CIAO DATE: 11/2013
Volume: 14, Issue: 2
Summer/Fall 2013
Letter from the Editors
William Handel, Nora McGann
In 1950 six nations created the European Coal and Steel Community, laying the foundations for what would later become the European Union. Since then many other regions have integrated and the number of regional organizations has proliferated. In Africa alone there are several, and often countries are members of multiple organizations. Regional organizations are key actors in tackling tough problems, such as protecting human rights, preventing and resolving conflict, strengthening regional cooperation, and promoting economic growth. The purpose of this issue’s Forum, consisting of five articles, is to provide readers with a theoretical and practical overview of key aspects of regional integration and regional organizations. The first two articles provide a theoretical discussion on regional integration, while the following three articles present case studies on regional organizations – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Arctic Council, and ASEAN. These pieces are summarized in Piero Graglia’s introduction. Other contributions to this issue include articles about self-defense groups in Mexico, reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan after the 2014 withdrawal, the Chinese middle class, and Scotland’s referendum on independence. The issue also features interviews with Ambassador Joseph D. Stafford III on his experience in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during the hostage crisis, Professor Joseph S. Nye on American leadership, and Ambassador-at-Large Melanne Verveer on global women’s issues. In selecting the topics for this issue we have reached beyond the headlines in an effort to explore tough and persistent global problems. We are proud to end our tenure as Editors-in-Chief with an issue that looks to the future. We are grateful to Dean Jennifer Windsor and Allyson Goodwin for their invaluable advice and support as well as to our dedicated team of editors for their tireless work on this issue of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.
Forum: The Integration of Regions (PDF)
Piero S. Graglia
Regional integration and regional organizations are two sides of the same coin although at times stamped with different metals. Regional organizations are often characterized by different levels of integration, and an integrated region can present itself in various ways with regards to security integration, environmental protection integration, and economic and trade integration. In other words, we lack a reference system or scale to determine the “extension” (as a logic theorist would say) of the integration process. The reason is that between the Westphalian Nation-State willing to collaborate with its neighbors and a complete federal union, we can find several models and historical examples of political and economic integration, sectorial or functional, military or trade-oriented.
Regions and Regionalism
Fredrik Soderbaum
Over the last two decades there has been a veritable explosion of research and policy discussion on regional integration and regionalism all over the world. Some of the most influential thinkers in the field emphasize that regions and regionalism are now central to global politics. For instance, Peter Katzenstein rejects the “purportedly stubborn persistence of the nation-state or the inevitable march of globalization,” arguing that we are approaching a “world of regions.” Similarly, Amitav Acharya examines the “emerging regional architecture of world politics,” whereas Barry Buzan and Ole Weaver speak about a “global order of strong regions.” “Regions are now everywhere across the globe and are increasingly fundamental to the functioning of all aspects of world affairs from trade to conflict management, and can even be said to now constitute world order,” Rick Fawn writes. While there is a strong tendency in both policy and academia to acknowledge the importance of regions and regionalism, the approach of different academic specializations varies considerably, and regionalism/regional integration means different things to different people in different contexts. Such diversity could be productive. However, the prevailing diversity is a sign of both weakness and fragmentation. We are witnessing a general lack of dialogue among academic disciplines and regional specializations (European integration, Latin American, Asian, and African regionalism) as well as theoretical traditions (rationalism, institutionalism, constructivism, critical and postmodern approaches). There is also thematic fragmentation in the sense that various forms of regionalism, such as economic, security, and environmental regionalism, are only rarely related to one another. Such fragmentation undermines further generation of cumulative knowledge as well as theoretical innovation. It also leads to unproductive contestations, among both academics and policy makers, about the meaning of regionalism, its causes and effects, how it should be studied, what to compare and how, and not least, what are the costs and benefits of regionalism and regional integration
Regional Integration Studies
Luk Van Lagenhove
The academic study of regional integration is scattered amongst different disciplines. Political scientists have a longstanding interest in regional integration but historians, economists, lawyers, and international relations scholars have been studying regional integration as well. Often a comparative perspective is taken. Hence the development of “Comparative Regional Integration Studies” as an institutionalized academic activity aimed at performing scientifically sound comparisons of regional integration processes across the globe and across time. But as Alberta Sbragia rightly noted, the study of comparative regionalism is ill-defined and “its boundaries are certainly permeable.” There is indeed a lot of confusion about the study-object of the field. Take for instance Ernst Haas’s classic definition of regional integration: “the study of regional integration is concerned with explaining how and why states cease to be wholly sovereign, how and why they voluntarily mingle, merge, and mix with their neighbours so as to lose the factual attributes of sovereignty while acquiring new techniques for resolving conflict between themselves.” Here the emphasis is on losing sovereignty. But is this the case for all forms of regional integration? What if the “integration” is organized on a purely inter-governmental basis? Furthermore, both the concepts of “integration” and “region” are problematic. Integration has a normative connotation as it is often implicitly regarded as a positive development (in contrast to the negative connotation of disintegration) and region is a polysemous concept that can refer to supranational, subnational, or cross-border areas. It is therefore not always clear what the unit or object of comparison is. And on top of that, regional integration in Europe seems to obscure the field as scholars disagree on what place the EU should take in comparative regional integration studies. In recent years, many authors have pointed to these conceptual and other methodological problems. This article argues that comparing different forms of regional integration is scientifically feasible, but only if a social constructivist point of view is taken. Only in this way can a general theory be developed that allows understanding of the diversity of integration processes. It also claims that it is policy-relevant to compare the European integration experiences with regional integration in the rest of the world
The Arctic Council as Regional Body
Klaus Dodds
The Arctic Council (AC) is an inter-governmental organization that, since its creation in 1996, has been widely recognized as one of the most progressive regional bodies in the world. The membership includes the eight Arctic states (A8), six permanent participants, and observer states such as the UK and Germany. From May 2013 onwards, there are also new permanent observers including China, India, Japan, and South Korea. The European Union’s candidature has been delayed and subject to further review and assessment. The Council is chaired by one of the eight Arctic states for a two year period. The current chair is Canada (2013- 2015) and it will be followed by the United States (2015- 2017). The permanent participants, including the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Saami Council, and Aleut International Association, enjoy full consultative status and may address the meetings of the Council. Administrative support is provided by the Indigenous Peoples Secretariat (IPS), which is based in Copenhagen. The AC lies at the heart of debates about Arctic futures. It faces two challenges – institutional evolution and membership. For its supporters, the AC occupies center position in promoting an orderly and cooperative vision for the Arctic, but there is no shortage of commentary and punditry analyzing and predicting a rather different vision for the Arctic. As Paul Berkman asserted in the New York Times, under the heading “Preventing an Arctic Cold War,” there is little room for complacency. Berkman’s analysis warned of Arctic and non-Arctic states being increasingly forced to confront difficult issues relating to policing, resource management, accessibility and navigability, alongside environmental protection. His suggestion at the end of the piece appeared, seemed rather odd, “[a]s the head of an Arctic superpower and a Nobel laureate, Mr. Obama should convene an international meeting with President Putin and other leaders of Arctic nations to ensure that economic development at the top of the world is not only sustainable, but peaceful.” Bizarrely, there is little analysis of how, and to what extent, the AC and other bodies, including the United Nations Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), are actively providing “rules of the road” (Berkman’s phrase) for the Arctic region and beyond. This piece focuses on some issues that require further attention (such as the protection of the Arctic marine environment) while acknowledging how the AC has changed in the last few years. As a regional body, it operates in a strategic environment where few specialist observers believe that military conflict or destabilizing resource speculation is likely to prevail. Nonetheless, it is a work in progress with pressing demands to address. I will discuss debates about membership status and the institutional evolution to respond to experts’ concerns about disasters (which might involve a shipping or drilling accident) and ongoing climate change, including manifestations such as sea ice thinning in the Arctic Ocean
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Stephen Blank
Analysts have difficulty in determining exactly what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is, what it does, and how it functions. Founded as a collective security organization, in practice it has operated as a regulatory framework for Central Asian security. Understanding the SCO’s role is a task of considerable political urgency because the United States and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 will decisively reshape Central Asia’s political dynamics and SCO members’ policies. The SCO grew out of a Chinese initiative (hence its name) from the late 1990s that brought together all the states that had emerged from the Soviet Union in 1991 and signed bilateral border-delimiting treaties with China: Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In 2001, these states and Uzbekistan formally created the SCO. Since then it has added observer states—Mongolia, Afghanistan, India, Iran, and Pakistan—and dialogue partners—Turkey, Belarus, and Sri Lanka. The SCO’s original mandate seemingly formulated it as a collective security organization pledged to the defense of any member threatened by secession, terrorism, or extremism—for example, from Islamic militancy. This pre-9/11 threat listing reflected the fact that each member confronted restive Muslim minorities within its own borders. That threat may indeed be what brought them together since China’s concern for its territorial integrity in Xinjiang drives its overall Central Asian policy. Thus, the SCO’s original charter and mandate formally debarred Central Asian states from helping Uyghur Muslim citizens fight the repression of their Uyghur kinsmen in China. Likewise, the charter formally precludes Russian or Chinese assistance to disaffected minorities in one or more Central Asian states should they launch an insurgency. In practice the SCO has refrained from defense activities and followed an idiosyncratic, even elusive, path; it is an organization that is supposed to be promoting its members’ security, yet it is difficult to see what, if anything, it actually does. Officially published accounts are of little help in assessing the SCO since they confine themselves to high-flown, vague language and are short on specifics. We see from members’ actual behavior that they primarily rely on bilateral ties with Washington, Beijing, or Moscow, or on other multilateral formations like the Russian-organized Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), itself an organization of questionable effectiveness. Therefore, this essay argues that the SCO is not primarily a security organization. Rather, it provides a platform and regulatory framework for Central Asian nations to engage and cope with China’s rise and with Sino-Russian efforts to dominate the area. As such, it is attractive to small nations and neighboring powers but problematic for Russia and the United States. Analyzing the SCO’s lack of genuine security provision, its membership expansion considerations, and Russia’s decline in power will help clarify the organization’s current and future roles
