Research Library

2005
Domínguez, Jorge I. 2005. “Bush Administration Policy: A View toward Latin America.” ReVista.

Much of the recent debate on global economic imbalances has centred on Chinese exchange-rate policy. China has a balance of payments surplus. The People's Bank of China has been buying some $20bn a month in its attempt to keep the renminbi's parity with the US dollar stable.

American legislators are concerned about the advantage that a weak currency gives Chinese exporters. The US Treasury has given the Chinese six months to act on the currency and has appointed Olin Wethington as a special envoy to carry the message to Beijing. The Chinese authorities fear that a currency appreciation might worsen social and regional imbalances. An appreciation might slow job creation in manufacturing, worsening urban unemployment. It would lower the relative price of agricultural products, thus reducing rural income. Is there an alternative solution?

Excessive savings are at the root of the imbalance in China. In spite of China's impressive investment rate, its domestic savings rate is even higher and it attracts massive foreign direct investment. This abundance of savings is what is expressed in the external imbalance. A misallocation of resources occurs. Consumption is foregone, sacrificing the welfare of today's low-income generation not for the benefit of future, wealthier generations but in order to accumulate unneeded low-yielding foreign assets.

A reduction in China's savings rate could correct the imbalance. It would lead to faster growth and job creation and improve the welfare of the present generation. It would reduce the balance of payments surplus and stimulate faster global growth through increased exports to China. The increased internal demand would raise the rate of return of investment projects in China that cater to the domestic market. With proper macroeconomic management, even higher rates of investment and growth could be achieved.

But can China grow even faster than its current high rate? High growth becomes unsustainable when the economy becomes constrained by an insufficient supply of critical inputs. Usually, investment demand exceeds savings, bringing about a destabilising current account deficit. In other cases, high growth is checked by labour shortages and inadequate infrastructure. These shortages create inflationary pressures associated with currency depreciation, rising labour costs and bottlenecks.

In spite of China's rapid growth, these symptoms appear to be absent. The country exhibits an excess of savings over investment. Policymakers are concerned about unemployment rather than labour shortages. Infrastructure is expanding at an impressive pace. Inflation has remained low, with core inflation (excluding energy and food) almost nil. This suggests that the economy's speed limit may well be higher than the current growth rate.

An acceleration of growth would create pressures towards real appreciation, because the supply of importable goods is usually more elastic than that of non-tradables. In the context of faster job growth and incipient inflationary pressures, the Chinese authorities would be much more willing to allow an appreciation of the renminbi.

The reduction in savings could be engineered through either fiscal or monetary expansion. There are reasons not to choose the latter. First, an eventual credit expansion would be channelled through an already fragile banking system. Credit booms often end in tears. Second, a credit-induced expansion is likely to allocate the additional spending to those who can provide collateral. This would have the wrong distributive consequences both socially and regionally.

A fiscal solution has several advantages. First, it can be targeted to favour the regions and the social groups that have fallen behind. Second, it avoids the problem-ridden banking system. Third, it can address other developmental and social goals, such as housing, urban development and infrastructure. Moreover, the country can afford a fiscal expansion. Its debt level is barely 26 per cent of gross domestic product.

A fiscal solution is not without dangers. These include corruption, the risk of poorly designed programmes, allocations that are not compatible with sustainable development and the creation of entitlements that may be difficult to reverse.

As a response to the 2001 recession, the US Treasury allowed the fiscal deficit to widen by more than 5 percentage points of GDP. Public debt was put on a rising trend. When Mr Wethington meets the Chinese authorities, he might mention the US experience with expansionary fiscal policy. After all, what is good for the goose...

The right-wing columnist used my work to bash Dean and MoveOn as elitists—conveniently ignoring the big-money interests that pull the GOP's strings.

Are MoveOn.org and Howard Dean, who is about to be named chairman of the Democratic National Committee, major threats to democracy in America -- and bastions of elitism within the Democratic Party? That is what David Brooks would have us believe. His Feb. 5 Op-Ed column in the New York Times invoked my 2003 book, "Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life," in support of the notion that a secularist, "newly dominant educated class" is using advocacy groups and Internet fundraising to take over the Democratic Party. In Brooks' vision of politics, Republicans have meanwhile morphed into a true party of ordinary people.

