Every time you travel you change the world.
Ever wondered what values you are promoting? The people travelling do not even realize the kind of power they could have to influence the world.
It is undeniable that the world we live in today is becoming increasingly globalized — and (international) travel is the perfect example of this — as this was a practice that not so long ago was not as accessible as it is today to a large part of the population. While it has become increasingly common, travel is still not a universal liberty and could well be argued to be a privilege of the global elite. As such, it is interesting to see whether the „traveling class“ is also using this privilege to spread their own values and practices and thus imposing a sort of cultural imperialism on the destinations.
The realist world we live in
It has been argued that cultural productions such as tourism are powerful agents in defining the direction, force and scope of a civilization and it is only in the cultural experience that the data are organized to generate specific beliefs and feelings. However, in order to properly analyze whether and how these beliefs and feelings are conveyed in the actions of states and regions at a global level, it is necessary to set the background and introduce the kind of a global system that the ideas set out here operate in — realism. Let’s first outline the main characteristics of the realist school of thought.
It is a theory that considers states to be the principal actors in international politics. Further to being a state-centric view, realism stresses the competitive side of state relations as it sees states being foremost concerned with their own security and in pursuit of their own national interests. According to a realist, the world is an anarchic system — there is no central governing body that would determine the actions of sovereign states. Due to this, the world is an unpredictable place and states can only rely on themselves. Political scientist Kenneth Waltz calls this a „self-help system“ which explains why nations are mainly concerned with their own security and survival — there is no one to turn to in case the actions made on a state level go wrong. It does not deny the importance of international institutions and international law but mainly states that countries are first and foremost concerned with their own interests — they are power-maximizers.
International politics can be explained through applying game theory where each actor wishes to maximize its gains. Rather than choosing a sum-sum approach, realists tend to see that most states will opt for the zero-sum approach where one needs to lose out in order for the other to gain. This is not due to the underlying evil nature of human beings but rather due to the anarchic international system. However, it is true that realists are rather critical of ethics and morality as these do not account for political realities, and realism is all about looking at the world not as it should be but as it is.
Tourism and international politics
By its increasingly international nature, tourism is inseparable from the field of international relations because it is interconnected with foreign policy as well as the economics of a state — this is both due to the reputational as well as fiscal considerations. As both of these are extremely important for a state, the encouragement of travel flows between nations may be the evidence of a positive political relationship.
When looking at the relationship between tourism and economics — the opinions could go both ways. It’s quite clear that increased tourism to a country will result in increased revenue for the state. However the same may lead to an economic interdependence on tourism as the country shifts its policies to support and develop tourism in order to gain more from it. Should there then be a change in the equilibrium that results in less tourists coming in, the country would suddenly find themselves in trouble. This is most prevalent in the countries with developing economies who are the most vulnerable to changes in their revenue flows. While the interdependency issues are certainly justified, an aspect speaking in favor of tourism would be its potential to increase international harmony and foster peace. The logic here is that an increased contact between different cultures and states will lead to an increased international understanding. As such, tourism has become an important part of international diplomacy and all sorts of international education and exchange programs have become very commonplace tools for fostering intercultural understanding.
Reasoning for using proxies
There are several reasons why proxy diplomacy is quite attractive to the states in achieving their objectives. Perhaps the most obvious reason would be to diffuse responsibility over the actions taken as the means by which certain objectives are achieved might not always be considered welcome by the wider public. This is especially the case with territorial disputes or any other objectives where military action is required. The state might not wish to start a direct war but could instead try to achieve its goals by starting propaganda campaigns in third parties to urge these to take military action instead; or the state could manipulate their adversary to be the first to take violent action so as not to be seen as an aggressor at the world stage.