The ASEAN Synthesis: Human Rights, Non-Intervention, and the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration
Mathew Davies
The ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) has been welcomed as the most impressive commitment to protecting human rights within ASEAN ever created. At the same time, others have criticized it as fatally flawed, creating no meaningful regional oversight of human rights. In this article I argue that this range of reactions is explicable by understanding the Declaration as embodying what I term the “ASEAN synthesis” between progressive and traditionalist positions held by member states. Since 1997 the progressives have lobbied for substantial reform of ASEAN, including a commitment to human rights. The traditionalists, while not opposed to reform, envisage a traditional approach to regional affairs that prioritizes member-state security through commitments to sovereign equality and non-intervention. The ASEAN synthesis reconciles these two agendas by legitimizing the discussion of human rights within the regional framework while also reinforcing the principle of non-intervention, seriously curtailing the ability of regional institutions and declarations to engage in proactive rights protection. The argument unfolds in three parts. The discussion first identifies the members and interests of the progressive and traditionalist camps, placing them in the context of ASEAN’s evolution since 1967 and with particular attention to the 1997 Financial Crisis as the trigger for their emergence. The second section examines the evolution of ASEAN from 1997-2012 and argues that this process can be understood as representing the synthesis of the progressive interest in human rights as aims and the traditionalist focus on orthodox practices. The final section examines the AHRD itself to reveal the influence of both interest groups
Mali: This is Only the Beginning
Baz Lecocq
Finally, the situation in Mali was rotten enough for international intervention. First because the mujahideen of Ansar Dine, the Movement for Tawhid and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), along with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), only had to exercise a little pressure at the front in Konna, to let the last remnants of the Malian Army fall apart.1 Second because the Malian Interim President, Dioncounda Traoré, installed after the coup d’état against President Amadou Toumani Touré of 22 March 2012, faced yet another coup d’état from this same decrepit army, set heavily against foreign intervention as it might upset its power within Mali, which led him to formally ask France for military support, believing he had nothing to lose.2 Undoubtedly, the French Ministry of Defense and French Military HQ État-Major des Armées had a plan ready despite President Hollande’s public assurances that France would not pursue a neocolonial intervention in a sovereign state. France has historically intervened militarily in West Africa whenever the situation allowed.3 In the past decade, Mali had become more and more part of the U.S. sphere of influence in Africa as U.S. armed forces trained Malian troops in counter terrorism operations. This was without much success, as is now clear, but France must have looked with disquiet upon their loss of influence. Then there are the uranium mines at Imouraren in neighboring Niger, only a few hundred kilometers from the mujahideen controlled zone in Mali. A further degradation of the security situation in Mali would certainly pose a threat to these French strategic interests
The Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Stabilizer or Spoiler?
Denise Natali
Despite the contentious Iraqi political arena, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is pressing ahead with its ambitious agenda for economic development and greater autonomy. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) continues to negotiate large-scale energy deals with foreign governments and international oil companies (IOCs), expand its commercial and investment interests, and assure internal stability by controlling the use of force within its borders. Economic opportunities have encouraged political cooperation with regional states, especially Turkey, while reaffirming shared border security commitments. The KRG not only has become Ankara’s key—if not only—regional ally, but its partner in checking the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (Partiye Karkaren Kurdistane-PKK) and its expanding trans-border affiliates. Yet, the Kurdistan Region’s particular condition as a quasi-state also makes it a political spoiler, or a potential one. In the absence of external sovereignty, the region thrives on international recognition, external patronage, and a weak central Iraqi government to advance its nationalist ambitions. While these features of quasi-statehood help affirm the KRG’s autonomy, they challenge the Iraqi government’s own state-rebuilding efforts that seek to consolidate its authority and territorial integrity. Additionally, the region’s landlocked position and absence of an independent revenue source leave it highly dependent upon Baghdad and regional states for its economic and political survival. These geopolitical and financial realities may encourage deal-making to secure Kurdish interests or the status quo in Iraq; however, they can also source conflict within and across Kurdish nationalist communities beyond Iraq’s borders
Building Community Resilience to Violent Extremism
Stevan Weine
