Headlines

It is all a matter of how you spin it I guess:

1. "Pentagon Report Shows Afghanistan Violence Up 87 Percent, Support for Karzai Low" Fox News, 29 April 2010.

2. "Pentagon says Instability has 'Leveled Off'" Washington Post, 29 April 2010.

3. "Encouraging trends in Afghanistan despite rise in violence" CNN, 29 April 2010.

The Johnny Foreigner's Guide to the UK Election Part III - Cursing old ladies edition

I’ve been getting surprisingly decent feedback on these posts. Some of my colleagues at work (who know more about democracy and elections than I do) have said that they felt that they were not entirely wrong or embarrassing so I’ve decided to stick with it until it’s all over next week – and then get back to blowy-uppy-thingies after 6 May.

So what did we see and/or learn in the last leader’s debate on foreign policy last week?

My first observation was that it was stupid to try and find a pub in central London that was showing the debate. In the struggle between a Liverpool football/soccer game and politics, the former was bound to win. So I had to listen to the first 30 minutes on the radio while I scrambled home!

Interestingly enough, despite having listened to the first half of the debate on the radio and the second half on the TV, I did not feel that there was a real difference in how I perceived the debate. I kind of had the impression that they were all doing about equally well. The only major difference that I noticed was that Gordon Brown actually looked a bit better than he did in the first debate. It was the best hair style I’d seen on him in years.

Going into the debate I figured that each of the three leaders had a mission:

Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats) - keep it up
David Cameron (Conservatives) - ramp it up
Gordon Brown (Labour) - don't look undead

I think, by and large, they all performed these tasks – and the polls seem to confirm this. Cameron has slightly increased his lead, Clegg has held on and Labour... we’ll they’re kind of hanging out (or were until Brown decided to say some really silly things with a live microphone on him as discussed below...)

But the difference from the first debate is that there was no clear winner. When I asked my flatmate who won, she replied that she thought it was Sky News. I think she might be right.

So Brown looked less uncomfortable but still a bit rehearsed. (Also - no one in the Labour Party should ever let him smile. Ever. It’s just not a good look for him.) Clegg had a slightly more difficult task because the LibDems are perceived to be weaker on foreign policy. They oppose the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent (and nuclear energy in general), they are the party that is by far the closest to the European Union and possibly the least friendly to the US. Still, in this heated exchange, I think he held his ground – and did rather well. Cameron seemed to have some of the confidence that everyone expected him to have in the first debate. I think he did much better (though I came to this conclusion after two glasses of Merlot.)

But ultimately I was disappointed because I thought the foreign policy questions were pretty disappointing and in a lot of cases the answers were worse. All of the international questions really came down to domestic issues. Climate change? Insulate your house! (Although Clegg did charge Brown with failing, or being sidelined at Copenhagen... unfairly, I think.) Afghanistan? (Let’s all thank the troops! And we’ve all visited!) A visit from the Pope? (Diplomacy good! Gays good! Touching children bad! But we can all chat!)

Robin Nibblet of Chatham House was pretty critical in his assessment, noting that there were no questions on China. Inderjeet Parmar of TransAtlantia that there was nothing on the Iraq War, UK complicity in the torture of terror suspects, or any kind of troop withdrawal as well. Yet, as David Aaronovitch notes, there was a second question on immigration (which, to be fair, has become pretty much the second major issue of the campaign over the economy). The LSE's Election Blog reaction is here.

Still, despite my disappointment with the “foreign policy” aspect of the debate, I found myself enjoying the program. Actually, so far I have liked the debates MUCH better than the US ones. They are more dynamic and interesting. I think that so far they can be described as a huge success for generating interest in the election and (with the exception of foreign policy – as discussed above) there have been some pretty good discussions on policy.

They took our jeeeerrrrbs!

The part that I’m finding most painful is the section on immigration. From my perspective as an migrant worker (of sorts) myself, the debate on immigration has been kind of offensive. We're over-crowding Britain. We're taking people's jobs. (British jobs for British workers!) And even then, I am not subject to a lot of harassment that people from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia get – but only because I speak with an “exotic” Canadian accent and I’ve spent a few extra years in school.

But after nearly a month of this I’m wondering if the UK can have a sensible discussion on immigration that isn’t trying to play in the hands of some of the more fringe parties? Yes, controls are a good thing - a crucial thing, actually. But the debate seems less about what we should do about the situation the UK is in and more about numbers, jobs, council flats, etc. Have Labour's policies actually reduced immigration? Let's fight about numbers and statistics! Maybe this is just what is foremost on people's minds and the politicians feel that this is what they need to respond. I'm certainly not going to pretend this is an easy issue - but I can't help but feel the current state of the debate (literally) is a race to the bottom.

Still, if I was in one of the above categories of immigrants, I would probably be feeling a whole lot worse about all of this. Or at least a bit more vulnerable. Eastern Europeans can’t be feeling particularly welcome right now. But I guess this is the same debate that is being held in other countries, like the United States, where immigration seems to be just as toxic of an issue (although no one has started a vigilante group here yet.)


JFGTTUKE highlights this week:

1. Clegg-mania continued - kinda: Clegg is widely seen as surviving a major test with the second debate and as having potentially changed the political landscape of the UK. Labour is now considered to be in third place (if only just) or barely hanging on to second – something that was truly unconceivable three weeks ago.

2. 'Hung' out to dry?: The impact of this goes beyond pushing labour into third place, of course. Virtually all of the politico-media driven hype has been on the impact of a hung-parliament. Will it drive the UK economy into a Greek-like collapse? Will it mean years of paralysis and backdoor deals that will undermine the parliamentary process? Will a hung parliament kick your grandma and eat your baby?
The answer of course, is – who knows. (I’m thinking a definite “no” on the baby-eating.) But there is no question that the Conservatives have been doing whatever they can to frighten the daylights out of the electorate? But will it succeed?
Some of my political friends, (not Tories – though I wouldn’t care if they were) are saying that the spectre of a hung parliament is having an impact on how they will vote. One indicated that because he felt that because the percentage of the popular vote might now have an impact on what happens in the possible post-election negotiations, that he would now vote Labour (despite being in a LibDem safe seat) so that they may have more bargaining power.
Now this individual is politically informed (though not active) so I have to wonder exactly how many other people are feeling this way? Will Clegg-mania survive in the polling booth? Or will people resort to their old loyalties (or the two dominant parties) at the last minute. I suspect Gordon Brown is hoping that this will be the case.

3. Brown Toast? Gordon Brown was caught saying some things about an elderlywoman – a lifelong Labour Party member at that – that were far from flattering. She was asking questions about the economy and immigration (of course) – Brown pretended to make nice, but then, when he thought no one was listening called the woman “bigoted”. (And if you need something to crush your soul, look at the expression of disappointment on the woman's face when she finds out about it.) I’m sure politicians probably feel this way a lot and say things like this behind closed doors all of the time. However, Brown got caught in a big and bad way. Will it affect voters? There is a lot of media speculation about this today. Certainly it has not helped the perception that he might be a bully, or that he is bad with the general public.

4. Foreign press coverage: I’ve noticed quite a few stories on the election in the foreign press – New York Times, Washington Post, etc. (Check out Karla Adam’s piece on political betting if you want to know the other creative ways people speculate about the election at the bookie.)

However, I’ve also noticed in the last few days that this story has been pushed aside to a certain extent by and large in favour of the speculation about the Euro and the future of Greece, Spain and Portugal.

So is there interest in the US? Are they following it at all? Always impressed that C-SPAN 3 is covering the debate (is that like the ESPN 82 of the political world?) I was impressed that Sky News had Dan Rather deliver his opinion afterwards – although I didn’t find his comments particularly insightful.

