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| Durban Skyline |
According to Politico:
Senate Republicans are coalescing around a plan that would continue the current salary freeze for all federal workers and lawmakers to pay for an extension of the payroll tax cut favored by President Barack Obama and other Democrats...The GOP apparently calculates that they can shift the discussion from their defense of tax cuts for the most prosperous Americans by attacking Federal workers.
Phil Arena does it very effectively.
Personally, I don't see how the claim that the US is not in decline follows logically from the observation of changes in Australian policy, Japanese policy, and Burmese policy. What is the logic behind assuming that the US would be less likely to push for all the changes highlighted by Mead if the US was not in relative decline? Is it not at least plausible that states try harder to assemble counter-balancing coalitions in the face of a rising threat?Read the rest.
Born Newton Leroy McPherson, the man now simply known as "Newt Gingrich" has been surging in the latest opinion polls asking Republican voters to identify their preferred presidential candidate. He also recently won the endorsement of the Manchester Union Leader, which 538's Nate Silver finds to be important in the early New Hampshire primary:
This analysis finds that The Union Leader’s endorsement has been highly statistically significant in helping to explain the voting results. Consistent with the simpler averaging method that we used before, it pegs the endorsement as having roughly an 11-percentage-point impact.Academic readers of this blog may well know that Gingrich, as one scholar described him, is "a card-carrying member of the overeducated elite....Gingrich holds the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Modern European History from Tulane University in New Orleans." He had a tenure-track job at West Georgia College in the 1970s, though he was denied tenure and took up politics full-time.
I finally sucked it up and headed to the basement microfilm room in the library to read Gingrich's dissertation. (When I say "read" here, I mean, of course, that I skimmed through until I found something interesting.)Seay reports quite a bit of detail about Gingrich's dissertation on her blog post. I won't spoil too much of her review (read it yourself), but the take home point is relatively important:
The whole thing is kind of a glorified white man's burden take on colonial policy that was almost certainly out of vogue in the early 1970's.I mention this point because I'm reminded of something ridiculous candidate Gingrich said about Barack Obama in September 2010 to National Review Online:
“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anticolonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”Now that we know about Gingrich's early work as an historian, I ask the following questions:
What if Gingrich is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Belgian, pro-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? What if that is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior?For related discussion, see this on Libya, this on Iran, and this on the latest in Afghanistan and Pakistan, etc.
Steve Walt, who won last year's prize, is judging.
If anyone wanted to nominate a post from the Duck, that would be a nice thing to do.
In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Joshua Goldstein and I make the case that humanitarian interventions, as part of a broader set of civilian protection mechanisms, are contributing to a reduction in mass atrocity events.
To some extent, widespread skepticism is understandable: past failures have been more newsworthy than successes, and foreign interventions inevitably face steep challenges. Yet such skepticism is unwarranted. Despite the early setbacks in Libya, NATO’s success in protecting civilians and helping rebel forces remove a corrupt leader there has become more the rule of humanitarian intervention than the exception. As Libya and the international community prepare for the post-Qaddafi transition, it is important to examine the big picture of humanitarian intervention -- and the big picture is decidedly positive. Over the last 20 years, the international community has grown increasingly adept at using military force to stop or prevent mass atrocities.
The doctrine has become integrated into a growing tool kit of conflict management strategies that includes today’s more robust peacekeeping operations and increasingly effective international criminal justice mechanisms. Collectively, these strategies have helped foster an era of declining armed conflict, with wars occurring less frequently and producing far fewer civilian casualties than in previous periods.
Ante Markovic, the last Prime Minister of Yugoslavia died today at the age of 87. From 1989 to 1991, he was seen by many as the last person who could stop the disintegration of the Yugoslav federation and avert war. A darling of liberals, he tried to institute a series of political and economic reforms and to alleviate the rising nationalist discourses and pressures -- especially in Croatia and Serbia. His last ditch appeal to the international community and the U.S. for debt reduction and aid failed, so too did his effort to avert war. He left political life and with the exception of a brief appearance at the Milosevic trial in 2003, he remained completely outside of public view.