A state might also want to use proxies in order to influence the public opinion in a way that is favorable to its goals. People are quite easily manipulated when they think that the opinions that they form are their own and not told to them directly by the state or any politicians representing the state. Politicians often have a negative reputation and the public has grown tired of political debates. This is well illustrated by the recent outcome of the United States presidential elections or in the UK vote to leave the European Union — it could be argued that both outcomes happened due to the public being tired of un-relatable politicians and wanted a change. This is most likely no news to the governments and thus, in order to achieve their goals, instead it might prove to be more beneficial for them to resort to using proxies to fight for their goals.
In the case of the recent United States presidential elections, proxies were used both from the Trump supporters and adversaries. The examples include using celebrities to launch campaigns to talk about reasons why to choose or not choose this person as the next president or the Russian influence in the Hillary Clinton scandal. In these cases, it was not obvious that the proxies were acting under the influence of state actors and thus gained more credibility in the eyes of the general public.
Thus, tourism can be used much in the same way — by inviting masses of people to come and spend their vacations in the beautiful beaches of Bali, Indonesia may wish to maintain its international reputation as a wonderful country with gorgeous nature rather than a major polluter with its trash and deforestation issues; and also divert attention away from the corrupt government. This is particularly problematic taken into consideration that the states are putting in conscious effort to attract the tourists and the people travelling do not even realize the kind of power they could have to influence the world.
Cultural imperialism as globalization
While we have established that tourists and the tourism industry theoretically have the power to influence the nations to change their policies „for the greater good“, it can also be argued that the very act of tourism endorses the spread of cultural imperialism. It is a phenomenon that refers to the promotion of the practices and values of a specific culture on, a usually less developed, nation. The most common example of this is the so-called Westernization and a most prominent example of this would be globalization. We’ll leave the discussion on globalization and its effects for another time. However, we can look at a couple of examples where states have successfully used tourism as a proxy to bring about globalization:
- Erasmus+ projects: promoting international youth integration, education and cultural understanding
- Closing down of Boracay: tourism here was seen as the “scapegoat”. Popular tourist location Boracay in the Philippines was closed to tourists in order to install efficient waste disposal systems — something that the area has never had. The decison by President Duterte is traditionally portrayed as a step in developing the area as well as cleaning up the environment, it could well be argued that it was also done to comply with certain (foreign) standards.
Where tourism has failed as a proxy in terms of cultural imperialism
- “Sinking states” in the Pacific. Tourism could potentially have a huge influence in drawing attention towards the small island states first hit by rising sea levels and to climate change as a whole — but it has failed to do so. The international society has rather chosen to impose „cultural imperialism“ on these states — by subjecting these to the international legal standards that are so obviously outdated. Tourism has had no influence on the current outcome, even though states such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, Palau and the Maldives are all attractive destinations. Read more here on the specific case of small Pacific island states.
From the above examples it is clear that tourism could and should be used as a proxy agent for attracting attention to social issues. Unfortunately, there are not many prevalent examples of such utilization as of yet but hopefully bringing attention to this will encourage tourists and well as policymakers to understand the possible positive power tourism could have. An important idea here for the international institutions is that instead of applying the concept of social resilience as a consequence of self-optimization, it might be much more beneficial to approach it through a prism of self-preservation with the added component of global assistance.
For example, Yeb Sano, an ambassador of the Philippines said during a speech:
„We refuse, as a nation, to accept a future where super typhoons like Hayam become a fact of life. We refuse to accept that running away from storm, evacuating our families, suffering the devastation and misery, having to count our dead, become a way of life. We simply refuse to…We can stop this madness. Right now.“
Now, imagine the same speech with the millions of tourists visiting the Philippines every year, endorsing it. For example, the Philippines could introduce these issues to each foreigner arriving at the airport and ask them to support its claims — or the global fight of climate change. None of these capabilities have been used and as such, Philippines as well as the small Pacific states have allowed the rest of the world to impose their (imperialist) understanding of the international law on them — however, this does not have to be this way. There are millions of people visiting these areas each year and it’s a power that could well be utilized if only the states realized the power of this proxy agent.