Finally *phew* - what can we expect in tonight’s final debate in Birmingham?

Well the debate is on the economy. I would imagine that Brown (while trying to say how much he admires grandmothers who have concerns about immigration in the North of England) will be defending his economic record and how well he managed a “global” crisis. There is a perception that this will be his strong suit. The other two parties will be going after this – saying that years of Labour mismanagement resulted in the UK facing a recession in a much weaker position than it otherwise might have been. They will all talk about how they will cut out waste, preserve the fragile recovery and why the other parties will basically destroy the economic foundation of the nation.

But the UK economy is in a terrible position (although, admittedly, relatively good in terms of, say, that it’s not Mediterranean or needing IMF assistance). Whoever comes in is going to have to wield a terrible axe. I think much of the discussion will be on what the best approach to do this is – Conservatives will attack Labour’s “tax on jobs” (raising the National Insurance – Social Security in the US) and Labour will say that the Conservatives will plunge the nation back into recession. Both will attack the LibDems, who will in turn say that they were warning about an impending financial crisis years before it happened.

I suspect other major issues to be unemployment - particularly youth unemloyment and NEETS (youth Not in Education, Employment, or Training), the Euro and European economy, and (why not) the impact of immigration on the economy.

As for me, the plan for rice cakes last time succumbed to pizza and wine. Now I'm trying to think what suitable economic debate food stuff will be? Probably a tin of beans. Suggestions welcomed, of course.

Anyone have any old drachmas?

Is this the end of the grand Eurozone experiment? I have to admit that I've had a general feeling for the past couple of months that the Germans would, in the end, cough up a bail-out package for Greece because of a sense that there is no real alternative. But, despite the fact that Angela Merkel finally appears to be asserting herself, now I'm really not sure how it will end. Rumors are swirling that Portugal and Spain will also need bailouts to meet excessive debt burdens after their debt ratings were downgraded. And, although Spain is looking more at a current liquidity problem than insolvency like Greece, this won't matter to German parliamentarians who already can't stomach bailing out Greece and ultimately bankrolling Greece's inefficient and corrupt public sector and generous pension system. On top of all of that, German state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia on May 9 will be a free for all if the Bundestag passes a bailout.

So, we are left waiting on the Germans, the terms of an IMF bailout package, and/or whether or not the Greeks will entertain some form of debt restructuring, abandon the Euro, or default. None of these are particularly palatable and given the tensions between the European Central Bank and the IMF as well as the domestic political situations in both Germany and Greece, there are going to be some big losers before this all gets resolved. Things really don't look good for the current Eurozone -- either in the short-term or the long-run. Mlada was right, IPE is really interesting again....

Professor Fred Halliday

I was alerted this morning to the death of Professor Fred Halliday. Halliday, who specialized in the Middle East and was very much a legend around the London School of Economics. I was fortunate enough to be in one of the last classes of MSc students who sat through his IR theory lectures. These classes were a very strange tour de force – mixed with anecdotes of Professor Halliday’s meeting foreign leaders, intellectuals and peppered with outbursts in Arabic, Persian and other assorted languages. Unsurprisingly, the lectures were always packed.

The Guardian has a very nice obituary as does Open Democracy. There is no question that he was one of the most important intellectuals in International Relations in the UK. While I didn’t know him exceptionally well personally, I know that I owe a lot to him in terms of the way I think about international relations theory. Every encounter I had with him was very pleasant. (He was very tolerant – enthusiastic even – of my question regarding whether or not there were Arab comic books over a pint one evening at Goodenough College.)

I know there will be a lot of heavy-hearts around the LSE today – not to mention UK academia at large, as well as the many, many students Professor Halliday had over the years.

EDIT: The LSE tribute is here and they link to Professor Halliday's last lecture at the LSE here.

"Step One to a messy divorce"

Sorry I've been out of the loop for a month or so -- I volunteered to lead a search committee for the head of a local organization and I'm just now catching my breath. (Note to self: Volunteering is really hard work and takes a ton of time...)

So, I opened the New York Times this morning and notice that Africa's largest country may be on the brink of splitting apart after the country's presidential elections earlier this month. The rivals, Omar Bashir and Salva Kiir (indicted war criminal and former rebel leader respectively -- great choices) have completely consolidated their control -- Bashir in the north and Kiir in the south -- of the country. Conventional wisdom says that this will make next year's scheduled referendum on southern independence very intense.

However, I was intrigued with a proposition posed in the NYTimes story: Oil might be the glue that keeps the country together -- both Bashir and Kiir rely heavily on oil revenues and may not want to jeopardize the money flow. This seems a stretch to me and I can't think of any case where oil has been something that keeps divergent factions together, but I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this or can think of cases where oil or cash commodities have played such a role?





Parenthetically, I'd like to note the excellent work of a friend, Pete Muller, a photo-journalist who is based in Juba, Sudan. He's had a recent bout with malaria and a couple of close calls in southern Sudan and eastern DRC, but he's been reporting great stuff for AP, Financial Times, Al Jazeera and others.

"If You Want to Change the World, Change the Armies."

I finally saw Men Who Stare at Goats this weekend. A significant number of reviews from last year when it came out reference the epigram to the film, "More of this stuff is true than you think." However in my mind, the most important quote in the film is the one above.

If you try to read this film through any other lens - pacifism, spy culture, truth v. fiction re. the paranormal - it doesn't work very well. That's why a lot of reviewers either read the film as inept satire or as failed story-telling. But they don't look closely at the two central questions driving the story: what constitutes just warriorhood, and can you incorporate an expansive view of just warriohood (one which includes respect for the planet) more fully into existing military institutions? In other words, how do you change armies in order to change (and maybe save) the world?



The first of these two themes is brought into sharp relief by the Jedi subtext associated with the New Earth Army. You can read its central feature as the use of psychic warfare or "Jedi mind-trick" mythology, but the Jedi language is also about something deeper: the just use of limited force in the service of peace, justice and (now) environmental security. Read through this lens (as opposed to some decisive statement about the possibility of psychic warfare), the ending is much more satisfactory than many reviewers claim. To be a "super-soldier" is to walk the path of the just warrior, to be on the side of the innocent and vulnerable, and to be at one with the universe of which we are part.

And how do you change armies to this effect? For part of the genius of the story is its contrast between these ideals and existing military culture. The film is a bit agnostic on this second point. So is the actual history on which it is based, which you can learn about by reading the book or watching the documentary on which the film was based. I leave it to readers to offer their thoughts about the take-home message there.

[cross-posted at Lawyers, Guns and Money]

Brutality and Counter-insurgency

Recently, while discussing the war in Afghanistan with a conflict studies program in the mid-west, I had a rather odd debate with a leftist professor who was devil's advocating what he claimed was a "neo-conservative" position (based on some of his recent interaction with naval officers and RAND researchers).

His main argument revived the "stabbed in the back" hypothesis from the Vietnam era. The argument essentially posits that counter-insurgency is a cumulative body of knowledge first pioneered by the Britons. According to this position, Americans have been remarkably successful at applying and refining this knowledge to defeat insurgencies from Vietnam to Colombia. The main problem (again according this narrative) is that squeamish liberals have too often helped to undercut support for the US military just as it was on the verge of "winning" or defeating the insurgency.

Specifically in regard to Afghanistan, he argued that the US is not making repeated mistakes when it botches night raids, shoots civilians at checkpoints, or strafes a bus load of civilians on the highway. He reasoned that the real purpose of US counter insurgency was to terrorize the Afghan population.

