Category: Politics

All posts on what Bismarck called “the art of the possible”

Thesis flowchart: data to action

One thing the thesis should definitely include is flowcharts. They make it easier to disentangle what is going on in complex relationships, both by clearly showing what phenomena are connected, and by suggesting the direction(s) in which causality runs. Here is one that I came up with, regarding the relationship between personal consensus (the position a person reaches after having thought a question through and reached an answer that satisfies them internally) and group consensus:

Data to action flowchart

The starting point is the data presented to the individual. This consists both of empirically observed phenomena and of representations of truth made by others. There is an internal dynamic here. For instance, a person who has been reading a lot about global warming might be prejudiced towards interpreting an unusually hot summer in their part of the world as evidence for that trend. This is partly captured in the two-way arrow with group consensus, but it is also a matter of internal cognition.

Both empirical data and arguments (both logical and those based on other kinds of rationality) are transformed into personal opinions through the applications of heuristics. Examples of heuristic reasoning devices include:

  1. Conceptions about which individuals and groups provide trustworthy information
  2. Conceptions about what kind of evidence is strong or weak (for instance, opinions on the use of statistics or anecdotes)
  3. Particular facts that are so thoroughly believed that they become a touchstone against which other possibilities are rejected

This is not a comprehensive listing, but it gives an idea of the kind of mechanisms within a single person that are at work when forming opinions.

The link from personal opinions to personal choices is not a simple linear one. A second category of heuristics exist that do not determine what is considered true. Instead, they determine which opinions are important; specifically, they determine which opinions are important enough to deserve action.

Two major types of personal choices are represented in this model. Those in the box ‘personal choices’ could be called direct actions. This would include something like buying a hybrid car or boycotting a company. Within the arrow between personal opinions and group consensus lies the other kind of action: namely advocacy actions, in which an individual tries to convince other individuals or groups to adopt the same position the original individual has already reached. That feeds into the “information and arguments” boxes for other people, as well as contributing to the group phenomenon of consensus.

Group action is thus both the sum of personal choices, and the product of public deliberation leading to institutional or societal choices. Here again, a process of prioritization takes place.

An adapted version of this diagram could be constructed for scientists and for non-scientists. The biggest difference would be that scientists can engage in a broader project of empirical examination, thus contributing in a different way to the information and arguments being presented to others. They may well also employ different kinds of heuristics, when forming personal choices.

Carbon offsets

Bug on a flower

Cycling home with a £5 quarter-kilo of Fair Trade coffee, I found myself thinking about carbon offsets. These are financial instruments in which an individual or group pays someone else to reduce the carbon emissions they would otherwise have produced, so as to offset the buying individuals own carbon emissions. Al Gore used them to make the production of An Inconvenient Truth carbon neutral. They were also used by The Economist to make their Survey on Climate Change (Subscription required) carbon neutral. At the end of the opening article, they explain:

This survey, which generated about 118 tonnes of carbon dioxide from flights, car journeys, paper production, printing and distribution, has been carbon-neutralised through the Carbon Neutral Company. The cost was £590; the money was spent on capturing methane from an American mine.

According to the calculator at climatecrisis.org (the site set up by Al Gore to accompany his book and film), my annual carbon emissions are about 1.6 tons, including two trans-Atlantic flights a year. Not having a car and living in a shared dwelling makes a big difference, even if all our power is coming from the huge coal plant at Didcot.

At the rate The Economist paid, I could offset that for £8. It might be a worthwhile thing to include in my thesis. My only problem with it all is that it is hard to tell which of the many websites that sell offsets actually provide what they claim. There has been a kerfuffle recently about dodgy wind power cards. Does anyone know of a reputable place where I can offset those 1600 kilos of carbon? This site looks like a possibility.

Obviously, paying for the offsetting of your own carbon isn’t an adequate response to the issue of climate change (any more than buying Fair Trade coffee is an adequate response to global poverty), but it couldn’t hurt. It is also a potentially useful demonstration of how seriously you take the problem

[Update: 5:00pm] According to the company The Economist used, one round-trip flight from London to Vancouver generates 1.7 tonnes of CO2. As such, it would seem appropriate to offset at least four or five tonnes a year, to cover electricity, heating (however St. Antony’s does it), and travel.

Thesis case studies, justification for

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Kyoto Protocol are both attempts at a multilateral solution to a previously unknown transboundary environmental problem. The reasons for which these case studies are useful for accessing fundamental questions about the science-policy relationship are several:

  1. Each agreement addresses an environmental problem that only recently became known.
  2. Each deals with a problem that is essentially transboundary, and requires concerted effort to resolve.
  3. Each involves scientific uncertainty, both about the material effects of the problem in the world and about the different characteristics of possible approaches for dealing with it.
  4. Each involves normative and distributional issues, with regards to groups that benefit or are harmed by the application of the agreement.

