the Wealth of Nations argues that migration is one of the policy areas in which nation-states will retain considerable influence. But it goes on to argue that the world’s migration projections are timid, and that for various reasons – getting a balance when the population ages is the factor most explored in the book – migrations rates to rich countries will be higher than the official projections (although New Zealand’s may be an exception in its realism).

<>By international standards New Zealand has a high proportion of its peoples which are overseas born: 23 percent in 2006. We are a people of migration – even the Maori recall their migration of about 1000 years ago – and we are likely to remain so.

<>Asians will continue to migrate to New Zealand. One issue is at what rate. But more important how will we treat them when they are here. The guidance from civil nationalism is that they are to be welcomed, respected and celebrated for what they can contribute to New Zealand. Of course we should regulate the migration, but once the migrants cross the nation’s boundaries they should be treated with respect. Moreover we need to be careful in our responses to potential new visitors, that we do not undermine their ethnic communities already residing here.

<>An interesting phenomenon is the diaspora. Globalisation and the Wealth of Nations details the Australian one, but for this presentation’s purposes, the Samoan diaspora – which is also discussed in the book – is of greater interest. More than half of all Samoans live outside the Republic of Samoa and American Samoa. Many, but not a majority of them, live in New Zealand. While they are proudly New Zealand Samoans, even some of those born here (nowadays more than half) maintain some connection with their ancestral islands.

<>Now we probably take a benign or even celebratory view of Samoan New Zealanders who still have attachments to their ancestral lands. That is easy because Samoa presents no threat to New Zealand. But in the past we have been fearful of our Asians’ attachment to their ancestral lands, because their Asian countries are presented as a threat. A major issue here is our sheer ignorance of Asia in all its multi-facets – which is a matter which can be remedied by better education.

<>Which leads to the issue of the activity at government level. There is no doubt, reflecting the nation as a whole but a little ahead of it, that the government is committed to civic nationalism. But how to do so practically? For instance, should Creative New Zealand support writing in the Samoan language, which is the third to largest spoken language in New Zealand? And if you say ‘yes’, as I do, should it support writing in, say, Cantonese?

<>But as well as celebrating the diversity, there is also a need to support the commonalities which bind us. The core curriculum of the education system is an obvious answer, but an effort is needed to promote ongoing commonalities among adults. Let me say here no more than that this is a central role for the Arts, Culture and Heritage portfolio, but that sometimes the commonalties which may bind us come from surprising sources.

<>I do not think anyone was surprised by the shared grief of the nation at the death of Ed Hillary and the celebration of his attributes which we thought reflected being a New Zealander. But there was surprise at how the repatriation of an unknown warrior touched us all. Which reminds us that unlike countries driven by ethnic nationalism, the New Zealand government is not able to drive our images and means of national expression, only to support them. But the commonalities need to be there and need to be promoted.

<>Much of what I have said this evening may seem a long way from the issue of globalisation, although those who read Globalisation and the Wealth of Nations will recognise the issues on many pages, after allowing for others which set out the analytics of the economics of globalisation – which I have applied to New Zealand in other venues. They will see that these economic forces are undermining our ability to define a nation in terms of a limited set of economic policy instruments, and generate the need to define it in much wider terms using the economy where we can, conscious there are other powerful but complicated means of intervention – arts, cultural, heritage, media and recreation policies for instance. And they will see that there are enormous pressures for diversity within the nation – from international engagement and from migration. Donne said ‘no man is an island’. Nor is any nation.

<>Of course we may fail. It is possible we are doomed by New Zealand’s small size. A more likely source of failure would be not managing sensitively the tension between diversity and commonality. If we fail we could end up a state of Australia or of the United States of America, neither option of which I contemplate with pleasure or even with equanimity.

<>I would rather we took the challenge of nationbuilding with the same courage and competence as our forefathers and mothers did in the past, and so build a civic nation in a globalising world. If we fail, let us fail gloriously.

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