拜登政府患上“峰会综合征”
2023-06-01 08:16阅读：
越来越多的美国全球事务高层峰会把大批世界领导人召集到一起展开对话。最近由美国牵头举行的民主峰会只是这种大肆夸耀美国全球影响力的方式的例子之一，而外界对峰会反应冷淡。虽然峰会绝对不是全球政治中的新工具，但拜登政府已倾向于把它作为议程特点之一。
但峰会奏效吗？问题在于，没人知道。批评者警告说，高层会谈收效甚微，更糟糕的是，促使外界指责美国虚伪，从而最终削弱美国的领导地位。与此同时，支持者发现，峰会可以作为应对日益增加的地缘政治威胁的重要手段，有助于推动多边主义和对政策重点的象征性支持。
最近的高层会议包括美非峰会、民主峰会和美洲峰会，旨在就美国引领应对全球挑战的伙伴关系“展示进展”和“组织行动”，会议讨论从乌克兰冲突、新兴民主技术到支持全球女性地位等方方面面的内容。这些会议还有可能推出重要政策和承诺，比如在去年的民主峰会上推出的2021年“总统民主复兴倡议”，或者在最近的美非峰会上宣布建立新的伙伴关系和设立新基金。
但是，这些倡议及其预算拨款被认为是事倍功半。近期备受瞩目的美国民主峰会在国内外反响平平。批评人士认为，这次为期三天的会议尴尬、疏离且浪费时间，而且许多人觉得，没有实现在民主治理的问题上形成政策前瞻性解决方案的目标。当具体目标只得到最低限度的实现，而峰会迫使各国采取“不支持我们就是反对我们”的心态，印证了世界两极分化的说法时，许多人的担忧变成了现实。许多期待已久的全球会议最后只形成乏善可陈的预算和政策声明。为了这点微不足道的成果，这些高层会议获得了重点关注和大量行政资源，从而让成果越发令人失望。
这些会议的目的是什么，美国是否应该继续选择举行峰会而不是其他选项？
或许更令人担忧的是风险。这些高层会议可能会使政府被指虚伪，批评者警告说，这其实可能会造成严重损
害。像民主峰会这样引人注目的活动，尤其令人担忧的危险在于可能会破坏它们意图支持的目标。拜登政府将最近的民主峰会邀请扩展到了印度、以色列和墨西哥，从而不可避免地引发了批评。印度目前因为监禁反对派领导人拉胡尔·甘地而面临压力。以色列因为有争议的司法改革而受到批评。墨西哥则被指取消了自由公正的选举。同样，冬天的美非峰会也召集各国领导人，在各种突出议题当中，把加强非洲性别平等作为优先议题。但是，在照片中近50位美国和非洲领导人当中，只有一位是女性。
支持者会坚持认为，峰会的盛大场面有助于扩展对民主的口头支持，进而扩展美国的软实力。撒开邀请的大网，网罗客套话和口头承诺，可能有助于形成一种全球团结的感觉，而且可能有助于增加对抗越来越多的意识形态对手的国家数量。
但这些影响在很大程度上仍然是有风险的。峰会本身不应该被视为政策解决方案，而应该被视为吸引大家关注已经形成和持续存在的政策措施的工具。在构思邀请名单、美国声明和政策优先重点的时候，应该在可能的情况下评估和考虑到被指虚伪的风险。
美国《华盛顿邮报》最近刊登赞比亚总统的文章提到“民主不能当饭吃”，表明要想在争夺全球领导地位和影响力的斗争中取胜，靠的不是拍照和说客套话，而是展现各地民主力量的成果。决策者应该设法了解高层峰会后果的多样性——既有消极的，也有积极的——以争取更强有力的全球挑战解决方案。
Does America Have Summit Syndrome?
Many see the Biden administration’s various summit and conference
initiatives and their respective budgetary allocations as achieving
relatively minimal results for the effort made.
by Rachel George
Agrowing number of high-level U.S. global affairs summits have
brought large numbers of world leaders together for dialogue,
attempting to foreground discourse over hard-handed political,
military, and economic approaches to policy. The recent U.S.-led
Summit for Democracy was just one example of this fanfare-promoting
approach to American global influence, to lukewarm reviews. While
by no means a new tool in global politics, the Biden administration
has made a tilt toward summitry a hallmark of its agenda, part of a
wider attempt to right size from the Trump administration’s swings
against multilateralism.
But do summits work? The problem is: no one knows. Critics warn
that high-level meetings lead to minimal results, favor pageantry
over policy, or, worse, open the United States up to accusations of
hypocrisy, ultimately undermining U.S. leadership. These criticisms
are inevitably shaped by controversy over America’s democratic
weaknesses in recent years, debates over invite lists, and other
internal policy problems. Supporters, meanwhile, find summits can
serve as important counterpoints to growing geopolitical threats,
helping boost multilateralism and symbolic support for policy
priorities.
The reality sits somewhere in between. U.S. leaders require a more
refined understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of high-level
convening to meet the goals summits aim to achieve.
A Summit for Everything?
Recent high-level meetings, ranging from the U.S.-Africa Leaders
Summit, the Summit for Democracy, and the Summit of the Americas,
all shared aspirations to help ignite a sea-change around critical
dimensions of U.S. foreign policy. As nations emerge from isolation
brought on by coronavirus, these meetings combined in-person and
virtual connection aiming to “showcase progress” and “organize
action” for U.S.-led partnership on global challenges, with
sessions addressing everything from conflict in Ukraine to emerging
technology for democracy to supporting the status of women around
the world.
