Politics – Page 210 – a sibilant intake of breath

American primaries upcoming

The primary season that precedes American elections is always an interesting time for strategizing. As a supporter of either party, you want to achieve two things: the election of the most appealing or electable candidate for your party, and the election of the most appealing or least electable candidate for the other. The tension in the latter pair is probably the most interesting bit. Should committed Democrats try to help a centrist like Guliani get elected (a particularly pressing issue in states with open primaries, where registered Democracts can vote in the Republican primary and vice versa) or should they try to push the Republicans towards a hopeless candidate?

The risk averse option, and the one that seems the most sensible, is to choose the most electable option for the party you support (provided their platform is not seriously objectionable) and the most tolerable option for the other party. For this election cycle, it isn’t quite clear who would fill either role, but my guesses right now would be Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. That said, I am reasonably willing to tolerate moderate fiscal conservatism, as long as it isn’t accompanied by culture war conservative values fodder. American voters may well feel otherwise. For instance, an atheist candidate is essentially unelectable in the US, but would probably be slightly preferable for me.

From the perspective of someone who is not a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of either party – and both have plenty of ugly features – the strategies that yield relatively centrist candidates are probably the most desirable. Anyone who is able to excite the party faithful to a feverish level, but not reach out to the intelligent independents who must ultimately represent the balance of opinion, is both unlikely to win and unlikely to govern very well.

It will be interesting to see what we learn about the candidates while they are tramping around New Hampshire and Iowa: another curious feature of American electoral politics.

Climate change, law, and predictability

Happy Birthday Kate Dillon

In a somewhat surprising move, a coalition of opposition members of Parliament in Canada have passed a bill forcing the government to live up to the commitment that was made when we signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Specifically, Canada is to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 6% below their 1990 levels by 2012. This is quite a substantial reduction to achieve in the next five years, given that emissions are presently about 30% above their 1990 levels.

In many ways, this situation demonstrates how not to deal with the problem of climate change. What you need to do is create the certainty, within industry, that the costs of GHG emissions will increase predictably and progressively over time. Then, when decisions are being made about what equipment to buy and how to set up industrial processes, the extra constraints can be taken into account. By contrast, the present on-again-off-again approach doesn’t create clear incentives. Even worse, it is not clear to industry what will happen after 2012.

The most straightforward and effective approach would be a tax on every tonne of GHG emissions, weighted according to the contribution the particular gas makes to global warming. Since methane contributes more than CO2, it would be more highly taxed. That tax would then rise progressively over time, until Canada reached the point where GHG emissions stabilized and then began to drop towards pre-industrial levels. Whether such an approach would be politically possible (especially with Alberta eying a tar sands bonanza that could mean massive emissions) is another matter. Three plans for meeting the target are outlined in this article from The Globe and Mail.

Dolphin safe tuna

One of the most reliable ways of locating tuna stocks is by following dolphins. Once you find dolphins feeding on the fish, you set your nets around and catch them. Of course, this method will sometimes lead to you catching dolphins as well. In eighteen years of dolphin set tuna fishing in the United States, 18 dolphins were recorded as caught, along with 34 tonnes of sharks and rays and 295 tons of other fish. Such by-catch is virtually always discarded. In an equivalent period of dolphin safe fishing (where electronic Fish Aggregation Devices are used instead), no dolphins were caught, but 237 tonnes of sharks and rays were, along with 15,500 tonnes of other fish. Again, this was discarded.

Dolphin safe fishing is also disproportionately likely to catch immature tuna, which have not yet reached their full size and which have contributed very little to reproducing the species, since tuna generally take a long time to reach sexual maturity.

This only makes sense if you strongly privilege dolphins over other forms of marine life. Either because:

You think dolphins themselves are bearers of rights
People have much stronger preferences regarding dolphin treatment than that of other elements of marine ecosystems, and those preferences determine what is moral.

Admittedly, each of these is a viable moral position consistent with the ways in which we generally view what kinds of things can bear rights. That said, the trend in ecology is towards recognizing the importance of ecosystem integrity. From this perspective, setting nets around dolphin pods is probably the greenest way of catching tuna. This is especially true since it is possible to design nets that dolphins virtually always escape, but tuna do not.

Of course, now consumers know that to be eco-friendly, they are meant to buy the dolphin safe tuna. Confident in the belief that the problem has been dealt with, not enough people realize that we have probably made things worse.

Nye and Roberts on democratization

Last night’s talk on democratization by Joseph Nye and Adam Roberts basically encapsulated the most dominant strand of academic thinking on the subject. It was heavily focused on the American role in the Middle East (though Russia’s apparent slide towards autocracy was not entirely ignored) and essentially concluded that the US can and should continue to spread democracy, but must do so in moderate and locally tailored ways, rather than just stomping on people. There was agreement that the next administration (whether Clinton or McCain) would pursue more or less this path.

