Politics – Page 222 – a sibilant intake of breath

Thinking about powers and polarity

I’ve been trying hard to sort out a decent answer for the unipolarity/great powers question on which I am presenting Tuesday, but still having a lot of trouble. The definitions strike me as very circular. The characteristics we ascribe to great powers (nukes, UN Security Council seats, big economies) are as much descriptions of the states we already think of as great powers as they are a checklist against which countries can be compared. Likewise, ‘unipolarity’ in the contemporary sense basically just means ‘the world how it has more-or-less been since the end of the Cold War.’

The importance of the term ‘great power’ lies in the ways in which the distinction changes the thinking of states. While largely reflective of underlying capabilities, the confidence associated with such status is a capability in itself. Likewise, it is in the psychology of the great power distinction that the concept most forcefully manifests itself in the world. As such, the criteria of great power status change over time with both the real and perceived values of different national capabilities: an overseas empire, for instance, or nuclear weapons.

Since the United States is generally accepted to be the most powerful nation in the world, there is an obvious incentive to create arguments that might sway its behaviour. This is a strategy that manifests itself in ways like opposition groups attempting to secure American support for the removal of autocratic or unpopular rulers . It also manifests itself through the manipulation of the United States’ perception of its own security, and what the enhancement of that security requires. A prime contemporary example of this trend is the support that some truly grim regimes in the Arab world have been able to extract from the present administration, in exchange for security cooperation. To make attempts at lobbying based on assertions about the role of superpower states in general, or the conditions of unipolarity, is a less transparent way of trying to influence American policy today. Arguably, such initiative is aided by the generally positivist conception of the social sciences in the United States at present. Faith in the existence of valid laws of state behaviour opens the door to manipulation of that behaviour through the manipulation of how such laws are understood. For instance, consider the ways in which South Asian governments interacted with the ‘domino theory’ during the Vietnam War era.

The most common way in which unipolarity is used as a justification for policy by liberals is to assert the moral responsibility of the superpower to at least lead the drive towards greater international justice. Likewise, the classical realist response is to develop and immediate and abiding concern about new great powers rising to challenge the superpower: hence the intense present concern about China. Both perspectives are important for understanding how the idea of unipolarity affects policy prescriptions.

I think I basically just need to poke at these ideas for a few more hours – as well as reading some more sources – and I will have a decent, though perhaps somewhat unusual, paper and presentation.

Gay marriage back in the news

I wrote previously on an almost identical issue, but that which needs to be said generally needs to be said again.

Apparently Conservatice Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to re-open the debate about gay marriage. At present, it is legal for same-sex couples to get married in Canada. This is a good thing for precisely the same reasons that it is good that couples of different races can get married: it is a simple requirement within a just and equitable society. The fact that homosexuality makes some people uncomfortable is no excuse whatsoever for discrimination. Likewise, the existence of certain traditions about what marriage has meant to some people must not preclude a societal definition that is blind to arbitrary factors. Particular churches can decide for themselves what kind of unions they want to bless and what kind of ceremonies they want to host, but under the law there must be equality and the protection of minority rights.

I am entirely confident that we will look back upon this issue in fifty years time the same way we look back on racially segregated schools today. That is to say, we will see it as a matter where governments took an astonishingly long time to accept a policy that is obviously a moral imperative. Canada’s legal history with regards to homosexuality is certainly not a sterling one. As recently as 1967, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Everett Klippert could be jailed as a ‘dangerous sexual offender’ simply on the grounds that he was likely to engage in consensual homosexual sex with adults. He was still in prison until 1971: two years after the Trudeau government decriminalized homosexuality. (See the CBC Timeline)

As regards the Harper government, this is indirectly a positive development. His only hope of getting a majority government in the next election is to prove that the Conservatives can be trusted with one. People are rightly distrustful, because of exactly the kind of political currents that have led to this announcement. Now, we just need the Liberals to clean themselves up quite a bit, get a strong new leader, and turn themselves back into the best option Canadians can hope for at the federal level.

On the importance of hope and dedication

Happy birthday Elise Haynes

Tonight, I have been speaking with friends of mine about the challenges of these living generations, and the opportunities afforded to us. On the basis of our wealth, we can diminish and subdue the greatest scourges that impact humanity: scourges of poverty and disease. On the basis of our compassion, we might overcome the forces that drive us apart from one another, when we are fundamentally so close. We are inescapably pressed together in such a tiny corner of the cosmos.

Imagine if John Kennedy’s inaugural address could be modified, so as to serve the great challenge of our time:

We choose to [end extreme poverty] in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.

We can deal with the horrors of infectious disease and poverty. We can work to mitigate the warlike and genocidal qualities of dictators and governments. We can and must work for a better world. It is my enduring hope, and all my faith in humanity, that we shall.