The Obama administration’s landmark new approach to countering violent extremism through engaging community partners calls for no less than a paradigm shift in how we understand the causes of terrorism. The shift is away from a pathways approach focused on how push and pull factors influenced one person’s trajectory toward or away from violent extremism, and towards an ecological view that looks at how characteristics of the social environment can either lead to or diminish involvement in violent extremism for the persons living there. The core idea of this new paradigm, conveyed in the White House’s December 2011 Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States (SIP), is that of countering violent extremism through building resilience. Denis McDonough, former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, expressed this at an Islamic center in Virginia, stating, “we know, as the President said, that the best defense against terrorist ideologies is strong and resilient individuals and communities.” Subsequent White House documents have further unpacked this, for example, in stating: “[n]ational security draws on the strength and resilience of our citizens, communities, and economy.” Resilience usually refers to persons’ capacities to withstand or bounce back from adversity. It is a concept derived from engineering perspectives upon the durability of materials to bend and not break. In recent years, resilience has come to the forefront in the fields of public health, child development, and disaster relief. To scientists and policymakers, resilience is not just a property of individuals, but of families, communities, organizations, networks, and societies. Resilience-focused policies and interventions that support or enhance its components have yielded significant and cost effective gains in preventing HIV/AIDS transmission, and helping high-risk children and disaster-impacted populations. Though the present use of resilience sounds more like resistance, today’s hope is that such approaches could also keep young Americans away from violent extremism. A resilience approach offers no quick fix, not in any of the aforementioned fields or in countering violent extremism. It depends upon adequately understanding what resilience means for a particular group of persons and how it has been shaped by history, politics, social context, and culture. It also depends upon government establishing and sustaining partnerships with the impacted families, communities, networks, and organizations. Additionally, it depends on government working in partnership to design, implement, and evaluate what interventions can really make a difference in building resilience, a process certain to involve trial and error
The Most Dangerous Country on Earth
Joseph Cirincione
In any given week, there is significant competition for the title of “most dangerous country in the world.” Some may believe it is Syria or Mali, Iran or North Korea, China or Russia, or dozens of others. As tragic as conditions may be in these countries, as potentially harmful as their policies may seem, no state truly comes close to the multiple dangers inherent in Pakistan today. Trends in this nation may converge to form one or more nuclear nightmares that could spread well beyond the region to threaten international security and the lives of millions. Experts estimate that Pakistan has between 90-110 nuclear weapons and enough fissile material to produce 100 more. It has an unstable government, a fragile economy, strong extremist influences in its military and intelligence structures, and Al Qaeda, as well as half a dozen similar terrorist groups operating inside the country. The confluence of these factors not only increases the potential for a nuclear escalation between Pakistan and its regional rival, India, but perhaps the even more terrifying scenario that a terrorist group will acquire fissile material, or an intact weapon, from Pakistan’s burgeoning stockpiles. Both of these risks are unacceptable. The United States can and must take concrete steps to reduce the risks posed by Pakistan’s unique combination of instability, extremism, and nuclear weapons…
From Tehran to Khartoum: Thirty-Five Years As An American Diplomat (PDF)
Joseph D. Stafford III
GJIA: What has been your favorite part about being a career Foreign Service Officer, and why? Stafford: I think my favorite part has been having the opportunity to live and work overseas, in other cultures, and to work on issues of importance to the United States and our international relations. The assignments in Washington have also been interesting but, in my mind, the most stimulating and enjoyable part of my Foreign Service career has been the chance to work overseas and meet ordinary citizens and members of civil society across the world, and to represent the US government.
On Leadership and American Power: A Discussion about the Role of Leadership in U.S. Foreign Policy (PDF)
Joseph F. Nye Jr.
On 26 March 2013, former Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School Joseph S. Nye led a seminar on presidents and the creation of the American era at Georgetown University’s Mortara Center for International Studies. Professor Nye discussed about to what extent leadership mattered in establishing the United States as the dominant country in the twentieth century, and what lessons can be drawn for leadership and U.S. foreign policy in the twenty-first century. The Journal sat down with Professor Nye after the event to hear more about his views on the role of leadership in shaping and promoting U.S. foreign policy.
The Role of Syria in Israeli-Turkish Relations
Dennis Ross, Moran Stern
This article argues that, since the end of the Cold War, developments in or associated with Syria have proved instrumental in determining Israeli-Turkish relations, for better and worse. Syria borders both Israel and Turkey. Not surprisingly, its geographic location, regional strategic conduct, relations with Israel’s and Turkey’s regional rivals, military capabilities and, more recently, the implications of its civil war have affected both Israel and Turkey, and their relationship with each other. While strategic cooperation between Turkey and Israel reached a high point in the 1990s, and then soured and largely dissipated over the last several years, Syria’s civil war has posed a new set of challenges and opportunities for renewed Israeli-Turkish ties. Indeed, shared interests on Syria may propel new possibilities for cooperation between Turkey and Israel on security, economic and humanitarian issues. Through the historical analysis presented in this article, the authors attempt to explain the evolution of Israeli- Turkish relations through the prism of Syria. Understanding the historical background provided herein is relevant for contemporary analyses aimed at finding new ways to renew Israeli-Turkish strategic cooperation and assist in securing a stable post-war Syria.