Honestly, I was not quite sure what to make of the argument since I am not a military strategist or an expert on the history of counter-insurgency, particularly as that strategy was applied in Southeast Asia or Latin America. So I simply asked what the purpose of terrorizing the population would be. Initially, he evaded the question by describing the effects of a brutal occuption (e.g. widespread panic and fear in civilians). I continued to repeat the same question several times. Finally, he stated that the use terror was obviously to pacify the civilian population.

(It should be noted that the argument therefore defines the purpose of counter-insurgency as restoring order rather than facilitating a political solution to a violent conflict. In many cases, this would seem to change the yardstick for defining a successful operation.)

While I have no doubt that brutality can occasionally pacify a civilian population, I expressed my sincere doubts that this was the actual policy of the US/ISAF in Afghanistan. If terrorizing civilians is the intentional underlying goal of the counter-insurgency strategy, then the US/ISAF would probably be guilty of perpetrating war crimes. As a professional set of military institutions, ISAF is highly unlikely to endorse such a Machiavellian strategy.

Moreover, I argued that even if this were the actual policy of the US/ISAF in Afghanistan, it is not working. There have been repeated protests, some of which have been violent, against US/ISAF. In other words, the killing of innocent civilians in agitating, not pacifying the population.

Although I found the argument absurd, racially tinged (i.e this is a version of the "they only understand brute force" argument) and reliant on deference to military authority, I began to wonder how a rational person might come to believe such an argument. I assume that proponents are simply unaware that the Afghan population has not been "pacified" because they have limited access to news reports. In other words, the perception of non-events in response to the killing of civilians is thought to support the hypothesis that terrorizing civilians leads to pacification.

In case there are individuals who believe that terrorizing the Afghan people is pacifying the population, here is a basic summary of public protest demonstrations in just the last two years which may have been missed by those who are not following the news carefully. This list is not comprehensive, but I think this adequately makes the point. I should note that most of these accounts are covered in the UK press, but only infrequently in the US press, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me...:

--

13 April 2010 - Approximately two hundred protest after NATO convoy opened fire on a bus load of civilians killing four and injuring eighteen. Protesters chanted "Death to America."

12 April 2010 - Hundreds protest in Kandahar blocking the highway to Herat after four civilians were killed by foreign forces.

29 January 2010 - Brief protests in Kabul after a local Imam was shot by a military convoy which had (apparently) mistaken the imam for a suicide bomber. Brig. General Tremblay of NATO apologized for the incident.

12 January 2010 - Six to ten protesters (varied accounts) were killed and approximately 25 wounded when Afghan forces opened fire on a large demonstration of several thousand people. Protesters were angry about the killing of three civilians by foreign forces during a night time operation in Helmand Province. There were also wild rumors (perhaps instigated by Taliban representatives) that American forces had abused a woman and desecrated a copy of the Quran during a night raid.

9 January 2010 - Approximately five thousand individuals protested the 7 January incident (see below) in Nangarhar along the Kabul - Jalalabad highway. Protesters chanted "Death to Obama" and burned him in effigy.

7 January 2010 - An IED exploded while American troops were handing out candy to children in Nangarhar province. Five Afghans were killed (including two school children) and nine US servicemen were wounded in the explosion. The deaths sparked angry protests, as crowds accused the Americans of deliberately setting off the explosion.

31 December 2009 - Protests in Kabul and Jalalabad over the killing of civilians in Kunar province on 24 December. Protesters chanted "Obama, take your troops out!" General McChrystal meets with President Karzai in response to growing protests. ISAF denies the claims that those killed were civilians, the UN supports the Afghan account that

30 December 2009 - Students and faculty in Nangarhar province protest the killing of civilians in Kunar province.

28 December 2009 - MPs representing Kunar province staged a walkout in protest of the killing of four to ten civilians (allegedly mostly young students) by coalition forces four days earlier.

9 December 2009 - Another mass demonstration in Laghman to protest the killing of protesters by Afghan soldiers the day before.

8 December 2009 - Afghan soldiers opened fire on protesters in Laghman province. The protesters had denounced President Karzai and foreign troops. Protests had been sparked by news of the killing of between six to thirteen civilians (including women and children) by coalition forces. One or two protester(s) were killed - accounts varied.

25 October 2009 - Small student protest in Kabul against the killing of four civilians in Kandahar and the alleged burning of a Quran. The students called for an end to foreign occupation. Demonstrators were beaten by the police and one student was wounded as protests turned violent.

12 July 2009 - Anti-US demonstrations took place in Kunar province after coalition troops killed and injured several members of a family during a firefight with insurgents.

10 May 2009 - Students in Kabul protested near Kabul University against the apparent killing of over 100 civilians in Farah province by foreign forces a couple days earlier.

8 May 2009 - Hundreds protest in Farah province after coalition air strikes kill over 100 civilians. Protests turned violent and four protesters were wounded. Protesters shouted "Death to America" and "Death to the Government."

10 April 2009 - The Khost, Laghman, Logar, and Zabol provincial councils close in protest for one month after five civilians (including three women and one newborn) are killed by coalition forces. Two days later, a number of Afghan senators also staged a walk out in protest of the same incident.

22 March 2009 - Hundreds protest the killing of the Mayor's staff and security guards by coalition forces in the Imam Saheb district of Kunduz province.

17 March 2009 - More than one hundred protesters paraded three of the five bodies of civilians purportedly killed by US forces near Kandahar.

14 March 2009 - Hundreds stage a demonstration in Loghar province after five civilians are killed in air strikes. Protesters attempted to break into the district headquarters. Two protesters were wounded by police attempting to disperse the crowd.

8 March 2009 - Protesters in Khost block a US military convoy and throw rocks at it after an overnight raid kills four Afghans.

27 February 2009 - Thousands protest in Ghazni at the alleged desecration of a mosque by a US soldier who reportedly opened fire in a mosque. There were also rumors that copies of the Koran were desecrated. Afghan security forces fired bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd.

24 February 2009 - Villagers chant "Death to Canada" and parade the bodies of two children apparently killed by Canadian shelling in Kandahar.

21 February 2009 - Two thousand demonstrators (some armed) staged a "massive protest" (which closed the highway for six hours) in Loghar province against foreign forces after one villager is killed and five others arrested in a night raid. Protesters threw rocks at the local police.

26 January 2009 - Thousands protest the killing of 16 civilians.

9 January 2009 - Protest in Laghman province after 17 to 23 civilians are killed in an airstrike.

27 December 2008 - Protesters block Kandahar to Herat highway after 8 militants and 4 civilians are killed in a raid by coalition troops.

17 October 2008 - Protestors bring the bodies of 25 to 30 civilians (including a 6 month old baby) killed in a NATO airstrike in Lashkar Gah to the provincial governor's compound.

5 September 2008 - National day of mourning called for the civilians killed in Herat on 25 August.

1 September 2008 - Small protest in Kabul at the killing of four men by coalition and Afghan forces. The bodies of the killed were brought to the protest.

25 August 2008 - Massive protests occur. Local protestors set fire to vehicles and chant "Death to America" in response the killing of 90 civilians (including 60 children) in a village near Herat by US forces.

20 July 2008 - Protests in Badakhshan province against the slaughter of civilians over the previous two weeks.

24 June 2008 - Hundreds took to the streets in Jalalabad to protest the alleged killing of a father and son by coalition troops.

15 June 2008 - Hundreds protested NATO airstrikes in Paktia province which killed 20 civilians. Afghan security forces opened fire on the protestors, 2 were killed and 13 wounded.