I was not a "Deaniac" in the 2004 election, but I must protest the way Brooks has used my research to support his claims. Democrats today certainly face challenges in building broad coalitions of educated professionals and populist supporters. But MoveOn and the Dean campaign have gotten more people involved, not fewer, in the party. Republicans, meanwhile, can hardly brag that they represent the values of ordinary Americans. Their effort to destroy the popular and inclusive Social Security program, a plan hatched by ultra-right advocacy groups and think tanks, is a textbook case of manipulative elitism and faux-populist conservatism.

Brooks got part of my argument right. For much of U.S. history, large voluntary associations and social movements mobilized millions of Americans from all walks of life to become active in community life and national politics. Reform crusades, fraternal associations, women's federations, veterans associations, farm organizations and trade unions all encouraged members to meet regularly and pool their energies to affect social trends and political decisions at the local, state and national level. Women's groups championed programs for families and children; trade unions and fraternal groups supported Social Security; and the American Legion—a rather conservative veterans association—wrote and lobbied for the G.I. Bill of 1944, one of the most generous social programs in American history.

But voluntary associations changed rapidly after the 1960s. Many that linked men or women across class lines went into sharp decline, with aging memberships and faltering local chapters. Battered by opposition from business as well as industrial shifts, blue-collar trade unions also went into a free fall. Meanwhile, professionally run advocacy groups proliferated.

Big social and political changes converged to remake the face of American civic democracy after 1960. The civil rights and feminist movements challenged the racism and gender segregation of traditional membership associations. Foundation grants, television and computers made it easy for educated professionals to launch single-issue national associations without regular members or local chapters. In the late 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of freshly fashioned advocacy groups, think tanks and PACs pursued liberal causes such as equal rights for women and environmentalism. By the 1980s, conservatives had counterattacked, founding their own professionally run groups, mostly funded by the very wealthy, to advocate for causes such as lower taxes, deregulation of business, "family values" and opposition to abortion.

Through the 1990s, conservatives became more adept than liberals at building bridges between professionally run groups and surviving voluntary associations, learning to coordinate with evangelical churches and groups like the National Right to Life Association and the National Rifle Association. The Republican Party mobilized millions and reaped the benefits in the voting booth. By contrast, most of the Democratic Party's advocacy groups lacked local roots or the capacity to mobilize large numbers of citizens into politics. Issues also divided Democrats, as old-style New Deal liberalism was often at odds with "new" liberalism and public interest liberalism.

Brooks reports these findings from my research accurately enough, but he presents an oddly one-sided and partisan picture of elitist threats in American politics and civic life today. True, just as educated middle-class people often send checks to public interest advocacy groups, liberals with college degrees may appear in disproportionate numbers on the e-mail lists of MoveOn.org and the Dean campaign. But both of these efforts at mobilization have surely expanded the ranks of people involved in politics, reducing the sway of big donors and "insider" professional consultants in the Democratic Party.

The Dean campaign encouraged voters to gather in one another's houses, not just send checks to a central office. And not all "educated class" Americans (Brooks' phrase) live in Berkeley, Calif., or Cambridge, Mass. My sister is a librarian in West Virginia who regularly gives small amounts to support MoveOn's ad campaigns—which, Brooks to the contrary, are mounted on populist issues as well as in opposition to the Iraq war. These days, for example, MoveOn is running a campaign to expose the huge cuts in guaranteed Social Security benefits that privatization would entail. Republicans are suing to stop the campaign—obviously concerned that it might resonate with ordinary voters well beyond Berkeley.

Brooks is not entirely wrong about tensions among more and less privileged Democrats. But notice that he never mentions class tensions and advocacy ideologues in the Republican Party.

Right after the 2004 election, President Bush and many of his party and elite allies suddenly claimed a mandate to "reform" Social Security, going to great lengths to disguise the fact that the reform they favor would actually unravel Social Security in short order. Conservatives' campaign to sell the privatization of Social Security is a prime example of the manipulative elitism that now dominates so much of the Republican Party's agenda. Republicans may have populist allies when patriotism and certain lifestyle issues appear to be at stake, but when it comes to tax cuts for the rich and social policy cuts for the majority they disguise what they are doing—because on these matters ordinary Americans, even those who vote Republican, do not always share the values and priorities of Republican business supporters and ideological elites.

Even conservative Christian associations allied with the Republican Party are wary about trying to persuade their members to buy into Social Security privatization. Crucial for the poor, the disabled, survivors of deceased workers and the elderly, Social Security is a supremely pro-family program. Its decent retirement benefits are guaranteed for life, allowing beneficiaries to live in dignity and freeing working parents to invest in their children's future (rather than devoting most of their time and resources to caring for Grandma and Grandpa). Ideologues who want to shatter Social Security into millions of isolated market accounts know that they can succeed only by bamboozling large numbers of people—labeling modest, long-term problems an immediate "crisis" and failing to own up to the cuts they plan in guaranteed benefits.