The World is Flat

The World is Flat cover In The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman provides a reasonable introduction to some aspects of globalization for the general audience. The strength of the book lies much more in the examples than in the analysis, which can sometimes be glib and patronizing. Even so, I would personally have appreciated fewer wonder stories about the internet transforming business and more discussion of the kind that concludes the book: on the complexities and caveats of the globalization process.

Friedman’s argument that the ‘world is flat’ strikes me as little more than a different way of saying that it is ‘smaller.’ Further perpetuation of the outrageously false notion that the world was thought flat pre-Columbus is never welcome. Sorry, Mr. Friedman, but Eratosthenes of Cyrene identified the size and shape of the Earth correctly back in the 2nd century BCE. That trifling correction aside, it can be little disputed that Friedman uses his analogy far, far too often.

At its best, the book is a fairly robust defence of the practice of outsourcing. Friedman argues effectively that the benefits are nearly universal, while still pointing out the importance of having societal systems to assist those who are harmed by the changes. Insofar as the book demonstrates the extent to which change and competition look set to become ever-more constant features of the lives of all people, I find it worrisome. India and China might not be quite as ready to take over as he seems to indicate, but the extent of competition in an increasingly globalized world has undeniably expanded. Like most people, I worry about whether I am going to be able to manage.

Friedman’s analysis of global terrorism includes some insightful discussion: especially with regards to the importance of humiliation as a motivating phenomenon. Understanding the psychology of terrorism – and why well-educated Saudis have become suicide bombers, but virtually no Indian Muslims or any type – is clearly essential for dealing with the problem.

In summary, while the book is overly long and sometimes lacking in analytical quality, it is worthwhile to have a look through, especially if you’re looking for examples of how business practices are changing as the result of increased global communications, competition, and supply chains. I don’t think The Economist was entirely justified in calling the book “a dreary failure,” but it certainly isn’t a stunning success.

Changing gears, I am going to read Alain de Botton’s Essays in Love next. It has been on my discretionary reading list for so long now that I can’t remember who was the other party to my promise that I would read it.

On sleeping with an elephant

Happy Birthday Anna Gillibrand

At various times, people have asked me why I write so much about the United States: about the foreign and domestic politics of the US, about official American stances on issues from torture to climate change. The answer, of course, is that the American position on these matters is of crucial importance. Indeed, I would assert that the decisions being made in Washington are more important for Canadians than the ones being made in Ottawa. We’re a rich, sovereign nation, of course, but we are forever bound to a nation that seems likely to forever surpass us in wealth, power, and global prominence. Canadians cling to what shreds of national determination we have – socialized health care (a very fine idea), peacekeeping (likewise), and the like – and yet, our ability to control our own destinies has everything to do with our great neighbour to the south remaining on the path of sanity. To my infinite dismay, the adherence of that state to that path has not been as good as might be hoped.

As such, we are probably better off spending our time talking to open-minded Americans before their elections than we are in voting in our own elections.

Of course, we can and must do both. Even so, you simply cannot be a small country, in every important sense, beside a big country and not become critically vulnerable to those whims. As Canadians, we need to understand those whims, and direct them along a path that is productive rather than destructive. One that will give us the chance to live good and decent lives in a world rife with threats and stupidity.

Draft RDE complete

Two hours before my self-imposed deadline (to be brutally enforced by Claire), I finished a solid first draft of my research design essay, including two appendices. Weighing in at about 5000 words, sans appendices, it is right in the middle of the range from minimum to maximum length, leaving me some space to correct errors that my two much appreciated peer-editors point out before Sunday.

Many thanks to Meghan and Claire for throwing themselves in front of that bullet.

If you feel left out for not getting a copy, download one here (PDF). Please leave me comments ranging from “this word is spelled incorrectly” to “the entire methodological construction of this project is hopeless, for the following intelligent and well-articulated reasons.” The linked PDF doesn’t include the appendices because they are separate Word files and I don’t have software to merge PDF files with me. They really shouldn’t be necessary, anyhow.

[Update: 27 May 2006] I have a slightly revised version up, based on my own editing. Still waiting for comprehensive responses from external readers.

Unintentional auto-satire

For a while, I was planning to simply ignore these videos, produced by the ‘Competitive Enterprise Institute,’ but they have now been sent to me enough times to indicate that this hopelessly disingenuous message is getting out. Let’s go through them, one by one:

Energy

Nobody in their right mind denies that carbon dioxide is “essential to life” or that “we breathe it out.” What any competent scientist will tell you is that releasing masses of it affects the way in which the atmosphere deals with the radiant energy from the sun. Higher concentrations of gasses of certain kinds (CO2, methane, etc) in the atmosphere cause the planet to absorb and retain more solar energy. That raises the mean global temperature and reduces the ratio of frozen to liquid water on earth. CO2 isn’t a pollutant, in the toxic sense, but it does affect how the earth is affected by the sun.