As such, each represents the outcome of a dialogue between stakeholders and experts. The former group is concerned with securing their interests, or those of their principles, such as they are understood at the time of interaction. The basis upon which this group operates is that of legitimacy: either implicitly held among those representing themselves, or transferred through a process, agreement, or institution to a representative whose legitimacy is premised upon advocacy.

The latter group is concerned with the generation and evaluation of data. Understood broadly here, ‘data’ are claims about the ontological nature of the world. This includes claims that are rigorously verifiable (such as those about the medical effects of certain pollutants) as well as those involving considerable interpretation (such as the meaning of international law).

The groups are not mutually exclusive, and many individuals and organizations played an overlapping role in the development of the agreements. Through the examination of these two case studies, as well as related matters, this thesis will engage with the interconnections between expertise and legitimacy in global environmental policy making, with a focus on agreements in areas with extensive normative ramifications.

Development, equity, and the WTO

My opinion of the World Trade Organization has probably shifted more than that for any other international institution, during the course of university study. The conception of the WTO as some sort of monolithic and powerful body, forcing countries to do things against their will does not seem like an accurate one. Where such pressures do exist, they are more parallel to the WTO (caused and driven by the preferences of member states) than self-arising from within. The inability of the WTO to enforce its rulings on trade – save through the highly problematic vehicle of allowing the country sinned against to raise its own tariffs – seems to underscore how weak the organization really is.

Naturally, all of the above assumes that free trade is generally a good thing. While there are undeniably problems – some of which can be well expressed using an economic framework of analysis – there are myriad advantages to global economic integration. Globalization needs to be modified so as to operate better as a process that aids in poverty reduction; likewise, it needs to become more environmentally balanced. With the Doha Round utterly stalled it isn’t clear how the WTO could contribute to either aim, a reasonable case can be made that it is at least not worsening either. A rules-based system like the WTO seems to hold out at least the possibility of a more just relationship between rich and powerful states and those that are poor. While the system is highly imperfect in practice, it does seem to have a small net positive effect.

All that said, since I need to argue that the WTO is a bad thing for developing countries this Thursday, I should start looking at the most eloquent and well defended expressions of the the position.

People interested in economic issues should have a look at Trade Diversion: a blog run by Jonathan Dingel, an M.Phil student in economics.

Thesis presentation upcoming

Tree and sky, abstract

This coming Wednesday, I am to present my thesis plan to a dozen of my classmates and two professors. The need to do so is forcing further thinking upon exactly what questions I want to ask, and how to approach them. The officially submitted title for the work is: Expertise and Legitimacy: the Role of Science in Global Environmental Policy-Making. The following questions come immediately to mind:

  1. What do the differences between the Stockholm Convention on POPs and the Kyoto Protocol tell us about the relationship between science and environmental policy?
  2. What issues of political legitimacy are raised when an increasing number of policy decisions are being made either by scientists themselves, or on the basis of scientific conclusions?
  3. How do scientists and politicians each reach conclusions about the nature of the world, and what sort of action should be taken in it. How do those differences in approach manifest themselves in policy?

The easiest part of the project will be writing up the general characteristics of both Stockholm and Kyoto. Indeed, I keep telling myself that I will write at least the beginning of that chapter any time now. The rest of the thesis will depend much more on examination of the many secondary literatures that exist.

The answers that will be developed are going to be primarily analytic, rather than empirical. The basis for their affirmation or refutation will be logic, and the extent to which the viewpoints presented are useful for better understanding the world.

Points that seem likely to be key are the stressing of the normative issues that are entangled in technical decision making. Also likely to be highlighted is the importance of process: it is not just the outcome that is important, when we are talking about environmental policy, but the means by which the outcome was reached. Two dimensions of the question that I mean to highlight are normative concerns relating to the North/South divide and issues in international law. The latter is both a potential mechanism for the development and enforcement of international environmental regimes and a source of thought about issues of distribution, justice, and responsibility that pertains to these questions.

I realize that this is going to need to become a whole lot more concrete and specific by 2:30pm on Wednesday. A re-think of my thesis outline is probably also in order. I should also arrange to speak with Dr. Hurrell about it soon; having not seen him since the beginning of term, there is a certain danger of the thesis project drifting more than it ought to. Whatever thesis presentation I ultimately come up with will be posted on the wiki, just as all of my notes from this term have been, excepting those where people presenting have requested otherwise.