Although Brooks implies that the Republican Party is the true populist party these days, the party did not adopt the privatization proposal at the urging of voluntary, grass-roots membership associations or a broad-based social movement. Bush got the idea from right-wing think tanks such as the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. What's more, the privatization campaign has been fueled by big-money donors who favor unfettered markets and, in many cases, hope to profit from fees paid by the government to Wall Street for managing the new private accounts. Democrats should no doubt be touched that Brooks is so worried about the challenges our party faces in building broad coalitions and appealing to vast numbers of ordinary citizens—in both red and blue states. But since 2000, when the need to hang together became starkly clear, Democrats, organized in all kinds of associations, have been trying hard to bridge the concerns of different social constituencies. Still, Democrats do need to take care lest single-issue causes appealing to the privileged take our focus away from broad appeals to average citizens, many of whom have not been to college.

But Brooks should worry more about the elitist ideologues and unhinged advocacy groups in his own party and movement. Perhaps he should pursue a sociology of "W. Bushism," examining how the pet causes of right-wing think tanks could undercut the populist appeal of Republicans. Right-wingers determined to fetter government as a tool for spreading opportunity and ensuring security for most citizens are much more of an elitist threat to American democracy than "Deanism." Before long, millions of voters may come to realize this.

Rodrik, Dani, Arvind Subramanian, and Nancy Birdsall. 2005. “How to Help Poor Countries”. Abstract

The year 2005 has become the year of development. In September, at the UN Millennium Summit meeting of heads of state, in New York, leaders of wealthy nations will emphasize their commitment to deeper debt relief and increased aid programs for developing countries. The Millennium Development Goals, the centerpiece of the conference’s program, call for halving the levels of world poverty and hunger by 2015.

The summit will focus on increasing international aid to 0.7 percent of donors’ gross national product to finance a doubling of aid transfers to especially needy areas, particularly in Africa.With respect to global trade, efforts will center on the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations and opening markets to important exports (such as cotton) from developing countries. The discussions will thus proceed based on two implicit but critical underlying assumptions: that wealthy nations can materially shape development in the poor world and that their efforts to do so should consist largely of providing resources to and trading opportunities for poor countries.

George F. Kennan, diplomat, historian, writer, died on March 17. Excerpts from Karl Kaiser’s eulogy.

I am one of the millions of Europeans who benefited from George Kennan’s contribution, for I speak to you as a citizen of the peacefully united Germany, a democracy again, and the new Europe which is no longer divided into two hostile camps of communism and democracy, where the possibility of war has practically disappeared, and unprecedented unity is being created by the European Union.

It is this new Europe, for which George Kennan strove throughout his extraordinary life, as an analyst who frequently exposed its problems with surgical precision, as an advocate who was often ahead of his time, changing views and affecting policies, often misunderstood and criticized, ready to oppose what he considered wrong, always relevant.

Europeans remember him for his essential contribution to rebuilding Europe with the Marshall Plan and the Containment Policy as the two complementary centerpieces of U.S. policy. Containment, for which he laid the conceptual foundation, formed the basis of American foreign policy from the Truman Doctrine to the creation of NATO. The freedom of Berlin and of Western Europe is unimaginable without them.

It is true that Kennan later complained that containment was misunderstood and that the policy overreacted in military terms to the Soviet threat. But in 1967, NATO did exactly what Kennan had always advocated by adding to its goals a political dimension that sought dialogue and accommodation with the adversary. In the end, it was this combination of the military and political dimension, of deterrence and detente, which led to the demise of communism.

Kennan played a vital role in establishing the Marshall Plan, perhaps the most intelligent and forward-looking act of American foreign policy. It helped to rebuild Western Europe’s economy, supported the restoration of democracy and established the foundation for transatlantic economic interdependence.

Without the Marshall Plan and America’s continuous support of European integration with Franco-German reconciliation at its heart, we would not have Europe as an essential part of our Western community today, nor could that community continue to play a crucial role in this turbulent century without America actively supporting European unity.

Europeans also remember Kennan for his contribution to detente and to overcoming the division of Europe. Of course, that outcome is unthinkable without the contribution of the detente policy of American administrations from John F. Kennedy onward.