Scholars have identified some evidence of the symbolic value of
high-profile convenings: large international meetings can
contribute to improved coherence and coordination in multilateral
agenda-setting, can support network building among complementary
government and civic actors, and, perhaps above all else,
high-level symbolic support for particular issues. These meetings
can also launch important policies and commitments, such as the
2021 Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal launched at
last year’s Democracy Summit, or the announcement of new
partnerships and funds stemming from the recent U.S.-Africa
Leaders’ Summit.
But these initiatives and their respective budgetary allocations
have been seen as relatively minimal results for the effort made.
The recent high-profile U.S. Summit for Democracy was met with
lukewarm reception domestically and abroad. Critics saw the
three-day event as everything from awkward, alienating, and a waste
of time, and to many, missed the mark in terms of policy-forward
solutions to a pressing global tightening on democratic governance.
As Jon Temin recently argued, “[i]f this [U.S. Democracy] summit,
like the first, doesn’t elevate democracy to the status of a core
national security interest and lead to country-specific strategies
for countering authoritarianism, many champions of democracy will
be disheartened and could grow cynical about American intentions.”
For many, these fears were realized as concrete goals were
minimally met, while the Summit forced countries into “with us or
against us” mentality, playing into adversarial narratives of a
polarized world. Many long-anticipated global meetings have led to
modest budgetary and policy announcements. For these minimal
results, these high-level meetings have received significant
attention and administrative resources, making their results even
more disappointing.
Highlighting Hypocrisy
Although the coronavirus pandemic had halted major global meetings
from taking place, it is unclear what, if any, damage was caused by
the pause. The reinvigoration of major global meetings in 2022 led
to “mild successes” at best. This leaves open the question – what
purpose do these meetings serve, and should the United States
continue to turn to summitry over other options?
Perhaps even more alarming are the risks. These high-level meetings
can open governments up to accusations of hypocrisy, which critics
warn can actually impart serious damage. One estimate of the costs
of hosting the UN Convention on Climate Change, a convening
consistently branded as “disappointing,” suggested the meeting came
with a cost of some several hundred million pounds, alongside the
awkward issue of air transportation for leaders otherwise promoting
greener activities. Even with the use of virtual conferencing,
which Biden’s administration deployed substantially in the recent
Democracy Summit and experts stress should be balanced skillfully
with hybrid in-person approaches, these initiatives can take up
substantial time and bandwidth for officials who are otherwise
responsible for important tasks.
The particularly concerning dangers of high-profile events like the
Democracy Summit are that they may undermine the goals they aim to
support. The Biden administration’s extension of invitations to the
recent Democracy Summit to India, currently facing heat for the
jailing of opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, Israel, which is being
criticized for controversial judicial reform, and Mexico, which is
accused of shutting down free and fair elections, has raised
inevitable critique. Similarly, this winter’s U.S.-Africa Summit
convened leaders to discuss, among prominent issues, enhancing
gender equality in Africa as a priority issue. But, of the
forty-seven U.S. and African leaders depicted in photos of the
event, just one was a woman.
Smarter Summitry
Proponents will insist that the pageantry of summits can help
expand rhetorical support for democracy, and, in turn, U.S. soft
power. The idea is that such efforts are a far better alternative
to those pushed by military might and force. Casting a wide net of
invitations for pleasantries and rhetorical commitments can help
build a sense of global solidarity and can contribute to strength
in numbers against the rising tide of ideological adversaries. The
semi-regular meeting of the World Conference on Women, for example,
first held in 1975 and held periodically since, has helped
galvanize attention to a range of global women’s rights issues, and
arguably helped accelerate national monitoring and commitments to
the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goal 5. Similarly,
studies of international legal commitments including my research on
the impact of international human rights laws, have found that even
when rhetorical commitments are not upheld, they can help
contribute to domestic support for issues which can in turn hold
governments to account. To some, the recent Democracy Summit’s
biggest success was the wide reach of its umbrella, which helped
put China “on the back foot” as a perceived foe to a growing
democratic club.
The bottom line is that these effects, while well-intentioned,
remain largely speculative. It is reasonable to assume that there
are both risks and benefits to high-level convenings, and both need
to be balanced and considered. Summits should not be seen as policy
solutions in themselves but rather as vehicles to bring attention
to otherwise developed and consistent policy efforts. The risks of
hypocrisy should be evaluated and contribute, where possible, to
the design of invite lists, U.S. statements, and policy priorities.
The benefits of promoting rhetorical commitment to goals among
those least aligned should also play a role.
A China Daily article touting critique of the recent Democracy
Summit as “simply for political show” alongside a recent Washington
Post article from Zambia’s President reciting the adage “you cannot
eat democracy” indicates that the battle for global leadership and
influence will not be won with photo opportunities and
pleasantries, but rather, with results shown for the strength of
democracy everywhere. A careful understanding of the global
temperature is needed to direct strategic approaches that meet
complex global challenges. The chance to learn from a slate of
recent global meetings about the challenges and opportunities for
an American-led global future is stronger than ever. Policymakers
should seek to understand the diversity of consequences—both
negative and positive—of high-level summits to strive for stronger
solutions to global challenges.