22 May 2008 - Approximately one to two thousand Afghan protesters attacked a NATO base run by Lithuanians in Ghor province after reports surfaced that an American soldier in Iraq had used the Koran for target practice. Protesters were chanting anti-American slogans. Two civilians and one Lithuanian soldier were killed during the protest. The Afghan Parliament also walked out in protest of the actions by the American soldier in Iraq.

11 May 2008 - Protests were staged against the killing of three civilians by coalition forces in Nangarhar Province. Police opened fire on the protesters, killing one and wounding three. ISAF rejected the allegation that civilians were killed but local police confirmed that three members of the same family were killed.

--

To conclude, if a goal of counter-insurgency is to use Machiavellian tactics to subdue a civilian population, then by Machiavelli's own standards the current counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan is failing as violence is being applied repeatedly and only enraging the civilian population.

[Cross-posted from my Afghan Notebook]

Information

In every episode of the classic 1960s television series "The Prisoner," Number 6 and Number 2 had this exchange:

Number 6: Where am I?
Number 2: In the Village.
Number 6: What do you want?
Number 2: We want information.
Number 6: Whose side are you on?
Number 2: That would be telling. We want information... information... information.
Number 6: You won't get it.

The lack of information is a problem widely recognized by international relations scholars.

Face it, we study a field marked by secrecy and imprecision. The central unit of analysis is the state, with interests (or motives) that are virtually impossible to discern. Even capabilities are often ambiguous. As one scholar put it recently, "The force of uncertainty is absolutely central to every major research tradition in the study of international relations."

The world was reminded of the certainty of uncertainty last week when the BBC and other media reported the following in regards to a mysterious recent incident in Asia:

An "external explosion" probably sank the South Korean naval vessel which went down near North Korean waters last month, an investigator says.

"The possibility of an external explosion is far higher than that of an internal explosion," Yoon Duk-yong told a news conference in Seoul.

North Korea denies that it sank the boat.

Duck readers might be reminded of the mystery surrounding the destruction of something in Syria in 2007. Did Israel strike? Was the target a nuclear facility?

Indeed, it is not difficult to generate a short but nonetheless impressive list of important things we do not know about contemporary international politics:

What is the status of Iran's nuclear program?

Is Osama bin Laden still alive? If so, where is he hiding?

(For Earth Day) What is the carrying capacity of the planet?

Actually, before I attempt to continue this list, I'll just close with Donald Rumsfeld's famous words on this subject:

"...as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones."

Some days, I feel like someone who tries to read tea leaves or divine the present from a crystal ball.

Monitoring the NGO Sector

Kevin Jon Heller at Opinio Juris says NGO Monitor should practice what it preaches when it comes to transparency about donations from government funders. The dialogue in comments on this and older threads is illuminating and raises some interesting questions about the accountability of the NGO sector. Like Heller, I would like to see greater transparency from both Human Rights Watch and NGO Monitor.

I think it's a shame that NGO Monitor is so policitized by its emphasis on Israel because the general argument it makes is quite cogent: who watches the watchers? The NGO sector of global civil society is supposed to be promoting accountability by states, but is largely ungoverned itself. Various academic studies have demonstrated that while NGOs may genuinely be altruistic, they're also self-interested bureaucracies whose behavior is closely related to that of firms. William DeMars' recent book is a useful example. I don't think this is an indictment at all; it just means they we probably need to think about governance mechanisms for the NGO sector just as the NGO sector wants to strengthen global governance mechanisms for states.

For example. If and NGO claims not to take money from governments, should that include only direct donations, or indirect channels as well? (At issue here is Human Rights Watch's receipt of donations from the Dutch government through OXFAM Novib, reported by NGO Monitor, for example.)

On the other hand, why shouldn't NGOs take money from governments? Why shouldn't governments fund human rights work? (I was recently at a conference where Bert Lockwood, editor of Human Rights Quarterly, pointed out that if the human rights movement had a day's worth of the US defense budget it could do a lot more good than it already does.) The problem of course is the risk or perception that political strings would be attached, but this need not be the case, any more than National Science Foundation funding for research should be assumed to render scientific research "US biased."

What ought to be attached are standards for reporting and accountability to the public. Just as with scientific research these standards are (in theory) based on norms governing the scientific enterprise, rather than the political concerns of the government, the standards applied to NGOs should be drawn from human rights law, not from donor priorities. NGOs (and NGO-watchers) should be expected to make the case that their work meets these criteria. And this should be demanded not only by governments who fund human rights work but also by private citizens - that human rights NGOs stay true to the work they claim to be doing.

[cross-posted at LGM]

The Johnny Foreigner’s Guide to the UK Election Part II – The Second Great Debate

I’m planning on writing a larger post on the topic after the Second Election Debate tonight – particularly since it is going to be about UK Foreign policy (and, in theory, more or less related to the topics of this blog...)

In the mean time if you haven’t been paying attention, the election has basically exploded into interestingness in the last week. The First (ever) Leader’s Debate basically jump-started the election in a way that I (and I suspect most people) never anticipated. Tonight’s debate is now pretty much mandatory watching.

The short version is that the third party candidate, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg (the guy I wrote about last week and said no one expected to win except Howard Dean) has surged in the polls after an impressive performance. While I wouldn’t call him our "White, tea-drinking, private-school-educated Obama" yet, he has shaken up British politics in a BIG way and has possibly changed the electoral map of Britain in the meantime.... if he can stay on in the polls. If you don't believe me about "Clegg-mania" (no really, that's what they're calling it) - check out the polling insanity - and the effect it could have on the seat distribution here.)

In the meantime, for those of you who have access (I assume they are showing it on BBC World – and apparently CSPAN 3 – how’s that for a prime tv slot!) I highly recommend the LSE’s Election Blog. Chris Brown has a good backgrounder on the Trident Nuclear system which is up for renewal – and sure to feature in tonights debate.

As for me, I’m loading up on my cheese and onion flavoured crisps and a few pints of Old Speckled Hen to hopefully watch the sparks fly tonight.

(Who am I kidding... it’s always rice cakes...)

"Statistics is the New Grammar"

[Cross-posted at Signal/Noise]

In the latest issue of WIRED, Clive Thompson pens a great piece which echoes a sentiment I've touched on before: in a data-driven world it is critical that all citizens have at least a basic literacy in statistics (really, research methodology broadly, but I'll take what I can get).

Now and in the future, we will have unprecedented access to voluminous amounts of data. The analysis of this data and the conclusions drawn from it will have a major impact on public policy, business, and personal decisions. The net effect of this could go either way--it can usher in a period of unprecedented efficiency, novelty, and positive decision making or it can precipitate deleterious actions. Data does not speak for itself. How we analyze and interpret that data matters a great deal, which puts a premium on statistical literacy for everyone--not just PhDs and policy wonks.

Thompson notes a number of statistical fallacies that many, including members of the media, fall prey to. Using a single event to prove or disprove a general property or trend is one spectacular one that we see all the time, particularly with large, macro-level events. Regardless of what side of the climate change debate you are on a single snow storm or record-breaking heat wave does not rise to the level of hypothesis-nullifying or -verifying evidence.

There are oodles of other examples of how our inability to grasp statistics--and the mother of it all, probability--makes us believe stupid things. Gamblers think their number is more likely to come up this time because it didn't come up last time. Political polls are touted by the media even when their samples are laughably skewed.

Take correlation and causation. The cartoon below nicely illustrates the common fallacy that the correlation of two events is enough to prove that one causes the other:



In thinking about this I remembered an argument I had with a number of colleagues while in grad school over why they had to be at least somewhat literate in quantitative analysis and game theory since they never intended to use such methods. Given that we will only see an increase of data and data-based (no pun intended) arguments, policies, and decisions we need to, at a minimum, be able to understand how the results were achieved and whether or not the studies are flawed. Patrick is probably the last person to apply quantitative methods to social scientific problems, but he can certainly speak the language with the best of them.