A few years ago I saw him eating alone in the dingy, over-priced, communist-era restaurant of the Grand Hotel in Sarajevo. It was a depressing scene. The restaurant was empty and, although Markovic was well dressed -- in a suit and tie -- it was striking to see how old, frail, and alone he was. I approached him and talked to him for several minutes. He was not interested in discussing what he had done since the war, and our conversation drifted to the last two years of his premiership, how he was unable to contain Milosevic and Tudjman, and how the forces of disintegration got out ahead of him. After our conversation, I retreated to the bar and asked the bartender if he knew who Markovic was.
As I recall, my conversation with the bartender went something like this:
"Yes, of course, we all know Mr. Markovic. He lives here at the hotel when he's in Sarajevo on business. Usually several weeks at a time."
"Lives here?" "On business?" I asked.
"Yes," replied the bartender," he's heavily involved in a number of businesses throughout the Balkans -- energy conglomerates -- he's post-socialist rich. I'm guessing the businesses are corrupt -- all deal with government contracts, so they must be. That's how all those guys do it. He flies home to Austria on the weekends. I don't get why people feel sorry for him. He's done OK for himself."
It is often difficult to understand what's really going on in the Balkans and one has to be very careful not to judge people or their situation too quickly. That evening in the Grand Hotel I saw a tired, lonely, frail, former leader going on at some length lamenting his failure to avert disaster for his people. The next morning I saw Markovic walking swiftly though the hotel lobby with a Blackberry to his ear and I watched his chauffeur hold the door open for him as he got into a shiny new Mercedes and whisk him off to the airport for his flight home to Graz, Austria.
It's still unclear to me which of these impressions -- perhaps both -- best capture who Ante Markovic was. But, I gather he had done OK for himself.
The other day I briefly pondered what a Political Science Store would look like, after hearing about Anthropologie--a national chain of clothing stores.*
I received a bunch of ideas via facebook, twitter, and my blog, so I had to come up with different sections of the store:
* Yes, I usually let Brian take the funny Monday slot, but figured we could share the post-Thanksgiving silly slot just this one time.
Inspired by the post below on the broken letter of recommendation system, I began to think about the difference between what I write and what I mean. Here are the results. Please fill in your own personal favorite euphemisms below.
WHAT WE WRITE:
Dear Admissions Committee,
I am delighted to write a letter of recommendation for Nicolette Mediocrides, who was a student in my class on international relations in Fall 2009. Nicolette was a very good student, receiving a B+. She was particularly involved in class discussion, frequently posing trenchant questions about the class material.
Nicolette is applying to both law school and programs in health policy. I am combining these letters because I believe that this ambition shows her multifaceted interests. I believe that Nicolette will excel in either. Her ability to secure a prestigious unpaid internship shows the drive necessary to be a successful lawyer. She has also dedicated time to read to underprivileged children at the local library, which shows the caring we need in the health profession. Nicolette also has a diverse background and will bring significant international experience to your campus.
I believe that she will be a fantastic addition to your program. If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely
,
Brian C. Rathbun
WHAT WE WANT TO WRITE:
Dear Admissions Committee,
Can we be honest? Nicolette Mediocrides has asked me to write a letter of recommendation. She was a student in my class on international relations in Fall 2009. I found her in my Excel spreadsheet of grades. She appears to have gotten a B+ in my course, which is pretty good but she is not going to win a Nobel Prize or anything. Don’t get your hopes up. I do in fact remember her face, so that probably means she was at least somewhat engaged. I forget the ones who don’t participate. Still, I don’t have detailed notes or anything. I don’t know why she chose me except that a perusal of her transcript suggests that my course was one of her higher marks. Or it could be that all of the other professors are meaner.
Nicolette is applying to both law school and programs in health policy because she has no job after graduation and frankly no earthly idea what she wants to do. But really, who does at this point? – only the really annoying Tracy Flick-esque ones. I am writing this joint letter because I really don’t have the mental faculties to keep track of all the various permutations. Nicolette has significant experience with the Xerox 2027 copier from her internship at the County Sheriff in her home town. She had to go home for the summer because she couldn’t afford to live unpaid in Washington, DC, unlike 90% of your applicants. She seems like a nice girl – I noticed she has lots of pictures of kitties on her notebook when she came to ask for a recommendation. Nicolette has an ethnic background. She is from a large Greek family and has visited her grandparents for summers for a couple of years. Do we still count the Greeks as ethnic? Do we still use the word – ‘ethnic’?