The Future Role of the Chinese Middle Class
Cheng Li, Ryan McElvee
When the Rolex store in the swanky Sanlitun shopping district of Beijing shut its doors earlier this year, sunk by lackluster sales, it was a sign that the government frugality campaign launched in December by the new Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping had begun to take effect. Similarly, after Xi described the ideal banquet to consist of “four dishes and a soup,” upscale Beijing restaurants in January saw their revenues decline by 35 percent from the previous year. Not only do these instantaneous changes in habit among Beijing’s financially well-off upper class reflect the power behind Xi’s bully pulpit, but they also point to the irony that has emerged at the highest levels of Chinese policymaking. As China’s leaders advocate for increased domestic consumption to stimulate the economy, the luxury goods market has taken a hit as leaders are pushed to avoid ostentation. These two policy shifts may, on the surface, seem contradictory, but they are part of a larger push to placate a middle class that has emerged as a core constituency with its own unique needs and desires. As China’s growth model shifts from an export-based model to a domestic consumption- based model, the middle class, more than any other group, holds the keys to the governance and prosperity of the country. Just as other countries are watching to see how this transition unfolds for geopolitical reasons, companies and banks abroad are also closely observing the rise of the Chinese middle class, knowing that its purchasing power will reshape the global economy. Hampering the transition to consumption-based growth, however, are significant negative feelings among the middle class. The Chinese Ministry of Health revealed in 2011 that the majority of Chinese professionals—51 percent—showed signs of depression. Such widespread depression likely stems from the extreme socioeconomic pressures in Chinese society, including skyrocketing housing prices, environ- mental degradation, health scares, and official corruption, all of which have tainted the public’s confidence in the government and the country’s future. Middle class grievances over government policy have become increasingly evident, partly because the expansion of the middle class has slowed and economic disparity has increased. Disillusionment over the CCP leadership during the past decade is arguably most salient among the members of the middle class who often complain that they, rather than the upper class, have shouldered most of the burden of former President Hu Jintao’s harmonious society policies targeting assistance for vulnerable socio-economic groups. The high unemployment rate among recent college graduates, who usually come from middle-class families and are potentially future members of the middle class, should alert the Chinese government. To express their displeasure, the middle class often turns to organizing “mass incidents” (protests involving more than 100 participants), more than 100,000 of which occur each year according to official estimates. Xi Jinping apparently understands the link between these manifestations of public pessimism and CCP authority, and has sought to make very public—albeit basic—improvements to please the country’s middle class. The current political discourse in China reveals that the government recognizes the importance of address- ing the needs of the middle class. After all, the party must do so to survive. As the party turned to the simultaneous implementation of a frugality campaign and policies to increase domestic consumption, the implications were clear: the party has the political will to change and motivate the middle class to become the optimistic consumers they have the potential to become. Indeed, only when middle class consumption reaches its potential and when middle class interest in public health, rule of law, and freedom of speech is institutionally protected will Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” of national rejuvenation truly become a reality. This article presents the distinctive characteristics of the middle class, its multifaceted interests, and its political demands, arguing that the new administration faces a critical balancing act as it seeks to implement a sustainable consumption-based growth model.
Dis-united Kingdoms? What Lies Behind Scotland's Referendum for Independence
Roger Mason
On 18 September 2014, the people of Scotland will decide whether to remain within the United Kingdom or to secede from a 400-year-long union with England and form an independent state. It is harder to predict the outcome of the referendum than it is to explain what lies behind it. Before examining its immediate context, therefore, this article surveys the history of Anglo-Scottish relations and reveals some of the historical tensions which have led to the most significant constitutional crisis that the UK has faced since the creation of the Republic of Ireland in 1922. Borrowing from the Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s memorable description of his country’s relationship with the United States, Scots often describe their country’s relations with England as like sleeping with an elephant. For Scotland, as for Canada, occupying the same bed as a much larger partner is a challenging experience. The size of that challenge can be illustrated demographically: England has a population ten times larger than Scotland’s. More precisely, of the total population of the United Kingdom, 83.9 percent (53 million) live in England and 8.4 percent (5.3 million) in Scotland, the rest living in Wales 4.8 percent (3 million) and Northern Ireland 2.9 percent (2 million). In terms of population, England dwarfs all three of its smaller partners put together
La Policía Communitaria: Self-Defense Groups in Mexico: The Aftermath of a Poorly Designed Policy
Mauricio Mering, Jaime Hernandez Colorado
On 4 January 2013, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, armed men calling themselves the “Ayutla de Los Libres Community Police Force” took self-defense into their own hands, sensing the inability of their government security forces to crack down on the violence of organized crime. In a total of nine states, the press has since documented additional community self-defense groups that have risen in response to the insecurity in Mexico, subsequently posing a challenge to the new government. This article examines the formation of community self-defense groups in light of the failures of the security policy implemented during the Felipe Calderón administration. This security policy resulted in the fragmentation of organized crime cartels and an increase in violence triggered by the diversification of criminal activities, leaving a trail of death, corruption, and human rights violations. The rise of these self-defense groups lends credit to the idea that vigilantes themselves can serve as an antidote to insecurity, particularly in rural communities. Across Mexico, groups seeking justice by their own hands have experienced widespread legitimacy, as exemplified by Javier Sicilia, who led the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity and demanded justice for the victims of Calderón’s security policy; and Isabel Miranda, who became a Mexico City government PAN candidate in the 2012 elections after singlehandedly seeking and delivering her son’s kidnappers to the authorities. These are just two cases of civilians who were victimized by organized crime and who therefore had to use every means necessary to mobilize society, highlighting the