Bottom line: the importance of statistical literacy will only increase. Statistics will come to permeate our lives, more so than ever before. We had better be able to speak the language.

What Are the Hardest Problems in the Social Sciences?

A bunch of "big thinkers" sat down at Harvard last week to debate this question. You can watch their videos here.

Some of the "problems" put forth were simply timely empirical issues with important normative content, like how to close the gender gap in pay equity, or reduce the "skills gap" between Blacks and Whites, or how to understand the relationship between ethnic diversity and civil war.

But some were more wide-ranging:

What is the biggest falsehood perpetuated in the social sciences today?

How and why does the "social" become "biological"?

If we know that individuals are susceptible to all kinds of biases and don't always make rational decisions, how do we decide what's "good"?

Being only a "medium-size thinker," I didn't speak at this event (or even know about it until afterward). What answer would I have given if I had? For me, the hardest problem in the social sciences is how to identify and measure the significance of non-events, without turning them into events.

The study concludes by asking a hard-to-answer question of its own: How hard are these problems for social scientists, really? (And how important are they?) These themselves are apparently tricky enough questions that Harvard has designed a survey to crowdsource an answer: click here read all the "problems" described by the various speakers and code them on a 1-5 scale of hardness and importance.

What do you think are the hardest problems in the social sciences? Leave a comment below, or post your answer on the group's Facebook page.

Reading Andrea Dworkin to Write Feminist IR?

"I wasn't raped until I was almost ten which is pretty good it seems when I ask around because many have been touched but are afraid to say .... I couldn't tell how many hands he had and people from earth only had two ... You get asked if anything happened and you say well yes he put his hand here and he rubbed me ...and he scared me ...you say the almost-ten-year-old version of f*ck you something happened alright the f*ck he put his hands in my legs and rubbed me all over ...and they say, just so long as nothing happened" (Andrea Dworkin, Mercy, p.11)

My first feminist mentors were in the legal profession, particularly Catherine MacKinnon, and my first exposures to feminisms were in debate rounds and law schools rather than political science or International Relations departments. My first feminist books were (therefore?) Andrea Dworkin, before Ann Tickner or Spike Peterson or Jindy Pettman. Perhaps that's why I return to Andrea's work whenever I start writing a major project, despite the fact that it does not translate to and often is not directly cited in my work.

But I think there also might be more to it.

While I remain, always, committed to feminist politics and combatting the other oppressions that gendered lenses help me to see, there's a rawness, a plainness, a terror in Andrea's work that's not in mine explicitly, but which is a lot of why I am committed to feminism and feminist politics.

I am a feminist because I will never be free when rape culture exists. I don't even know what free means, or if I will ever be free, but I know I will never be free if rape culture exists. I do not know what it would look like or how it might be achieved. Still, I want to inspire thinking about it through my work, and use my work to agitate for the cause.

I also think, though, that (my exposure to) political science and International Relations does not have the radicalism of words, feelings, or ideas to express that visceral need as well as work in women's studies, particularly Andrea's, does. I don't think that's trivial, in fact, I think it says something about the narrowness and (sterile) gendered nature of the discourses in political science and IR. I think the importance of recognizing that is why I frequently return to Andrea's work as fuel for mine.

Catherine MacKinnon once said that Andrea's work about gender shows that it is impossible to conceptualize gender by just thinking about different things the same way, instead, that Andrea shows it is necessary to think differently. Five years after Andrea died, that still resonates to me. As do some of her words ... "the blood of women is implicit; make it explicit," "it is widely understood, among the raped, who do not exist, except in my mind, because they are not proven do exist, and it is not proven to happen ..."

You might see those words and ask, sure, there's feminism, but what does that have to do with feminist IR? But Andrea's work helps me think about that stuff as well. For example, it won't make the book, explicitly, but Andrea's thinking about flags (from a martial arts training session) is a crucial part of feminist "outside-the-box" thinking about nationalism, symbolism, gender, and honor:

“I never thought I would bow down in front of any f*cking flag, but I do, in perfect silence and symmetry insofar as my awkward self can manage it; my mind’s like a muscle that pulls every time; I feel it jerk and I feel the dislocation and pain and I keep moving, until I am on my knees in front of the f*cking thing. Its interesting to think of the difference between a flag and a dick, because this is not a new position; with a dick how you get there doesn’t count whereas in the dojo all that matters is the elegance, the grace, the movement the strength of the muscles that carry you down; an act of reverence will eventually, says Sensei, teach you self-respect, which isn’t the issue with the dick, as I remember” (Mercy, p.308)

I'll ultimately write something, not this, about gender symbolism, nation, nationalism, and women's subjugation. But this, and the other work from the countless books, articles, and excerpts Andrea Dworkin wrote, will always be a crucial part of my thinking about gender and gender subordination, and a part of my thinking for which IR does not have a language, a place, or a home.

Social Construction and Deceit

I'm fascinated by the narratives of the financial crisis that basically cast it as a mass deception. Clearly we need to develop a scale of deceptive practices and think about how this all relates to the social construction(s) of reality(ies). At the simple end there are the flat-out lies, for example those told by the peddlers of certain types of mortgages, but things quickly get more complicated. There are the accounting tricks used by big banks to understate their risk exposure (for example, a Wall Street Journal headline on April 9, "Big Banks Mask Risk Levels", tells much of that story). There are the practices being revealed by the investigation of Lehman's Repo 105 and related practices, as illustrated in the New York Times April 12 story, "Lehman Channeled Risks Through 'Alter Ego' Firm". And of course there is the unfolding SEC case against Goldman Sachs allegedly "misleading" investors about the quality of securities linked to subprime mortgages, as detailed in yesterday's Wall Street Joural. But these are surely only the tip of the iceberg.

Beyond and beneath the overt fraud and lying are more insidious forms of deceit, insidious because they are more difficult to pin down and identify as deceptive. There is the deceit lurking in the very complexity of our postmodern financial practices -- this is nicely illustrated in an interview by Christopher Lydon of Michael Lewis, who has seamlessly morphed from sports writer to chronicler of the dark side of financial capitalism. On the web-page that hosts the interview (from Brown's Watson Institute, no less!), there is a great quote from Lewis where he says "complexity becomes opacity." I would go further and say that deceit comes to lurk in complexity. And at still another level down, there is the Simon Johnson and James Kwak argument in 13 Bankers (a book that has its own website -- yikes!) that not only was there regulatory capture of the US government by financial firms, but also ideological capture -- the dissemination of a world view. To quote from Johnson and Kwak's introduction: "No conspiracy was necessary. Even Summers, a brilliant and notoriously skeptical academic economist...was won over by the siren song of financial innovation and deregulation. By 1998, it was part of the worldview of the Washington elite that what was good for Wall Street was good for America" (p. 10).

Shouldn't social constructivists be all over this stuff? Well, there is the one little problem that if you posit that reality is socially constructed, then how do you distinguish socially constructed and accepted lies from socially constructed truths? Especially if the "lies" are accepted as truths? The way I've been dealing with this in my work on hypocrisy (a piece of this work is coming out in Blyth, Abdelal, and Parsons, eds. forthcoming Cornell book, Constructing the International Economy) is to treat alternative "versions" of truth as contending constructions. But I think this sort of washes out the moral judgment that some sort of deception has been practiced, and that deception is wrong. If you cannot evaluate deception against a "hard truth", then what sort of criteria are available? I'm thinking the Duck might be a good place to fire off that question, though I don't want the answer to hinge purely on methodological issues. If the financial meltdown was at least partly a consequence of mass deception, then does the issue in practical terms boil down to a question of whether a mass deception is sustainable over time? You could look at money that way, maybe, as a sustainable (usually, though maybe not in Greece right now) mass delusion. So what makes a mass delusion sustainable, as opposed to unsustainable? Actually I've now typed myself to the edge of a philosophical abyss but instead of deleting this post I'm just going to post it.