First electoral response

My cloudy-headed morning-after analysis of the midterm election: American voters disapprove of many aspects of the Republican project, as well as the character of Republican government. That said, the Democrats are still seen more as a protest vote than as a viable alternative in and of themselves. That, and not the victory in the House, should be what the Democrats take from this election. It is also what should provide the motivation for their development in the years approaching the 2008 presidential contest.

They need to become less of an anti-party, and more of an obvious party of government. Partly, that will require choosing a leader less wooden and gaffe-prone than John Kerry. More importantly, it involves closing ranks, deciding on a policy platform, and selling it to the American people. Given the circumstances, it does not seem like the Democrats have much of a mandate for dedicating their time in Congress to investigating the misdeeds of the previous one. While some of that is clearly required, it should not distract them overly from tasks more relevant to their increased mandate.

As for the Republicans, this election looks like evidence that they have not been wholly discredited. It is a chance to learn a bit of humility and bipartisanship, building on their organizational strengths in the run-up to 2008.

Discussion of any of the above points, or related ones, is much encouraged. I will check in after my short trip to London.

Fight for the Senate

Background

In the contest for the Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, eight races stand out as unusually important: (incumbent in italics)

  • Pennsylvania: Rick Santorum (R) v. Bob Casey
  • New Jersey: Bob Menendez (D) v. Tom Kean
  • Montana: Conrad Burns (R) v. Jon Tester
  • Virginia: George Allen (R) v. James Webb
  • Ohio: Mike DeWine (R) v. Sherrod Brown
  • Tennessee: Bob Corker v. Harold Ford
  • Missouri: Jim Talent (R) v. Claire McCaskill
  • Rhode Island: Lincoln Chafee (R) v. Sheldon Whitehouse

The first is a likely Republican loss, while it will be a fight for the Democrats to hold the second. As of the final polls before the election, the remaining six races are up in the air. To win a majority, Democrats need a swing of six seats.

I have written previously about the importance of the Senate in this race.

Breaking news

As of 2:30am, the Daily Kos (a partisan Democrat site) is reporting that the Democrats have gained three seats in the Senate. They need six for a majority.

More cautiously, The New York Times is only showing that they have certainly taken one of the six most contested seats: New Jersey.

Pollster.com is showing 49 Senate seats going Republican, 47 going Democratic, and four still up in the air. In the event of a tie in the Senate, the Vice-President gets to cast the deciding vote.

[Update: 2:50am] The New York Times is now reporting Democratic victories in the Pennsylvania and Ohio Senate races as well. Either Democrat Lamont or Independent Lieberman is basically certain to win Connecticut. For those who haven’t been following the news, Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic primary, largely due to his support for the Iraq war and the perception that he is overly close to the Bush administration.

[Update: 3:15am] The NYT and Daily Kos now agree that the Democrats have picked up Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. They also held seats in Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Jersey. It also seems that Ned Lamont has conceded to Joe Lieberman in Connecticut.

[Update: 3:40am] Up by three, with four still in play and Virginia looking like the Republicans will hold it, I am going to take another shot at going to sleep. The Republican candidate is leading by 5% in Tennessee, with 66% reporting. In Virginia, they are leading by 1%, with 94% reporting. In Missouri, they are leading by 10%, with 24% reporting. There are still no reports from Montana. Given that the Democrats would need to win all but one of these races, things are not looking terribly good, as far as their chances of a Senatorial majority go.

Election nights have certainly become a lot more exciting in the past few years.

[Update: 8:00am] Well, there you have it. The smart money was on a victory in the House and a narrow failure to win a majority in the Senate, just as most friends who I polled informally yesterday guessed. The Republicans took both Montana and Virginia, as listed above in my collection of crucial races.

Given the circumstances, I would not say that this is an impressive showing for the Democrats. They clearly need to become a lot more coherent and well organized before 2008. That said, I would say that the real priority for the American electoral system is to fix the many problems with electronic voting systems.

I wonder how this new Congressional balance will affect government over the next two years. That is something to ponder during my upcoming coach ride to London.

[Update: 9 November 2006] It seems that the race still isn’t over. More commentary as it emerges. The Democrats have taken Montana, with Virginia still up in the air.

[Update: 12:15pm 9 November 2006] It seems that Virginia has gone to the Democrats as well. That gives them a majority in the Senate. The moral of the story: don’t call things too early.