Both speakers agreed that attacking Iran would be an appalling error: both strategically, given the capacity of that state to cause havoc in the region, and politically, because of how an attack would unify moderates and conservatives in Iran around the present regime. It would also further diminish American credibility in the Muslim world.

Finally, there was some discussion of narratives: the one that Osama bin Laden propagates, that of the United States, and the kind that Europe might fruitfully deploy. As a continent that has managed to come together into peace and prosperity, after an appalling history of war, perhaps the European experience can be illustrative for other regions.

All of these points are sensible and sound, as you would expect from professors from Harvard and Oxford – the latter even knighted. One question that remains sitting on the table is how to deal with allied states that have less than excellent democratic credentials. It certainly damages US soft power to be so reliant upon the House of Saud, as well as people like Pervez Musharraf and Hosni Mubarak. It creates many opportunities to accuse the US of hypocrisy. That said, the generally cautious approach recommended by both speakers suggests a course of constructive engagement, rather than something more aggressive (though not forceful).

On a side note, the St. Antony’s International Review seems to be doing a very good job of publicizing itself. This is very welcome, given Oxford’s notable lack of a quality international relations journal. I should try to get a book review or something into it, before I leave Oxford.

‘Able Archer’ and leadership psychology

If you have any interest in nuclear weapons or security and you have never heard of the 1983 NATO exercise called ‘Able Archer’ you should read today’s featured Wikipedia article.

One fascinating thing it demonstrates is the amazing willingness of leaders to assume that their enemies will see actions as benign that, if they had been taken by those same enemies, would be seen as very aggressive. Case in point: the issues America is raising about Iranian intervention in Iraq. If Iran was involved in a major war on America’s doorstep, you can bet that there would be American intervention. This is not to assert any kind of moral equivalency, but simply to state the appallingly obvious.

The Landlord’s Game

Lee Jones, author of in vino veritas, recently posted a surprising statement about the origins of the game Monopoly, the best selling commercial board game in the world:

Monopoly was designed in 1903 by a Quaker named Elizabeth Magie, who intended the game to highlight the evils of private property. Her version included squares like ‘Lord Bluebood’s Estate’ and ‘Soakum Electric Company’. A 1927 version stated in its rulebook:

“Monopoly is designed to show the evil resulting from the institution of private property. At the start of the game, every player is provided with the same chance of success as every other player. The game ends with one person in possession of all the money. What accounts for the failure of the rest, and what one factor can be singled out to explain the obviously ill-adjusted distribution of the community’s wealth, which this situation represents? Those who win will answer ‘skill’. Those who lose will answer ‘luck’. But maybe there will be some, and these, while admitting the element of skill and luck, will answer with Scott Nearing [a socialist writer of the time] ‘private property.’ “

Lee takes this as a demonstration of the power of capitalism to co-opt and subvert criticism (reach for your Gramsci everyone). This understanding also makes me think about Rousseau‘s statement that “”The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine,” and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society.”

One of the more obvious products of recent economic development has been a trend towards large increases in the income of the most well-off coupled with fairly modest ones for those of moderate income. This is true both internationally and within countries including Canada, Britain, and the United States. The willingness of people to tolerate that differential – whether justified by merit, libertarianism, or some other doctrine – would seem to hinge upon the same sorts of considerations as those which have transformed the societal understanding of the game of Monopoly.

PS. I wrote previously on executive pay and income inequality.

Perspectives on international environmental law

It cannot be taken as a good sign to have a presentation in twelve hours and still not really be sure about the main thrust of what you are going to say. I feel like I have a lot of structural elements, but only a semi-rough conception of what I am going to build out of them. The feeling is somewhat akin to that which I have towards the thesis and, indeed, life in general once this program ends.

The immediate requirement is to decide how skeptical I ought to be about international environmental law. The fact that Canada, for instance, doesn’t seem to feel particularly obligated to meet its Kyoto targets makes one wonder whether there’s conviction out there to match rhetoric. One temptation is to fall back, and say that environmental law is just one more mechanism through which governments can be lobbied – both internally and externally. Another possibility is to say that law isn’t what’s in the books and filed with the Secretary General, but rather what states actually get up to. The latter view would probably be more favoured by my international law instructors, but it makes the whole corpus of international environmental law even more nebulous than it previously appeared to be.

I suppose I will write a draft, read for a few hours, then decide exactly what to say in the morning (when my cognitive faculties are at their lowest ebb).