Still, I do recommend her for your MA program. Yeah, I don’t know her so well, but no one else knows the students they are recommending either. And really, none of this forms an informed basis for a decision on your part. You know that; I know that. It is just a roll of the dice. I am not so sure I would recommend your program to her, in which she will take two to three more years of advanced undergraduate classes that give her no more practical knowledge of her chosen field than the last four years, all with a six-figure price tag. But it is you that has to sleep at night. And I didn't say anything to her. Your secret is safe!
Cheers,
Brat H. Bun
On this weekend, I thank HBO for this early Festivus present:
Nice plug for the personal being political. Told you Game of Thrones was all about feminist theory...
Do academics use Linkedin for anything? I inquire because a small, but not insignificant, number of people ask to join my network.
Their requests accumulate.
The auto-generated reminders become annoying.
I log into the site and expand my professional ties.
The process begins anew.
No other circumstances compel me to visit Linkedin. I suppose I could cancel my membership, but that seems like too much effort. Am I missing something?
Erik Voeten is spot on with his post at The Monkey Cage today on the flaws in the current recommendation letter system:
There may be all kinds of things wrong with law schools but they sure have figured out how to run an applications process. You submit one letter for a student, answer a few questions about how to rank the student compared to others, and that’s it!
By contrast, each policy school and PhD program has its own application process. I am sure this is annoying for students. It’s equally annoying for professors. If you have ten students who each apply to ten programs, then you need to follow one hundred links that are e-mailed to you separately. And it’s not like you can just download your letter at these links. No, each program will have its own way of asking you the same questions. Some go as far as to ask you to rate applicants on twenty slightly different dimensions. Anyone who believes this creates meaningful unique information is delusional.
Why would anyone even suggest such a thing?
THE [Irish] GOVERNMENT has complained to the European Commission over the release in Germany of a document disclosing confidential details about new taxes to be introduced in Ireland over the next two years. In a deeply embarrassing development the document – identifying austerity measures of €3.8 billion in next month’s budget and €3.5 billion in budget 2013 – was made public after being shown to the finance committee of the German Bundestag yesterday. The document, seen by The Irish Times , confirms the Government plans to raise VAT by 2 percentage points to 23 per cent, which would generate €670 million. Next month’s budget would also contain a €100 a year household charge, yielding €160 million, it says.I find this particularly interesting, given that I spent last Monday at a conference entitled "The Decline of the European Empire." In my presentation, I argued that it doesn't make a ton of sense to talk about the EU as an "empire," except -- and this is a pretty important except -- when governments in the periphery are reduced to subalterns implementing policies preferred by Europe's polycentric (albeit German-inflected) core. Via Henry Farrell.
Theory Talks interviewed PTJ. Go check out the results. A sample:
I don’t have some kind of extraordinary experience fueling my interest… It’s an old insight about how the United States, if you’re a citizen of the US, you can kind of ignore the rest of the world—it’s the privilege of empire or hegemony. So international relations never really had a direct impact on me growing up; the rest of the world was simply out there some place, or it was the place that foreign exchange students and British sci-fi shows like Doctor Who came from. Living in the US, you don’t have to confront the world in quite the same way, particularly not during the time I was growing up, the ‘70s and ‘80s; you didn’t necessarily have Cold War drills where you’re hiding under the desk in case of a nuclear assault, so IR was a distant phenomenon. I didn’t start out with world politics; world politics was kind of a consequence of what I became interested in, which was really diversity of knowledge claims and the encounter with the idea that different people and different groups of people know things differently. And some of that for me came from just seeing the variations within the United States which, from the outside, look all the same. But within the US, there’s a difference between being on the East Coast and being in the Midwest. This struck me as weird! Different things sort of are true in these different places—not necessarily that they contradict each other but it raises the question of translation in interesting ways.