My plans for the weekend

Making the World Better through Online Gaming?

The World Bank Institute last month launched an online game, Evoke. It lasts for ten weeks, with Missions each week that include such global issues as solving water scarcity or thinking about the future of money. I haven't signed up or played yet, but it raises interesting questions about social innovation. Is global crowd-sourcing likely to lead to new solutions to existing problems? How likely is it that innovations would be implemented? Interestingly, the alternatives presented in the game often depend on innovating around existing institutions, i.e. create new currencies that work even if the central bank fails. In other words, the solutions lie outside of government.

The game itself is promoted as an aid to learning about global issues. I wonder whether it might be usefully integrated into a course... See the game designer talking about gaming and learning on CNN.

Type rest of the post here

Making Factories Disappear during War

[Cross-posted at Signal/Noise]

Noah Brier links to some incredible pictures at Sociological Images that show the "efforts to camouflage the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant during WWII. The plant was essentially covered in netting made to appear, from the air, like a residential neighborhood. The aim was to keep it from being found by pilots and bombed."

Before:

After:

The post includes some close ups as well as some views from underneath the netting. Very interesting.

Garzon’s Reign in Spain Falls with Mainly Who to Blame?

It was announced last week that Judge Bathazar Garzon will be investigated for over stepping his authority for knowingly taking on a case that was outside of his jurisdiction. Garzon is, of course, famous for indicting Chile’s General Pinochet for crimes against humanity in the 1990s which lead to his arrest in London (although he eventually was let go on medical ground – and died).

Since 2008, Garzon had apparently been turning to domestic figures, looking to open an investigation and prosecution against those Spanish officials which allegedly were involved in acts during the Franco dictatorship that could amount to crimes against humanity. While there is a 1977 amnesty law – passed to help with the transition to democracy – it was Garzon’s contention that such a law could not cover crimes against humanity and therefore officials could be prosecuted.

The probe into Garzon came after two far right political groups brought legal action against him. For his part, Garzon is arguing that the probe amounts to a serious attack on judicial independence.

Clearly the situation is serious for Garzon because it will probably suspend his career for some time and it could result in him losing all of his judicial powers in Spain.

A couple of thoughts on this –


Reaction from the left and right has been fairly predictable. This article on the Guardian website declares that “justice itself may be the victim” if Garzon is found guilty. His indictment of Pinochet is described as ushering in “the heyday of international justice”.

Really? A heyday? It never seemed like much of a heyday to me – the number of war crimes trials is still relatively low and predominantly focuses on African countries.

Additionally, the movement to setup the ICC had already been established by the time of Garzon’s indictment of Pinochet and the ICTY and ICTR were already functioning (sort of in the case of the later). Garzon is not and does not singlehandedly represent international justice... just one kind of form of it that people on the right tended to find irritating.

Speaking of the right, Eric Posner today describes the charges in the Wall Street Journal as “the end of a failed experiment in international justice” and that universal jurisdiction “increasingly and thankfully, looks like a pipe dream”. Posner then predictably launches into an assault against international law the ICC.

The problem with Posner’s argument is that what Garzon was doing and what the ICC does are very different things. The former was using universal jurisdiction within his own state to prosecute those he saw as war criminals in Europe. The ICC on the other hand has a Statute and binds member states (although citizens of a non-state party may be indicted if they commit a crime on the territory of a party).

Of course there are some similarities here but Posner is making a mistake in assuming that there is one giant global justice movement (although sometimes even international lawyers like to portray it that way). There are different approaches and different legal mechanisms. Stopping Garzon is not going to take away from the functioning of international courts.

However, one thing that Posner does get right, I think is that we have gotten away from the original purpose of universal jurisdiction :

Universal jurisdiction arose centuries ago to give states a means for fighting pirates. In recent years, idealistic lawyers have tried to convert it into an all-purpose instrument for promoting international justice.

I think he has a point here – that international lawyers have tried to stretch a concept over a larger and larger areas where it may not necessarily fit so well.

Still, the key thing here in relation to Garzon is that the charges against him do not mean that the ICC will be going away anytime soon. Nor does it mean that global justice is collapsing forever. No one figure can represent all that is international legal justice.

Would you like to map a pandemic?

SupraMap is an on-line tool that traces the mutation and spread of virues around the world. Fascinating.

The Robin Hood Tax

Since we in the US are thinking of taxes today....
A tax on currency transactions was proposed in 1972 by economist James Tobin (hence, it is often referred to as a Tobin tax). Wait, don't roll your eyes at a post on tax and finance! This gets better. Tobin argued that imposing this tax would slow down the speed of financial flows, discourage speculators, and cushion small bankers, which would help them adjust. After multiple financial crises, the idea has been revived--along with a popular campaign featuring a much more catchy label and a YouTube video with Bill Nighy that you really must watch! But, what is the likelihood that a global tax on financial transactions is adopted? Zilch!

The campaigners basically argue that we can kill two birds with one stone: prevent financial crises, and fund all sorts of programs addressing poverty, climate change, and health and education. As their website proclaims, "Turning a crisis for the banks into an opportunity for the world!"

In theory, it sounds perfectly reasonable to me. But politically? The campaigners, based in the UK, argue that the British government should pass such a tax on financial transactions. But of course, that would simply shift most financial activity out of Britain and into other financial centers. The same would be true of the entire EU passed such a tax. The ideal would be to impose a global tax on financial transactions, of course. Who would administer this tax? Who would distribute the funds collected? The UN? Well, I think we all know that the likelihood of sovereign states handing over an independent source of income to the UN, or any other international organization, is anathema to most policymakers!

But, in a related development-- ok, it's only somewhat related, it's still on finance-- the Triple Crisis blog has been talking about how the IMF is shifting its position on capital controls. In other words, the Washington consensus is truly dead. The size and scope of financial crises had to get this big before the IMF finally considered that at times it is reasonable policy to impose capital controls to slow down or prevent speculative finance.

Geopolitics and Empire

Gerard Toal and Gerry Kearns (both of Virginia Tech) threw a great little academic bash today: GEOPOL 2010, keynoted by a lunchtime presentation by Derek Gregory on "War Cultures" that was, among, other things, a marvelous demolition of the idea that "our" techno-strategic wars are clean and precise while "their" new wars are messy and imhumane. I had to leave before the day was over, but this morning I was on a panel entitled "Geopolitics and Empire" for which I had the standard "academic 10 minutes" (which means: about 15 minutes) to say something hopefully interesting. So, naturally, I talked about 'civilization', 'civilizations', and the legitimation of US foreign policy, since I know more about those things than I know about either empire or geopolitics narrowly defined. I suppose that I was commenting on what critical geographers call "the geopolitical imaginary," though, so I was certainly in the general conceptual region that the organizers were aiming to cover.