Nor is it imaginable that Gorbachev would have been able to release East Germany, the most important trophy of the world war unleashed by Germany, without the groundwork laid in the preceding decades by Western detente policy and German "Ostpolitik" which helped to rebuild trust and cooperation between Bonn and Moscow.

But Kennan’s views and voice played a crucial role in these processes by proposing alternative ideas for dealing with the East-West conflict and by offering interpretations of the Soviet Union which stressed the evolutionary potential of the country. Throughout his life, he preached patience when it came to fostering democracy in other countries and that statecraft should rely on and encourage the indigenous forces that could create it.

As I know from personal experience, Chancellor Willy Brandt revered him. In the early sixties, Kennan once came through Berlin on his way back from Moscow and gave Brandt his assessment of developments in Soviet leadership at the time. He told Brandt not to be afraid in pursuing new policies with the East. "Have courage," he said. His assessment and advice undoubtedly encouraged Brandt to develop a new approach, which later took shape as "Ostpolitik." Brandt met with Kennan repeatedly and always paid attention to his writings.

As a skeptic of human nature, Kennan considered nuclear weapons to be too dangerous to be put in human hands. As he put it: "War between great peoples in the modern age—total war—is a madness from which nobody can benefit." The destruction of Hamburg and Berlin, two cities he knew very well, shocked him profoundly.

As nuclear weapons became increasingly important in Western security policy, he constantly criticized what he called "grotesque deterrence," supporting and inspiring those critics in the U.S. and Europe who advocated arms control and disarmament in this field—a stance more important today than ever as these awful weapons may fall in the hands of jihad terrorists.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it was not a forgone conclusion that the Cold War would end without a bloodbath. To be sure, the wise and prudent statesmanship of the leaders of that time was decisive, but they acted within an environment of trends and ideas that encouraged them to recognize a historical opportunity they fortunately grasped. Kennan’s contribution was vital in creating that very environment.

Today is therefore the moment for Europeans who now live in a free and reunited continent to express thanks to this extraordinary man. We Europeans honor him as an example of the very best in the American diplomatic tradition that proceeds on the basis of careful analysis, that seeks to understand the driving forces of other countries, in particular its adversaries, and that attempts to act as much as possible on the basis of a consensual and multilateral approach which respects international law and involves allies. As Germany’s Federal President Horst Koehler put it in a letter of condolence to Mrs. Kennan: "He remains an example to every young diplomat."

Friedman, Benjamin M. 2005. “Think Again: Homeland Security.” Foreign Policy. Publisher's Version

If hard power is characterised by the use of military force to project our will, then the essence of soft power lies in values, in our culture and in the way we handle ourselves internationally. Soft power is about creating a sense of legitimacy for a nation's international aims.

To understand what's happening in US foreign policy you have to start with 9/11. Before that date the Bush administration had been running on a fairly traditional realist platform; no more nation-building, and a broadly unilateralist approach to foreign policy. After 9/11 the Bush administration realised this had to change.

Credit must be given to the Bush government for the speed in which they realised traditional conceptions of threats to national security had changed. However, what they are still struggling with is how to combat diffuse non-state actors, primarily in the form of al-Qa'ida.

Hard power, which is so successful at one level, does play a role in the war on terrorism, but it is not quite the role you first expect. Hard military power did topple the Taliban, something soft-power was in no position to do. However, if you look at the number of Taliban fighters actually killed in Afghanistan, you're looking at maybe no more than a third.

In order to win the war on terror therefore, you also need soft power. You need the stick but you also need the carrot. Bombing and land invasions of countries harbouring and fomenting terrorism are important, but we must employ greater public diplomacy in order to attract people away from militant Islam. If the US would divert even 1 per cent of its defence budget to public diplomacy it would signal a quadrupling of the budget currently given to those looking to implement soft power rather than hard.

To conclude, what is important is not soft power or hard power alone. It's a combination. Our military power stopped Soviet aggression, but it was our soft power which fostered cultural progression and sympathy to our aims and stopped states from falling into the hands of communism.

The American public has consistently declared itself less concerned with foreign affairs in the post-Cold War era, even after 9/11, than at any time since World War II. How can it be, then, that public attentiveness to U.S. foreign policy crises has increased? This book represents the first systematic attempt to explain this apparent paradox. Matthew Baum argues that the answer lies in changes to television's presentation of political information. In so doing he develops a compelling "byproduct" theory of information consumption. The information revolution has fundamentally changed the way the mass media, especially television, covers foreign policy. Traditional news has been repackaged into numerous entertainment-oriented news programs and talk shows. By transforming political issues involving scandal or violence (especially attacks against America) into entertainment, the "soft news" media have actually captured more viewers who will now follow news about foreign crises, due to its entertainment value, even if they remain uninterested in foreign policy.