Regarding the issue of whether fuels that emit CO2 have “freed us from a world of backbreaking labour,” they probably have. That said, that doesn’t mean they are the only way we can avoid such suffering, nor does it mean that such alleviation comes without a cost.

Glaciers

Producing two scientific papers that show that specific ice sheets are growing or increasing in density doesn’t mean that the world overall isn’t experiencing global warming. While there is plenty of dispute about how bad global warming would be and how much it would cost to stop, to deny that it is happening on the basis of such a flimsy argument is worse than irresponsible.

It’s almost astonishing that anyone would be driven to respond to such absolute malarky. Likewise, I can’t believe that anyone who participated in the creation of these videos did so with genuine intent. They are absurd at the level of the “Amendment Song” from The Simpsons or many Monty Python sketches. If such things actually have the power to shape public opinion, we are in even worse shape than I thought.

Do you think these people are on crack? Whether you do or don’t, send an email to Myron Ebell, their Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy. It seems that messages to him need to go through this email address.

Animal testing in Oxford

For about an hour today, I spoke with Lee Jones while he was handing out Pro-Test leaflets on Cornmarket Street. For those outside Oxford – or those who have spent the last few months in a local cave, with fingers in their ears – Pro-Test is a group which promotes the use of animal testing in medical research, in opposition to groups like SPEAK and the Animal Liberation Front who have been agitating against the animal lab that is under construction near Rhodes House. Along with legitimate protests and demonstrations, some anti-testing groups have threatened construction workers and members of the university, as part of their campaign to stop the lab from being built. Similar protests in Cambridge led to the cancellation of an animal lab project there.

I do believe that animals are morally considerable, to a certain extent. That’s part of why I refrain from eating them. I don’t think there’s a rational basis for a harsh divide between humans and other animals. That said, there is a balance of competing moral claims. We need new antibiotics to deal with resistant bacteria. We need vaccines for HIV/AIDS and malaria. Oxford is the only organization in the world presently conducting second stage clinical trials on vaccines both both malaria and HIV/AIDS, as well as new treatments for tuberculosis. We need new surgical procedures and drugs to limit the harm caused to people around the world by infectious disease: a far more lethal phenomenon than war and terrorism put together. Developing all of these things fundamentally requires limited usage of animal testing. No computer models are adequate for dealing with the sophistication of animal biochemistry; likewise, it is irresponsible to test drugs and procedures on human beings, even volunteers, before basic toxological and side effect screenings have been completed.

Protections for laboratory animals in the UK are already extremely strong: far, far more robust than sanitary and ethical guidelines in the factory farming industry (which should be the real target for those concerned about animal cruelty). While alternatives to animal testing should be investigated, and employed where appropriate, the moral imperative to lessen the suffering caused by disease requires the continued development and use of facilities such as that under construction at Oxford.

Those interested in hearing Pro-Tests side of the story should consider attending an open public meeting on Monday the 22nd. It is happening from 7:00 to 9:00pm at the Oxford town hall and will include presentations from scientists, a Member of Parliament, and members of Pro-Test. They are also holding a demonstration on Saturday, June 3rd – starting at 11:45am on Parks Road.

Draft research design paper introduction

Preamble

‘Policy making’ can be understood as the application of judgment to problems, on the part of those empowered to make choices that will affect the matters in question. Global environmental policy making, in particular, involves heightened difficulties related to the process of acting upon the world. Firstly, with regards to such large and complex matters as climate change and the management of ecosystems, our understanding of the objective nature of the world is uncertain. This applies both to the functioning of the natural world in the absence of specific human prompts and to the impact that choices made by human beings and organizations will have within the context of natural processes. On the one hand, for instance, we have an imperfect understanding of the functioning of food webs in the absence of human involvement. On the other, we have an incomplete understanding of the effects of pesticide use on those processes.

The major vehicle through which questions about the nature of the world and the consequences of human action are accessed is science. ‘Science’ exists as a collection of methodologies, epistemic communities, and ideals. While the role of science as an entity involved in policy making may seem initially straightforward, complexities arise rapidly. Crucially, these involve the balance between making judgments about ontological questions under circumstances of uncertainly and the balance of making judgments between alternative courses of action. On one hand, for example, scientists can assess the distribution of fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests conducted above islands in the Pacific; on the other, groups of concerned scientists can call for the discontinuation of such tests.