I will spare you the details of a back-and forth between myself and Gerry on one hand, and Charles Kupchan and Chris Preble on the other, about whether there were "brute facts" of geography that necessarily influenced foreign policy; you can probably work that sequence out for yourself. But in case anyone is interested I am going to post the notes from which I spoke below the fold; an audio recording of my presentation can be found here on my general podcasting site.

my own work on global geopolitical imaginaries -- or what I prefer to think of as conceptual infrastructures of social action in world politics -- deals with what Max Weber would call "legitimate domination," and for me the important part of that is the "legitimate" part. Let me throw out some conceptual vocabulary that I find helpful in interrogating these issues.

of course, by "legitimate" I don't mean "ethically acceptable in some transcendental sense." I mean rendered legitimate, in the eyes of some politically relevant audience, by the strategic use of rhetorical commonplaces and other cultural resources tossed up by productive discourses. This is another way of saying that boundaries have to be drawn around the set of possible courses of action.

it makes a difference who the actor is taken to be for a given course of action: who is "we." Defining and solidifying the acceptable/unacceptable boundary is wrapped up with issues of who acts and in whose name action is performed, and different actors come with different social capacities. So we have "boundary commonplaces" -- cultural and rhetorical resources that sustain, in principle, particular actors and their boundaries.

in this light, if we examine pronouncements about patterns of global action, we find that the socially relevant actor in question is often (contrary to the solemn pronouncements of orthodox International Relations theory) not a sovereign state, but a variety of other entities: individuals, ethnicities, nations, civilizations, and sometimes "humanity" itself. These actors may not be as well organized or institutionalized as sovereign states, but if we just follow the legitimation strategies they emerge quite clearly as empirical phenomena.

in the remainder of my time I want to talk about a particular social site -- the articulation of US foreign policy -- that I have investigated in some detail in tracing these boundary commonplaces. Note that "the US" here means not an a priori actor, but a set of social institutions and capacities occupying certain positions within global socio-politico-economic networks; it's an analytical place to look, not an exogenous "artificial person" whose desires and interests we have to delineate. And "foreign policy" simply means political techniques for handling cross-border transactions with various others.

and if you look back at the history of US foreign policy, you quickly discover a traditional boundary commonplace -- 'American exceptionalism' -- that was used up until the late 19th century to legitimate a policy of keeping the US pure of outside influences (a "city on a hill") and divorced from any "entangling alliances." 'American exceptionalism' afforded the kind of policy of continental expansion we know as "manifest destiny," largely through its incapacity to acknowledge the existence of constitutively equal rivals; in the language of the most ardent manifest destinarians, other races would simply "melt away" before the advance of the American empire. Here I use the term "empire" advisedly and deliberately, both because a) in terms of legitimation strategies, the non-recognition of diverse others is perhaps the most important aspect of imperialism; and b) from this perspective 'American exceptionalism' is an imperial boundary commonplace, leading to what Anders Stephanson has called "the empire of right."

the history of US foreign policy in the 20th century is the history of various efforts to deal with 'American exceptionalism,' either by dissolving the exceptional specialness of the United States in some broader community, or by reworking 'American exceptionalism' so as to afford trans-continental or global expansion. Schematically, three alternatives: "the West"; civilization-in-the-singular; and humanity.

there are subtle but very important distinctions between these three commonplaces and the actions to which each is connected:

1) civilization-in-the-singular encompasses multiple states/nations/regions and is opposed only to the uncivilized, who are either savages (can be educated/reformed) or barbarians (have to be eliminated, or at least barred from entry). There are no comparable others for civilization-in-the-singular, and thus nothing that has to be taken into account as being in some measure an equal. So this is a relatively imperial boundary commonplace with respect to the uncivilized, even though it may promote or afford a relatively multilateral dialogue among the "civilized powers" of the world. This is Teddy Roosevelt's alliance of the civilized great powers, Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, and FDR's grand alliance against "uncivilized" Nazi Germany.

2) a particular civilization, like "the West," exists in a world of civilizational diversity, and its domain only stretches as far as its cultural area. "The West" has no business interfering in the internal affairs of other civilizations, and is instead reduced to "balancing" for and against them. Such a legitimation strategy stands on a recognition of differences between civilizations (even if that recognition is grudging, and accompanied by a wish that God/history/fate would eliminate the other). This is post-WWII containment, famously retrofitted for the multipolar post-Cold War world by Samuel P. Huntington as "the clash of civilizations."

[Note that US Cold War policy is not purely "containment," but also features a civilization-in-the-singular notion of "development" when we're dealing with the so-called "Third World" -- this is, so to speak, imperial tutelage, helping the savages learn to wear clothes, eat with silverware, and manage their balances of payments properly. Continuities with the "civilizing mission" of earlier colonialisms.]

3) humanity functions as the highest court of appeal; this is the realm where in our day biological imperatives (including the future survival of the species) get invoked, alongside concerns about the global environment and notions of transcendental individual dignity (human rights). As Carl Schmitt infamously pointed out, humanity as such has no enemy, not on this planet anyway (and parenthetically we could now veer off and talk about science fiction as a cultural arena for exploring the limits of the human, and I'm happy to talk about Battlestar Galactica as a seminal articulation of critical humanism at some later point). [sadly, no one asked about BSG in the q&a]

humanity, I want to suggest, is still up for grabs, and this is an important arena where active political struggles are going on in the US. It's unclear whether it is going to be an imperial boundary commonplace wielded against "inhuman" and "evil" practices, as we see in neoconservative respecifications of 'American exceptionalism' to aggressive unilateralism; neocons, who had been dissatisfied throughout the Cold War with containment as "soft on Communism" because it let the communists survive, seized humanity as a warrant for imposing a US vision on the rest of the planet (GWB: liberty is God's gift to humanity), even while refusing to bind the US to any global agreements (e.g. Kyoto Protocol, ABM treaty, Geneva conventions…). Neocons loathed "particular civilization" rhetoric, since that was the conceptual core of "containment," so they swept "the West" etc. out of the public discussion.

but there is also a "humanity" notion with the US first among equals -- "indispensable nation" -- so something like global pluralism within an overarching framework (albeit imperfectly articulated and implemented). This is how I read the Obama gamble: reclaim humanity without being imperial about it (but even Obama sounds pretty imperialist sometimes, as in his Oslo speech and the reference to "evil"). If one doesn't want to be a neocon, the alternative is to embrace traditional 'American exceptionalism' (not its neocon variant) and withdraw to the borders of the US sovereign state (and hole up to wait for the Second Coming; this is the populist side of what we might call with apologies to Jimmy Hendrix "the Sarah Palin Experience"). But as pragmatists might put it, holing up behind our borders is no longer a "live possibility," given political-economic networks and our ever-growing sense of a climate emergency; "the West" seems to have outlived its usefulness as a term of political discourse, and the ship of a global "dialogue among civilizations" seems to have sailed as far as the US polity is concerned. But can there actually be a universal human community without imperialism? That may be the most important political question of the 21st century.

Is Putin the Right Man to Head Smolensk Crash Investigation?

Vladminir Putin has personally taken charge of the investigation of the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and most of his upper government and top brass this weekend.

I'm sure this is meant to signal solidarity with and support for the Polish people and government. But how likely is it to be perceived as such? Conspiracy theories about Russia's possible involvement in the crash began swirling about shortly after news broke and seem to have been exacerbated by this announcement.* Of course, suggestions of foul play are likely unfounded: though one can argue Russia may well gain from a destabilized Poland, all evidence points toward human error and aggravating weather.

But from a PR perspective, that's hardly the point. Symbolically, the tragedy could not have occurred at a worse time or place in terms of exacerbating tensions between Russia and Poland. For that reason, Polish officials themselves should be involved in heading the official investigation, rather than simply running one in parallel, to allay suspicions and fears and turn this terrible tragedy into an opportunity for mutual cooperation, rather than a return to decades-old recriminations and mistrust.

*As of today, members of Hubdub are staking virtual dollars on whether or not the Polish government will formally lodge an accusation within the next couple of weeks. So far, most predict no - a healthy sign that calmer heads will prevail.