ineffective Mexican police force and the nation’s judicial system. The leitmotif of urban social movements seeking for justice is not the same as that of the community police – but both are seeking justice and security because official security agencies have failed. Community self-defense groups are security corps composed by citizens working in their specific regions according to traditional rules and often recovering indigenous customs. These groups base their efforts upon civil society participation, solidarity, and other values that survive in rural Mexico, such as family relations, friendship, and social trust among the inhabitants of a town or region. It is important to state that these values as the basis of self-defense groups remain because members of these groups are members of the community too. The expansion of community groups is both old and new – these groups integrate romantic notions of justice with the more modern conception that society must participate in the fight against organized crime. These two opposing dimensions are harmonized in the wake of an ineffective security policy, forcing society to reach beyond public protest so as to organize community police groups…
The Technologist's Dilemma: Ethical Challenges of Using Crowdsourcing Technology in Conflict and Disaster-Affected Regions
Charles Martin-Shields
The growth of mobile phone technology and Internet access globally has affected peoples’ lives in various ways. For the field of governance and conflict management, this has meant unprecedented levels of information sharing from within conflict and crisis zones. As Internet access has expanded across Africa, entities like Kenya’s Ushahidi—which build digital maps to publicly display real-time SMS text messages and social media feeds geographically—have been changing the way that citizens share their experiences of violence as they are happening. Probably the most important of these technologies—mobile phones— have expanded exponentially across the developing world; many countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific have mobile phone market saturation rates of over 100 percent. The international development community has been actively developing tools and methods for using mobile phones for outreach and project monitoring for years; the governance and conflict management fields are beginning to find effective ways to use mobile phones and SMS text messaging. While there has been excitement about the way these technologies can improve the work of conflict resolution and governance professionals, less popular attention has been paid to the unique risks and ethical challenges associated with using these tools in highly unstable political and social environments such as conflict zones. In these types of situations, crowdsourcing raises ethical issues of privacy, transparency of purpose and data protection. However, having secure technical data collection and storage procedures are not sufficient because most security failures are due to human error. To ethically run a crowdsourcing program in a conflict or disaster-affected environment, organizations need to ensure that their staffs and the “crowd” participating in the project have been trained to use the technologies and assess the unique risks of the digital information environment. This article will review the literature on digital information regulation, explore how the crisis response and crowdsourcing fields have evolved their data protection procedures and review the current state of practice for humanitarian crowdsourcing ethics and data security
Afghanistan Transition: Building the Foundations for Future Growth and Stability
Claudia Nassif
Afghanistan is facing uncertain times ahead. The withdrawal of most international military troops by 2014 will affect the country far beyond the hand-over of all security responsibilities. The operations of international troops were supported not just by a high level of military but also civilian aid that financed reconstruction efforts and the provision of public services. This has fueled fears that the security transition will also be followed by a reduction of aid with potentially devastating repercussions on Afghanistan’s economy. Based on analytical work that the World Bank conducted over the past two years, this article argues that while the transition process carries a number of risks for the country’s economic outlook and the sustainability of the state, these risks can be managed to ensure continued growth and development. In fact, the months leading up to the April 2014 presidential elections will be critical for the implementation of policy reforms that could move Afghanistan towards a more sustainable growth trajectory… (purchase article…)
The Link Between Oil Prices and the U.S. Macroeconomy
Blake Clayton
For the United States and other net importers of oil, the last two years have the dubious distinction of featuring the highest average annual crude oil prices, in both real and nominal terms, since the beginnings of the modern oil industry in the 1860s. Such elevated prices for oil, marked by extreme volatility at times, pose risks to the still-anemic U.S. and global economies, though they have proven a boon to the domestic oil industry and the regions of the country where oil and gas are produced. Still, the U.S. economy is much less affected by changes in oil prices today than it was in the 1970s, for instance, when the first modern oil crises wreaked havoc on the national economy. Understanding how oil prices affect the economy of the United States is crucial to sensible domestic policymaking. The consequences of today’s relatively high oil prices, for instance, vary tremendously across the country’s geographic regions, economic sectors, and population segments. Pinpointing the exact dynamics at play, as well as measuring their magnitudes, is difficult to do with precision. But several decades of research have yielded critical insights. These findings can help inform policy decisions in realms as diverse as economic sanctions, strategic petroleum reserve releases, and gasoline taxes, limiting any negative implications their effects on oil prices might cause to the broader economy and maximizing their potential benefits
While We Watched: Assessing the Impact of the Satellite Sentinel Project (PDF)
Nathaniel A. Raymond et al
When mass atrocities occur in conflict zones, corroborated, publicly available information about events happening in near-real time is often in short supply, if available at all. The difficulty of obtaining credible information during mass atrocities may impede international response to these complex events and, as a result, can increase the vulnerability of at risk populations. The recent, public deployment of remote sensing and data collection technologies during the alleged mass atrocities in Sudan provides insight into what potential impact and challenges these platforms may have in these scenarios. The experience of the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) suggests that attempting to enhance the situational awareness of policymakers and the public does not appear by itself, at least in the case of Sudan, to directly affect whether, and to what degree, governments respond to mass atrocities as they occur. This article offers an overview of the relationship between the SSP reports published by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI)1 and international policy makers. It also explores SSP’s use of technology and the development of its methodology, identifying possible lessons to guide future mass atrocity response operations.