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| Occupy Austin Source: Austin American Statesman |
There are many reasons why I hate the length of American presidential campaigns -- not the least of which is the banality of most political journalism -- and quite frankly I haven't been paying much attention to any of the current campaigns. But these two clips below do suggest that long campaigns -- and the thousand or so debates -- may produce some benefit. With each passing day Cain, Perry, and Bachmann reveal more of their amateurishness and that they really are not fit to be president. Yet, all three had significant populist surges that might have created far different dynamics in a condensed cycle. So, on that score, I guess we can thank the never-ending campaign process. Still, I'm pretty sure I'll be tuning it all out again tomorrow -- there's still a year to go. Ugh...
When I'm not funny, I blog angry. And this will be two this week. Can I ask -- why is that disgraced leaders always leave office smiling to the crowd and waving? I find this more infuriating then the events precipitating the departure because it betrays a lack of shame and humility. Yes, I like to diddle just recently pubescent girls, but you aren't made at me, right?
I thought the new PR book on this was too look contrite, put your head down and stay silent for a while until the new guy has f*cked everything up, then stage a comeback on Oprah or whatever the Italian equivalent is. (Doesn't Donatella Versace have a show? Wait, that's just on Saturday Night Live.) So are these guys just 1) completely ignorant of how we feel about them? 2) such egomaniacs that they really think they are just the victim of plots by their enemies? 3) so stupid to think that if they just wave we'll say to ourselves, "oh it doesn't appear that he left under a cloud. I mean, look -- he's smiling and waving! We must be mistaken about his utter lack of an internal moral compass." Or all of the above?
Please don't smile. We really don't like you. And it is insulting to us for you to act otherwise.
David Bosco has a terrific post (and a promised series) on "Can Conservatives Learn to Love Multilateral Organizations?" (Short answer: no, especially not in an election year). It is a timely entry after the recent Republican debates on US foreign policy, during which the candidates did their very best to beat each other at the age-old game of beating up the principle of multilateralism.
With approximately 1000 World War II veterans dying every day, and the absolute numbers from more recent wars increasing steadily, it's important to give some thought to what we offer those who have served or are serving... and to what they offer us.
On the first score, a new report from Rand represents an example: this is a new effort to account for programs to treat traumatic brain injury due to armed service. (The report finds such programs are proliferating, but much more attention must be paid to which ones work.) I am interested if anyone knows of a similar report or dataset that documents (or analyzes) the total number of programs designed for veterans to deal with the holistic social, physical and mental stress of / aftermath of armed service.
On the second point, a thoughtful op-ed by Henry Schuster appeared at the 60 Minutes website this week:
there's another one percent, who I call the real one percent. They are the men and women who fight our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya) and their families. The rest of us are the 99 percent.I'm not agreeing that the other divides in our country aren't equally "real." But this is an important thing to remember when we focus on the relatively few soldiers who get it grievously wrong in the course of their duties. If you can stand the ad at the start, the video above is a clip from Battlestar Galactica's Final Cut that drives all three points home.
We lend our moral support to the one percent. We cheer the veterans when their names are announced at ball games. Maybe we even have ribbons of various colors on our car. We say the obligatory 'thank you for your service,' and I believe we mean it. But we don't really understand what that service really means for these members of the military.
This is our real great divide in this country. It is in part the consequence of an all-volunteer military. It is also in part the consequence of fighting wars without involving the rest of us. We weren't asked to sacrifice after 9/11 or pay for the wars that followed. Imagine the reaction if we had a war tax. Or if there had been a draft. Instead, we've got the few fighting for the many and they do it at great cost to themselves and their families.
We define a causal mechanism as a process in which a causal variable of interest, i.e., a treatment variable, influences an outcome. The identification of a causal mechanism requires the specification of an intermediate variable or a mediator that lies on the causal pathway between the treatment and outcome variables. Although qualitative studies often employ the method of process tracing, quantitative investigation of causal mechanisms is based on the estimation of causal mediation effects. Indeed, the traditional approach to causal mediation analysis has been to use structural equation models (e.g., MacKinnon 2008; Shadish, Cook, and Campbell 2001), a practice which goes back decades (Haavelmo 1943).