The perceived appropriateness of each of those roles, on the part of scientists, is reflective of the credibility of scientists as individuals and members of communities and organizations, as well as the political understandings that exist about the relationship between expert knowledge and power. All viable environmental policies must be created in light of existing and emerging expert knowledge, but the question of arbitration between descriptive and prescriptive claims is one that raises fundamental issues about how science and policy do, can, and should relate.

The question

This thesis will examine the relationship between science and global environmental policy making on two conceptually separable but intertwined levels. It will so so firstly on the practical level of how environmental science and scientists have been involved in the development of laws and institutions and secondly at the more theoretical level of the understood relationship between the actual communities and idealized roles of scientists and policy makers. While the general answers for each level will be generated through different methodological means, it can be hoped that the insights generated will be mutually reinforcing.

In order to engage with the practical questions of how science has affected policy making, this thesis will examine two case studies: the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The first can be seen as an example of a mechanism where a scientific understanding emerged of the issue in question and a reasonably effective legal regime for its mitigation emerged. The second example demonstrates a situation in which, for reasons which shall be examined, a similar progression from issue identification to effective policy action has not taken place. The contrast between the cases will hopefully allow for the isolation of important variables, on the basis of the comparative study of preparatory documentation and the first-hand impressions of the participants.

The theoretical component of this thesis will use the controversy surrounding the publication of Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist in 2001 as a starting point for addressing the internal debate within the scientific and policy communities about the role that science and scientists should play in the making of decisions that entail both potentially enormous costs and equally serious risks. The theoretical discussion will also involve the examination of the secondary literature on the philosophy of science, as well as the relationship of science and policy in related fields: such as global health and development studies.

The thesis will consider the competing hypotheses that the general understanding of science as a descriptive adjunct to the prescriptive policy making process is broadly valid, that is is overly simplistic given the multifaceted nature of the epistemic communities involved, and that it might be a fundamentally inappropriate way of representing a corpus of thinking, institutions, and individuals which is actually incapable of operating without concealed normative maneuverings. These possibilities will be assessed through consideration of the examples listed above, as well as the analysis of primary and secondary documentation.

See also: Research design essay planning (15 May 2006)

Government and secrecy

With increasingly credible revelations about illegal surveillance within the United States, the general concern I’ve felt for years about the present administration is becoming progressively more acute. To be fiscally reckless and socially crusading is one thing. To authorize actions that blatantly violate international law (in the case of torture, rendition, and the indefinite detention of noncombatants) as well as domestic law (by disregarding constitutional safeguards and checks on power) an administration shifts from being simply unappealing to actually being criminal. You can’t just throw away the presumption of innocence and probable cause while maintaining the fiction that the foundational rules upon which a lawful society is based are not being discarded.

Perhaps the most worrisome of all the recent developments are the actions and statements being made against the press. I don’t know if there is any truth to the claim that the phones of ABC reporters are being tapped in hopes of identifying confidential sources, but the general argument that wide-ranging governmental activities must be kept secret for the sake of security is terrifying. If history and the examination of the contemporary world reveal anything, it is that protection from government is at least as important as protection from outside threats. As I wrote in the NASCA report (PDF):

Protection of the individual from unreasonable or arbitrary power – in the hands of government and its agents – is a crucial part of the individual security of all citizens in democratic states. While terrorists have shown themselves to be capable of causing enormous harm with modest resources, the very enormity state power means that it can do great harm through errors or by failing to create and maintain proper checks on authority.

Harm to citizens needn’t occur as the result of malice; the combination of intense secrecy and the inevitability of mistakes ensure that such harm will result. Anyone who doubts the capability of the American government and administration to make mistakes need only think of their own explanations for the Hurricane Katrina response, Abu Ghraib, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and all the rest.

Three of the NASCA report’s recommendations speak to the issue of secrecy and accountability specifically:

Security measures that are put in place should, wherever possible, require public justification and debate.
The perspective of security as a trade-off should be pro-actively presented to the public through outreach that emphasizes transparency.
With regards to domestic defence planning, military practice reliant upon secrecy should always be subsidiary to civil and legal oversight.

People both inside and outside the United States would be safer if such guidelines were followed. When even Fox News is opening articles with statements such as the one that follows, something has gone badly wrong.

The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

A legitimate government cannot operate under a general principle of secrecy. While there are certainly cases where secrecy serves a justifiable purpose – such as concealing the identity of the victim of some forms of crime, or the exact location of certain kinds of military facilities – a democratic government cannot retreat from accountability by its citizens by claiming that oversight creates vulnerability. The lack of oversight creates a much more worrisome vulnerability: worrisome for America, and worrisome for everyone who has faith in the fundamental values of democracy and justice upon which it is ostensibly founded.