How is NATO Dealing with Emerging Security Challenges?
Jamie Shea
For most of human history, states have seen their primary role in the field of security as the defence of their borders and their territories against the predations of other states. Though populations faced other threats, such as famine, major epidemics or starvation, governments felt no need to intervene unless there was an immediate threat to the state or social order. Today, states have taken on the responsibility to cope with a much broader spectrum of threats because of voters’ increased expectations of protection and the impact of globalization, which has made states much more vulnerable to non-traditional security threats. These can be easily transmitted across borders and can originate virtually everywhere: local and international terrorism, cyber threats to public and private networks, the spread of diseases and pandemics, vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure and energy grids, dependency on globalized supply chains, extreme weather conditions, uncontrolled immigration, organized criminal networks, and the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) devices with greater use of delivery vehicles such as missiles. The national security strategies of most NATO countries today prioritize these non-traditional threats before the more traditional threats from rising and rival powers or collapsing states. Although most of these non-traditional threats have existed for some time, NATO has only recently focused its attention on them. However, the Alliance is still associated with more classical military operations that take place outside its territory and emphasize flexible and deployable forces capable of cooperating with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), election observers, police trainers and democratic institution builders. The “Responsibility to Protect” is partly responsible for NATO’s shift away from the defence of states to the defence of populations. Simultaneously, NATO linked its interventions to traditional security interests. Thus, despite the frequent portrayal of interventions as part and parcel of a new international morality to uphold human rights in foreign lands, in reality NATO has not strayed far from its traditional focus on the security of its member states. Given this focus on defending and protecting interests, NATO has recently had to consider the new spectrum of threats which are not classically military in nature but which will undoubtedly be frequent sources of disruption in the years ahead. Moreover, these threats can originate just as easily from within our borders as from outside. Malicious individuals may easily gain access to modern technologies (int. al. malware, drones, robotics and bioengineering), giving them the disruptive power that used to be the preserve of states. We could live in a future in which anyone could be targeted, anywhere, and at any time. These non-conventional threats cannot be deterred by the threat of military retaliation in the way that nuclear weapons could maintain a balance of power and peace, albeit uneasy, throughout the Cold War. Cyber attacks, for instance, have been a daily occurrence almost everywhere and most can still be carried out with relative impunity. The gain from espionage or financial crime greatly outweighs the risk of being caught or even the current legal penalties. Thus there is yet no significant incentives for the attackers to desist other than that they may damage and degrade information and communications infrastructure on which they also depend. It would be good if this “deterrence through interdependence” would eventually take hold, but we are clearly still a long way from it
The Killing Zone
John McNeil
Stephen Rabe is an academic historian with an ax to grind, and he grinds it well. He begins this book by explaining that he is under no illusions about the character of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He visited former KGB prisons in Latvia, befriended Czechs persecuted for showing insufficient enthusiasm for the Red Army invasion of Prague in 1968, and educated himself about the many nefarious aspects of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe. But his point here is to draw attention to the nasty Cold War conduct of the United States in its own backyard, Latin America. Rabe finds American Cold War triumphalism objectionable in general and specifically because it overlooks the election-rigging, coups d’état, and massacres to which the U.S. government contributed in Latin America. He does not claim that these deeds were equally as evil as those perpetrated by the Kremlin. But he vigorously argues that they were unnecessary in every sense and did nothing to advance the American cause in the Cold War. He maintains that U.S. Cold War policy in Latin America “helped perpetuate and spread violence, poverty, and despair within the region.” The many U.S. interventions – to use a gentle term – in Cold War Latin America were first presented [within the bureaucratic and political organs of the U.S. government] as helpful or even necessary measures to secure the American hemisphere from communist or Soviet power. When they were not kept secret, the interventions were then marketed to the American public with the same Cold War raison d’état. Rabe argues that these efforts at justification were at best based on ignorance and at worst on calculated dishonesty. U.S. officials consistently overestimated, and sometimes deliberately exaggerated, Soviet activities in Latin America, which were modest indeed compared to Soviet engagements in other world regions. Moreover, the ill-advised U.S. interventions alienated Latin American populations and contributed to anti-American popular and political sentiment throughout the region. To borrow a phrase from Talleyrand, the interventions were worse than crimes, they were blunders
Understanding Iran
John McNeil
