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March 28th, 2024

Insight

A very important column about . . . the global governance of superheroes

Daniel W. Drezner

By Daniel W. Drezner The Washington Post

Published May 20, 2016

(WARNING: this post contains plot spoilers to "Captain America: Civil War." Also, this column is called 'Spoiler Alerts,' for goodness sake. You get the idea.)

The plot question that sets "Captain America: Civil War" into motion is the very important question of whether the Avengers should comply with an international regime that will monitor and deploy superheroes. Tony Stark -- a.k.a. Iron Man -- wants to comply with the Sokovia Accords, designed to put constraints on the superheroes. He sees the way the political winds are blowing after some costly collateral damage in New York, D.C., Sokovia and Lagos, and thinks that agreeing now will be better than agreeing later. Steve Rogers -- a.k.a. Captain America -- rejects being the puppets of a remote international regime. He worries that a U.N.-controlled body will use the Avengers to serve its own political agenda and not do the right thing.

A civil war is going on at Vox over which side to ally with in "Captain America: Civil War." Alex Abad-Santos writes, "It's impossible to watch Captain America: Civil War and root for Tony Stark/Iron Man." But Ezra Klein counters, "I watched Captain America: Civil War and rooted for Iron Man. But let me go further: I watched Captain America: Civil War and rooted against Captain America. His position was, quite simply, un-American."

The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has thought hard about the international relations ramifications of this question, and has reached two major conclusions:

1. It's way more fun to contemplate this than the foreign policy implications of the 2016 election;

2. It's team Iron Man, and it's not even close.

I was surprised to reach that second conclusion. If you think about it, the history of the Marvel film universe shows that Steve Rogers demonstrates much better judgment than Tony Stark. The very reason he becomes Captain America is that Dr. Erskine recognizes Rogers's basic decency as a person and knows that, once enhanced, he won't be a bully. Rogers correctly sniffs out the problems with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s plan of floating helicarriers monitoring homeland security.

Stark, on the other hand, can't make up his mind about his powers. One moment he's bragging about successfully privatizing world peace, the next he's off on a drinking bender. His Ultron idea turns out real bad for everyone concerned. Far more than Rogers, Stark seems traumatized by his past mistakes and errors in judgment.

But in some ways, that's the point. There are three basic reasons why the Avengers should agree to external constraints. The first, international relations theory-related reason is the notion of credible commitment. Agreeing to be put under some external check reassures both governments and the mass public that the Avengers, as a post-S.H.I.E.L.D. privately funded actor, will not engage in unnecessary intrusions into national sovereignty and such.

The second, bureaucratic politics-related reason is premised on the idea that organizations make better decisions than individuals because organizations can at least partly compensate for individual decision-making pathologies. This is what I mean by Stark's bad prior judgments justifying the Sokovia Accords. Any objective assessment of the Avengers would have to conclude that some members -- I'm looking at you, Scarlet Witch, Hulk and Black Widow -- have made some bad choices in the past. Rogers's flaw is not in trusting his judgment -- the entire movie points that out -- but in assuming that the other Avengers are just as level-headed as he. Would an international regime be perfect? No, of course not. But if the goal is to minimize bad decisions, requiring oversight might not be such a bad idea.

The final reason for the Sokovia Accords raises the following question: Should we view enhanced individuals as autonomous agents or as possible weapons of mass destruction? I gotta vote for the latter -- the last thing the world needs is more Red Skulls and Abominations. This makes the Sokovia Accords more important than ever. The global governance question is not just about regulating existing superheroes, but ensuring that states don't try to create any more enhanced individuals who decide to go the villain route. The unstated but vital purpose of the Sokovia Accords is to ensure that the proliferation of enhanced individuals does not escalate beyond anyone's control. True, the accords won't prevent non-signatories or violent non-state actors such as Hydra from trying to create more enhanced individuals. But we know enough from past Marvel films to know that governments have an incentive to try this stuff. The existence of an international regime to regulate superheroes might prevent the creation of more supervillains and eventually pressure non-signatories to join the accords.

While the theoretical case for Team Iron Man is really strong, I confess that the implementation of the Sokovia Accords in the film also raises serious questions. As BuzzFeed's Hayes Brown asks: Why aren't the Avengers brought in to participate in the drafting of the Sokovia Accords? That's just poor statecraft. And what if non-signatories such as China go ahead and proliferate enhanced individuals anyway?

But still, when it comes to Marvel's superheroes*, a flawed international regime is better than no global governance. Contra Klein and Sonny Bunch, it's also vastly superior to U.S. government control over the Avengers. In the Marvel Universe, the U.S. government would have to take quite the hit from letting Hydra infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. In the aftermath of that, one has to ask which idiot president thought it was a good idea to appoint a disgraced former general who conducted illegal biological weapons experiments on human subjects as secretary of state! And then let that secretary of state micromanage an offshore prison to hold enhanced individuals! Seriously, did Donald Trump get elected in the Marvel universe or what?

And now I'm back to the 2016 election.

*The regulation of DC Comics' Justice League is an entirely different question for an entirely different post. Besides, no one could answer that question better than DC addressed it in season one of "Justice League Unlimited."

Previously:
05/12/16: Why Trump seems invulnerable to the flip-flop charge
05/11/16: Confessions of a Luddite professor
03/29/16: The trouble with writing about Donald Trump
02/29/16: Nobody will admit to the real reason Donald Trump is winning

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