Last night Texas Governor Rick Perry, formerly for some reason regarded as a serious contender for the Republican nomination for President, embarrassed himself by being unable to remember the third department of the federal government he would eliminate upon being elected. This has caused a big media stir about whether his campaign is doomed, with the narrative being whether someone with such a bad short-term memory can be the leader of the most powerful country on earth, for a little while longer at least.
I’ve had brain freezes before, and I can only imagine I would have even more if I were on national TV. That’s not the problem. The problem is that this dipshit thought it was funny, offering a very glib, ‘Oops’ that made it very clear, if it weren’t clear enough already, that he does not take running for President seriously. The reason why Perry forgot the third department, the Department of Energy, is that he almost certainly just came up with this on the fly before the debate. The problem is not his memory, it is that something this serious was only part of his short term memory. It was not internalized as part of a momentous policy change but rather just a flip statement, a simple one-off red meat bait to the base. Of course he forgot it. F@ckwad. I can guarantee you that Rick Perry hasn’t an earthly idea of what the Department of Energy does. If he wants to close it, then make the intellectual case and know what you are talking about. D*ckhead.
Perry has tried to defuse the situation with…. MORE HUMOR. On his website he asks his supporters which federal agency they would most like to forget. It is not funny, you taint.
This is a trend in this party, too. Herman Cain doesn’t know that China already has the bomb. But that isn’t bad enough. They have to celebrate it, as if not knowing makes them more qualified to be president. Hence, the Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan comment. I don’t know much about Uzbekistan either, but I do know how to spell it. And I’m not proud of my relative lack of ignorance about this very important part of the world. And I’m not running for President. As*&hole.
We can get vexed about Cain’s comment because it is insulting to another country, akin to making fun of how Chinese sounds to American ears. But it is bad policy too. No one with even an ounce of realist statesmanship would do something so stupid. Prick.
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| The horror, the horror |
The entire bit is good, but the really good part begins about 3:30 into this video from last Thursday's "Colbert Report."
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
This is a guest post from Idean Salehyan, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas and the author of Rebels Without Borders: Transnational Insurgencies in World Politics (Cornell Univ. Press, 2009).
Reports have emerged that Turkey is supporting a group of military defectors from Syria, which have organized under the name, the ‘Free Syrian Army’ or FSA. Led by Riyad al-Asad, a former Colonel in Bashar Assad’s army, this group claims to have inflicted a series of impressive attacks against regime forces. Although the extent of Turkish involvement is still unclear, providing sanctuary to the FSA is seen by many as an attractive way to tighten the screws on an increasingly brutal and unpopular regime.
Indeed, in a recent editorial the Wall Street Journal (“Turkey Turns on Assad, ” October 31), makes a strong case for supporting the FSA. It argues that the United States should begin by giving the FSA “diplomatic and non-military support,” but that “arms shouldn’t be ruled out”. In the coming weeks and months, such voices are likely to become more numerous as the international community seeks a solution to the current impasse.
Diplomatic pressure and sanctions on Damascus do not appear to be working, as Assad’s ruthless suppression of peaceful demonstrators continues. However, supporting an armed opposition group would open a new—and potentially disastrous—phase in the uprising. The United States and Turkey must carefully consider what such a step may mean for the Syrian opposition and for the region as a whole. This would not be the first time the US has supported cross-border militant groups—the Nicaraguan Contras operated from bases in Honduras and the Afghan Mujahedin operated from inside Pakistan. Current research on transnational rebel organizations and externally-sponsored militant groups suggests that Turkey may be in for a long insurgency and a regional war.
Twitter inspired a conversation today with Starbuck about Eliot Cohen, who wrote a very important book on civil-military relation, Supreme Command.
It features case studies where civilian leaders over-rode military
officers, focusing on Lincoln, Churchill, Clemenceau and Ben-Gurion.
Clemenceau had said that war was too important to be left to the
generals, and I agree. I found Cohen's book very persuasive despite:
* I have been wrong in the past--most notably predicting on Canadian TV in 2003 that there were not be suicide terrorism in Iraq once the war happened. Why is this not so problematic? Because I do not publish on suicide terrorism. Of course, I should not have answered a question so far out of my area of expertise. Lesson learned. Sort of.