William Polk, born in 1929, is one of the more successful scholar-diplomats in American life. He has written more than a dozen books, mainly on the modern Arab world, some for trade publishers and some for university presses. He taught Middle East and Islamic history at Harvard and the University of Chicago. He also served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, on the State Department’s Policy Planning staff and later as an adviser to McGeorge Bundy, President Johnson’s National Security Adviser, charged with handling the aftermath of 1967’s Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. His latest book is his first on Iran. He has visited the country from time to time since 1956, and in the 1960s met the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and some of the Iranian political elite. Aware of the stalemate that bedevils U.S.-Iranian relations, and frustrated by what he sees as the narrowness of war-game exercises and the field of international relations, Polk wrote this book “to bring forward what war games omit: in short, what it means when we speak of Iran and Iranians.” He feels American policy-makers pay insufficient heed to the history and culture of Iran and Iranians, and are thereby baffled by what seems to them illogical behavior. If they had adequate grounding in things Iranian, he believes, they would better understand Iran, its government, its policies, and its people. Adequate grounding, in Polk’s view, extends back 2,500 years. He maintains that even if the majority of Iranians alive have scant knowledge of the Achaemenid dynasty they are nonetheless influenced by it. Indeed, he writes, “I am certain that the inhabitants of Iran today are largely governed by their past regardless of whether they consciously remember it.” He appeals to Carl Jung’s notion of “collective unconscious” and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “social contract” to make his case
Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States and the World
Pamela Sodhy
This book, a compilation of Lee Kuan Yew’s views and in-sights on foreign policy matters, is unique in that its contents are pulled from interviews with Lee and from his speeches and writings. The compilation is the work of three scholars: Graham Allison, the Douglas Dillion Professor of Government and the Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School; Robert D. Blackwill, the Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations; and Ali Wyne, a researcher at Harvard’s Belfer Center. They use a question and answer format, starting each chapter with a list of specific questions and then providing Lee’s answers. Their aim, as stated in the Preface, is “not to look back on the past 50 years, remarkable as Lee’s contributions to them have been. Rather our focus is the future and the specific challenges that the United States will face during the next quarter century.” To them, Lee’s answers are meant to be “of value not only to those shaping U.S. foreign policy, but also to leaders of businesses and civil society in the United States.” The book spans Lee’s insights over a half century, covering different periods: as Prime Minister of Singapore; Senior Minister under his successor, Goh Chok Tong; Minister Mentor under his son, Lee Hsien Loong; and, since 2011, as Senior Advisor and Emeritus Senior Minister. In terms of content, the book is very comprehensive as it deals with Lee’s views on numerous foreign policy topics. As for the book’s organization, its first part is unusual in that a Foreword, by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, is followed by a short section with a title in the form of a question: “Who is Lee Kuan Yew?” Next is another short section, also with a question, this time entitled “When Lee Kuan Yew Talks, Who Listens?” After that is the Preface, followed by ten chapters, with the first eight providing Lee’s views about the future
The Decline and Fall of the United States Information Agency
Juliet Antunes Sablosky
To the second volume of his history of the U. S. Information Agency, Nicholas Cull brings a similarly skillful survey of the institution and the role it played in furthering American foreign policy goals. This time he concentrates on the changes wrought by the end of the Cold War and the impact they had on the Agency, its programs, and its people. Throughout the book major attention is given to the Voice of America and to the policy advocacy aspects of USIA’s work. Professor Cull gives less attention to the other three “core components” of public diplomacy, which he identifies as listening, cultural diplomacy, and exchange diplomacy. This meticulously documented book, based on archival research, private papers, and interviews, helps fill a long-standing gap in the literature and sets the stage for further research on American public diplomacy. It will be much appreciated by those teaching and researching the public diplomacy dimension of international relations. The Decline and Fall of the U.S. Information Agency complements nicely a number of books written over the years by practitioners of public diplomacy that are important for the understanding they provide of its possibilities and constraints, as well as for the vivid pictures they paint of how it was carried out overseas. But the Cull book provides a different perspective, coming from an established academic observer and concentrating on the domestic side of policy-making. While primarily of interest to the foreign policy and public diplomacy communities, students and researchers of public policy will find grist for their mills here as well. The political machinations that accompanied the death of the USIA as an independent agency and its integration (or re-integration, if one considers its early history) into the Department of State make for lively reading and provide an excellent case study
Global Women's Issues (PDF)
Melanne Verveer
GJIA: What were the challenges implicit in becoming the first U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues? Did the nature of your role change over time? Verveer: Secretary Clinton and I were not new to these issues, nor was the State Department. Secretary Albright actually established the first Office for Global Women’s Issues in 1996 and it was she who issued an important cable to the State Department staff, including those engaged in our operations around the world, to report on the situation of women and girls (from education to economic participation). In some ways, we had been flying blind due to the lack of reporting on these issues – an omission concerning half the population of the world – that really was important to the conduct of our foreign policy. Secretaries Powell and Rice continued the office. Secretary Clinton clearly understood this approach must become a cornerstone of U.S. Diplomacy. My appointment by President Obama was consistent with her broader efforts on U.S. foreign policy, as was evidenced in the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review and other initiatives. At the outset, some perhaps regarded the focus on women’s issues as marginal, but the relevance of these issues in enabling us to more effectively achieve our foreign policy goals became clear.