POPs and climate change as ‘anomalies’

Now nearly finished with Kuhn‘s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I am pondering how to apply it to my thesis case studies. Basically, what Kuhn has done is sketch out a theory about how scientists interact with the world and each other, generating new scientific ways of understanding the world. You start with one paradigm (say, Newtonian physics). Then, scientists begin to notice anomalies – places where the theory cannot explain what they perceive to be going on. If such anomalies are of the right sort and sufficiently numerous, they may provoke a crisis within the paradigm. At that point, the scope of science broadens a bit, to examine bigger questions and alternative possibilities. In Kuhn’s terminology, the practice of ‘normal science‘ is interrupted. The crisis is resolved either through the modification of the previous paradigm or through the emergence of a new one, such as relativistic physics.

From the perspective of my thesis, the relevant discoveries are the rising global mean temperature and rising concentrations of POPs in the Arctic. Both were novel developments in our awareness and understanding of what is going on in the world, and both are the unintended products of modern economic activity. In the first case, the emission of greenhouse gases seems to be the primary cause of the change; in the second, pesticide use, industrial chemicals, and garbage burning seem to be the culprits. While scientists knew that these things were going on before the first research on POPs and climate change was done, these specific consequences were not anticipated. Their precise magnitude remains contested and uncertain.

While neither discovery induced a crisis in science (both are largely explicable using science that has existed for a long time), they did progress into general acceptance by following a pattern that is in some ways similar to that of paradigmatic development in the sciences. The researchers who first looked at POP concentrations in human blood and breast milk from the Arctic thought that the samples must have been contaminated, because they could imagine no reason for which people living in such an isolated environment would be so saturated with toxic chemicals. The establishment and operation of the Northern Contaminants Program thus involves both ‘normal science’ and the kind of thinking through which new paradigms are established. Because of such similarities, I am hoping that some of Kuhn’s insights into the ways scientists think, and especially the ways in which they make up their own minds and try to make up those of their colleagues, can be applied to the understanding of scientific perspectives on these particular environmental problems.

The biggest difference is probably how wider policy implications tend to arise from environmental discoveries in a way not parallel to the consequences of other sorts of discovery. Quantum mechanics may allow us to do new things, but it doesn’t really compel us to behave very differently. Learning about global warming, by contrast, interacts with our pre-existing notions about appropriate action by human beings in the world to suggest potentially radical changes in behaviour. While I am not saying that there is a direct or linear connection between scientific discoveries about the environment and specific policy choices, it seems valid to say that our understanding of the environment, informed by science, profoundly affects the ways in which we feel we can and should act in relation to the physical world.

On a related note, I would strongly suggest that any physicist working on string theory give Kuhn’s SoSR a careful read. The crisis in physics generated by apparent contradictions between relativity and quantum mechanics seems very much like those he describes, with similar implications in terms of how scientists are thinking and what they are doing.

Climate change all over the news

Sorry to be less esoteric and entertaining in my writing recently, but I have been focused by necessity on issues pertinent to ongoing projects. The process distorts one’s perception of the world. I cannot really judge, for instance, the extent to which the apparent increase in coverage of climate change issues in the media is (a) the product of my increased focus on those stories, (b) the result of cyclical phenomena, like the release of IPCC reports, or (c) a demonstration of increased awareness – or at least increased newsworthiness – of the climate change situation. With that caveat stated, it certainly seems as though climate change related stories are getting top billing in the media to an increasing degree.

The front page of today’s Globe and Mail site features four articles on climate change. One is on climate change and Parliamentary politics, another deals with the proper role of scientists. There is a question and answer session, and finally an article on the impact of rising sea levels on Indonesia. Many organizations, including the BBC, now have dedicated portions on their websites to cover climate change news.

Even President Bush has acknowledged the need to take action. It’s enough to make one hope that a massive shift from talk to action might take place within the next few years, going beyond Kyoto and into the realm of mechanisms to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move into a post fossil fuel economy.

From the perspective of a concerned citizen, this all seems like good news. It is very important to reach as good an understanding about the likely costs and benefits of climate change as possible. Also essential is the development of political consensus to take action to prevent climate change and mitigate the impact. From the perspective of a graduate student working partially on climate change, it is all quite overwhelming. It makes one wonder how relevant one’s research will be in a year or two. Additionally, it makes it seem less likely that one can add anything new to the discussion. My hope is that by drawing together more types of information than most people will be examining, I will be able to develop some insights. The degree to which my thesis will be a real contribution to scholarship largely depends on it.

All the President’s Men

Continuing to draw upon Kai’s excellent connection of DVDs, I watched All the President’s Men. Above all, it has reinforced my conviction that journalism is a noble but difficult profession. The amazing thing is that they were just relying on notes. These days, one can simply expect that all conversations, emails, and phone calls are being recorded.

Other people have already written better and cleverer things about the film than I can manage at the moment.

In the end, though, a reasonable person must suspect that the present American administration has engaged in deceit at a level that makes the Nixon administration look moderate by comparison. The question is when, if ever, that claim will be authoritatively confirmed or refuted.