If you stumble upon a political scientist unwittingly, perhaps mid-conversation at a party, you might assume they are a great humanitarian or an artist. Who else would make constant references to “my work,” with the implication that what he or she does if of enormous social and political consequence? You will be puzzled. Certainly no one wearing Dockers can be pushing the boundaries of social convention. And if this person is such an agent of change, why is he or she in your friend’s kitchen drinking a Negro Modelo rather than personally putting up mosquito nets in Africa?
No. That's not it.
Political scientists have the same pretensions as artists, using “work” as a noun rather than a verb (as in ‘I work hard’), with an article (rather thanthe generic ‘work is hard these days’), and without being prefaced by a preposition (like ‘I am at work’). This makes their profession seem somewhat transcendent in nature, existing in a space beyond everyday human experience, ineffable and inscrutable even to those who do it – like art. I don’t care if Nazi stormtroopers are about to capture me, I must finish this canvas! The work is too important!
To be fair, being a political scientist is somewhat akin to being a sculptor. They sift through lumps of raw material and try to fashion it into a coherent shape. Their work will indeed have profound implications on “the work” of as many as five other people. And political scientists also like to work in the light in southern France….when they are on sabbatical.
Political scientists, like artists, have different schools. Political scientists have their own practitioners of the baroque, advanced statisticians testing simple arguments with ever more sophisticated decoration that does not really change the result. In stark contrast, formal modelers adopt an abstract expressionism, reducing variegated and complicated institutional forms such as the state to the simplest possible symbols in an effort to capture their very essence. They are particularly fond of Greek characters. 
Constructivists adopt an intersubjective perspective, stressing how the same phenomenon looks very different in different lights. They are also fond of lily ponds and ballet dancers. Despite the increasing popularity of this more impressionistic style of political scientist, the realism of positivists remains the style preferred by the establishment in the grandest salons, err, departments and constructivists must display, err, publish, their works in outside galleries, err, journals. Positivists dislike their fuzzy terms lacking in clear lines.
Yeah, that's about right.
Political scientists might think of post-positivism as surrealist, but those identified with the school would resist that label and insist that they are infact making sense. A few political scientists move from style to style throughout their careers, adopting new techniques. At one point, Ted Hopf submitted all of his manuscripts in blue font.
But political scientists really bear no resemblance to painters. In fact they specialize in taking a fascinating reality and squeezing all the beauty, life and color out of politics by reformulating its elements and reducing its complexity to the most pedestrian of shapes – the two-by-two table. And no political scientist has ever, ever, sired multiple children by multiple different models. In fact they mean something very different by that term that isn’t sexual at all. Well, maybe for some…..
On October 23, Libya's Transitional National Council (TNC) declared the country liberated and the transition to a post-Gaddafi state officially underway. Over the following week, we've seen the first of what I expect will be many stories about tensions and conflict among the groups over whom the TNC is claiming authority. Here's the opening to one such story, from today's Washington Post:
Libya has emerged from its civil war with more than 300 militias and no political consensus on forming a national army, raising concerns that irregular, gun-toting groups could become entrenched and pose a long-term challenge to the government, officials here said. On Monday, Libyan leaders began to establish a new interim government with the authority to create the armed forces, choosing the technocratic Abdurrahim el-Keib as prime minister. But the militiamen who won the eight-month war have made it clear that they will not submit meekly to the new civilian authorities.
The plan was simple, Essam said. Gaddafi had distributed a lot of guns to the people of this neighbourhood. The rebels would go from house to house, search for weapons and detain wanted fugitives. Three units were to conduct this operation, one from Misrata, one from Essam's Freemen of Libya unit, and the local rebel military council of Abu Salim. The Misratans, experienced and well-equipped, had a reputation as ruthless fighters who didn't trust anyone else. Essam's unit respected them but didn't really like them, and both the Misratans and the Freemen mistrusted the local rebels of Abu Salim. "They became rebels after Tripoli was liberated," said one of Essam's men, smirking.
Two people died from bullet wounds and at least seven fighters were injured during a battle that started when militia from the town of Zintan were stopped by guards from the Tripoli Brigade from entering the city's Central Hospital to kill a patient.