American midterm elections today

Those looking for more polling data than they will know what to do with, for today’s midterm elections in the United States, should have a look at Pollster.com. For first year M.Phil students nervous about the quantitative methods test, it might be worthwhile reading as well.

I will definitely be watching the news closely between now and whenever the House and Senate races are settled. Hopefully, none of the quite justified concerns about problems with electronic voting machines will manifest themselves. Unfortunately, the vulnerabilities exposed by the Princeton study and others could be exploited in ways that could never be detected by electoral officials. Anyone who thinks that electronic votingi s secure, with paper ballots and automatic auditing of part of the vote, should watch this short video produced by the Princeton team.

No matter which way this election goes, fixing the mechanics of the electoral system should be a huge priority before the 2008 elections. Relevant previous posts:

Also well worth a look:

Saddam to be hanged

Ceiling of the Merton College Chapel, Oxford

Reading the news that Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, has been sentenced to die by hanging created a ambivalent combination of feelings. On the one hand, he is certainly guilty: if not of the particular atrocity for which he was tried than for crimes against humanity in general. Likewise, launching the Iran-Iraq War probably constituted ‘conspiracy to wage aggressive war’ – the crime for which the subjects tried at Nuremberg were hanged.

Problems with the trial

That said, there are procedural issues that draw the result into question. One major legal problem is the genesis of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (formerly known as the Iraqi Special Tribunal). This body, where Saddam Hussein is on trial, was not established by an elected Iraqi government, but by the Coalition Provisional Authority: a bureaucracy composed of and supported by the occupying army. To say that this is domestic Iraqi justice is therefore somewhat disingenuous.

Other serious problems have been the lack of security for those involved in the trial: including witnesses, judges, and lawyers. By the end of the trial, Saddam Hussein only had one legal representative left: Khalil al-Dulaimi (largely because others were dismissed, though three were killed). The absence of a stable security situation in Iraq, and Baghdad in particular, further reduces the changes of a free and fair trial being conducted, at an internationally certifiable level of due process.

A further problem is the absence of an adequate process of appeal. There is only a ten-day window in which an appeal can be launched, and it is widely expected to end in failure within weeks. Related is the issue that it is over-hasty to execute Saddam Hussein on the basis of one set of allegations, relating to 148 killings in Dujail in 1982, when so many more charges remain to be considered. The importance of being systematic and fair lies in generating an accurate accounting of the various crimes committed by Saddam Hussein and his regime. If the stated objective of the coalition in “drawing a line” under the Saddam era is genuine, such a comprehensive accounting seems like an important step.

Problems with the death sentence, generally

In general, the international community has condemned the sentence of death. The European Union has spoken against it. As have India, Ireland, The Netherlands, and New Zealand. Even Tony Blair said that he is opposed.

Personally, I don’t feel that execution is an option that should be available to any court. As a form of justice, it is little more than crude retribution. While the danger of convicting innocent people does not apply in this case, the general moral and pragmatic position against the death penalty seems very strong to me.

That said, imposing what has become the international consensus upon the Iraqi court carries problems of its own. To grant the new Iraqi governments powers and then circumscribe their usage does not conform to the project upon which the coalition has supposedly embarked. While it is clearly legitimate for outside actors to urge a reconsideration of the death sentence, it would probably be illegitimate to force the hand of the court in any significant way.

Primarily because of the flawed trial process, the insufficient appeal system, and the importance of rigorously cataloging the misdeeds of the former regime, Saddam Hussein should not be put to death.

All that said, I encourage someone to argue the opposite.

On impeachment

In their leader on the midterm elections, The Economist says that: “talk of impeaching Mr Bush is dangerous” but offers no reasoning for the claim. While impeachment is obviously an extreme response, it is one that has been contemplated several times in the last century. It seems to me that a case can be made that wiretapping, torture, the denial of legal rights to American citizens, and the widespread rejection of international law create at least the possibility that this administration is as criminal as that of Richard Nixon. The list certainly makes Bill Clinton’s crime of lying under oath seem reasonably trivial.

Perhaps they mean that talk of impeachment is dangerous to the Democrats, because it risks turning a reversal of the Congressional majority into an opportunity to settle political scores. The Democrats obviously need to become a solid-seeming alternative before the 2008 elections, and too many inquiries and accusations could be a distraction. This is an argument with which I have some sympathy, but if the Democrats are likely to be elected more out of anger directed towards the Republicans than because of their own ideas – as seems to be the case – then it is perhaps exactly such inquiries that they are being elected to conduct.

Let’s just hope that a Democratic congress, if such a thing arises on Tuesday, will be able to generate some better policies, instead of just recriminations.