The Johnny Foreigner’s Guide to the UK Election (in where I demonstrate a very poor knowledge of UK politics.)

So, in Duck ex-pat news it was announced that a general election (a big national election) will be held on 6 May 2010 this week in the UK. At stake are 13 years of Labour rule, debate as to how the economic “recovery” should be protected.

Yet, despite the relative importance of the election, coming as it is during a time of insecurity, I have to say that it feels like basically no one is inspired by it. Politicians here have been hit by a year of expenses scandals (when it turned out that MPs were claiming everything from the installation of duck houses, to bath plugs and the occasional pornographic movie). It’s not really a surprise they did so, of course – MPs are paid quite poorly compared to their counterparts in Europe. But it was the fact that they seemed to bend and manipulate the rules so blatantly which have upset many people. The ongoing scandal has resulted in four MPs actually facing criminal charges.

In addition, house prices have fallen, no one can get mortgages, the government spent billions on the bailout and dramatic spending cuts are needed. Unemployment is still high, we just lost Cadburys to the Yanks (seriously – this was a huge issue) and I just think that people feel battered by the recession and dread of the knowledge of the kind of austerity years that are ahead. Where the US election in 2008 seemed (at least to me) about better days ahead, this election seems to be more about choosing between the rope, knife, pistol (and two separatist-inspired choices – let’s just use the deadly poisoned leek and kilt of terror.... ) Actually, you have a few more scary choices as well (like the BNP - who I'm not going to link to because I don't even want to Google their name.)

So I thought that I would provide my poorly constructed guide to the UK Election this week where I thought that I would try to at least highlight some issues that other “Johnny Foreigners” may find interesting. Please consider this my comparative politics post for the year.



1.It might be a “hung parliament”

The mandatory joke here, of course, is that if it is a “hung parliament” – with whom do we start?

Right now this seems to be a huge deal for a number of reasons. First, it could give the Liberal Democrats (the third party who hasn’t been in power since the First World War) a lot of leverage as both Labour and the Tories fight to bring them into alliance or onside. For the LibDems, this could be really great (they finally get power) or really bad (internal civil war as to which side to support). For their part, the LibDems won’t say who they will support – and stick to the line that they are actually trying to win (although no one really thinks they can - except Howard Dean).

Second, there is a sense that because of the harsh measures needed for the recession, the fact that there would be a “hung parliament” seems to be unstable and would be sending the wrong message to world markets. There is only so much stock I put in this argument. Canada has had a “hung parliament” for years and they have done alright (although in full disclosure, I’m not a huge fan of the current party in power).

2.There is no UK foreign policy.

I don’t think I’ve even heard “foreign policy” mentioned since the election was called. Rather it’s all about taxes, tax breaks, cutting taxes, etc. (Oh, and of course, who will best protect the National Health Service, or NHS). Let there be no mistake, this is a very naval-gazing election (other than the scary UK Independence Party – UKIP – banging on about leaving the EU and being not-so-secretly racist). Considering the nation is fighting in a war and continues to lose troops on a near daily basis, it's rather shocking that I don't think I've even heard the word "Afghanistan" out of any of the leader's mouths.

I wonder if this is because that there is a general consensus on the issue - or if no one really has any bright ideas?

Either way, for this election at least, the UK is less interested in its role in the world than domestic change/continuity. If you are looking for the foreign policy issues, I would suggest checking out this web page from Chatham House and scrolling through a few of their events. For now, it’s the economy, stupid (or as I like to think of it here, “By Jove! It’s the Economy, Chaps!”

3.“Step outside, posh boy”

Rightly or wrongly, growing up in Canada, I tended to view it as a rather classless country - or at least a relatively egalitarian one. Now I know this isn’t true, but I come from a blue collar family where my parents worked hard and improved their lives (stop me when I start to sound like pre-scandal John Edwards). But class IS an issue here (or at least perceived to be one) and it was something I didn’t understand it until I came to the UK. There seems to be a definite underclass here that just doesn’t seem to benefit from anything. To be honest, if you are a poor, white, working class male, you’re probably super not doing well.

On the other hand, if you do come from wealth it may be a serious liability – if you are a politician. Labour has constantly gone after Tory leader David Cameron’s wealthy upbringing (he went to Eaton, member of super-posh Oxford society, etc) as seen in this mock-campaign poster done by the Guardian which became so popular they made a t-shirt out of it.

Can you be too posh to be politically privileged? I find this so interesting because I really think it would be relatively a non-issue in North America. (Although I think it was, to a certain extent for McCain.) So long as you are seen as having the right values, you’re probably okay. And the cost of running a campaign in the US is so astronomical that I don’t see HOW you could possibly be a politician without money – or at least be of a certain socio-economic class. Anyway, it will be interesting to see to what extent Labour continues to go down this route.

4.Everybody is on the internet. Nobody seems to know what to do with it.

I think this is important because the internet played such a HUGE role in the Obama campaign. Immediately afterwards in the UK there were summits and meetings on what the lessons where with regards to how that technology, particularly for fundraising, could be used.

Unfortunately, I don’t think any of the parties really learned any of the lessons – or more correctly, how to apply the lessons to the UK context. Instead, I think everyone realized they need to be on the internet, YouTube, twitter, facebook, email, etc., but they just didn’t figure out how to link it to anything meaningful. Instead we get David Cameron’s wife on “SamCam” and the first casualty of the campaign – a 24 year old Labour candidate who thought that calling senior citizens “coffin dodgers” was a good idea (not to mention the Tourette-inspired names he called other candidates.)

So what we’re left with is a gigantic effort and amount of information put on the internet that seems to have no purpose and completely failing to engage the general public. This Financial Times piece concludes that while the internet may have an effect, this effect is likely to be accidental (ie: some politician screwing up on his iPhone – or just see the above paragraph) and that, at least in the UK, the public is still using mostly traditional sources like newspapers – even if it is on-line:

Studies in the past few weeks from the Hansard Society, the political researcher, and Ovum, a technology consultancy, both disputed that YouTube, Facebook and Twitter would form a meaningful battleground to rival TV or the humble doorstep.

The other interesting conclusion of the piece is that while political parties may not have yet best figured out how to use the internet, they cannot afford to ignore it either. Ergo, they are having to spend millions of pounds on something that they just can’t seem to figure out. (Although they do point out that Labour’s less centralized approach has resulted in success through sites that have mocked the Tories ad campaign online.

So there you have it – four issues coming out of the battle for Britain’s political future.
I confess that I too find myself among the politically uninspired – yet I wonder if I should consider myself fortunate. What a contrast with Thailand and Kyrgystan this week where most people would probably see this ennui as some kind of insane luxury. Or Afghanistan where it’s a struggle to just have the leader not fire the entire election review board.

For those of you who wish to follow further, here are some websites that you may find useful:
Useful websites:

1. BBC 2010 Election Page: A pretty comprehensive source on the election with polls, highlighted issues, candidate bios, etc. I’m not a huge fan of Nick Robinson, but he’s good and has his own blog on the site here.
2. Political Betting: "Britain’s most read political blog and the best online resource for betting on politics". No really.
3. UK Poling Report: A poll of polls and useful polling analysis for those of you who can’t just get enough hot poll action.
4. YouGov: Polling/research company in the UK
5.Guido Fawkes: This one is kind of muck-raking, but occasionally fun.
6.Finally, I would suggest following my friend Nick Anstead’s twitter. - he wrote his PhD on the internet in the 2008 US election and has done some work on the issue in the UK. He always has great links and he’s my usual source when I have questions about all things political and British.

Anyone else have a site they could recommend? Anything with laughter at this point would probably be super welcomed.