Baum rigorously tests his theory through content analyses of traditional and soft news media coverage of various post-WWII U.S. foreign crises and statistical analyses of public opinion surveys. The results hold key implications for the future of American politics and foreign policy. For instance, watching soft news reinforces isolationism among many inattentive Americans. Scholars, political analysts, and even politicians have tended to ignore the soft news media and politically disengaged citizens. But, as this well-written book cogently demonstrates, soft news viewers represent a largely untapped reservoir of unusually persuadable voters.

Christia, Fotini. 2005. “Uzbekistan's Tiananmen”. Publisher's Version Abstract

THE BLOODY protests in Uzbekistan's Andijan square have exposed the Bush administration's Janus-faced policy on regime change. Recent talk of spreading democracy and bringing freedom to the oppressed sits very uneasily with the ''yes, he is a bastard but he is our bastard" approach, reminiscent of the Cold War, which has guided US relations with Uzbekistan. In this case—unlike Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan—America's ally of choice is not a pro-democracy revolutionary but a proven despot, the Uzbek leader Islam Karimov. Plagued with political repression and economic disenfranchisement as well as a rise in Islamism, Uzbekistan is a case in point as to why the United States cannot and should not have it both ways.

The most populous republic in Central Asia, Uzbekistan is rich in natural resources and the world's second biggest cotton producer after China. Despite its economic potential, Uzbekistan's growth and living standards are among the lowest in the former Soviet Union. Dominated by Karimov since the republic's independence in 1991, the Uzbek political scene has become increasingly repressive. After strategically aligning himself with the United States in the war against terror and offering an Uzbek military base for US military operations in neighboring Afghanistan, Karimov has used the threat of radical Muslim unrest to justify the persecution and oppression of his political opponents.

No opposition parties are recognized and Karimov's regime has decimated Uzbek civil society: there are practically no independent local NGOs and no freedom of expression or association. Independent media operations have been driven underground and foreign correspondents forced to leave the country. Despite a constitutional ban on censorship, local journalists opposing the regime have been blacklisted. With the media neutered, no one really knows how many people have been killed or wounded in the recent protests. Estimates currently range from a few dozen to several hundred and the UN has called for an independent investigation on last week's violence.

Karimov's persecution of the secular opposition has increasingly pushed ordinary Uzbeks into the arms of radical Islamist groups. The Islamist group with the broadest appeal is Hizb-ut-Tahrir (the Islamic Party of Liberation), which claims to stand for the peaceful overthrow of the Uzbek government and the creation of a caliphate throughout Central Asia. Karimov has branded Hizb-ut-Tahrir a terrorist organization (though it is not on the US State Department List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and blames it for bombings and suicide attacks that took place in Tashkent last spring and summer. The recent protests in Andijan were in opposition to the government's indiscriminate arrests on the grounds of membership to Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

Uzbekistan therefore combines political oppression and the rise of Islamism with economic opportunity for rebellion. So far the mix has proved highly volatile. If the United States wants to avoid increased violations of human rights and the possibility of a future Islamist takeover, it must take immediate steps to strengthen civil society in Uzbekistan. Karimov has to be pressured to allow the registration of opposition parties such as ERK (Freedom), BIRLIK (Unity) and OZOD DEHQON (Free Peasants) as well as the registration of truly independent NGOs. The reintroduction of an independent media and guarantees that freedom of conscience, expression and association will be respected are also essential.

But for Karimov to commit to change credibly, all reforms have to be tied to monetary incentives. The United States, as well as international financial institutions, should make aid and loans conditional on tangible reform. This pressure would be most effective if it involved coordinated action from the United States and Russia as well as international political and financial organizations. Action has to be immediate to avert further refugee flows to Kyrgyzstan and other neighboring states that could prove highly destabilizing for the broader region.

According to one of the leading opposition figures, the Free Peasants Party General Secretary Nigora Khidoyatova, a revolution is on the way in Uzbekistan. ''Our revolution will be green," she said, alluding to her peasants' party color and pointing to an orange poster of Ukraine's Victor Yushchenko hanging on her cabinet. Unless the United States effectively pressures President Karimov to strengthen civil society and its fledgling democratic forces, a revolution will sweep Uzbekistan. And once it erupts it may very well be green: Islamist green.

Secor, Laura. 2005. “War by other means.” The Boston Globe. Publisher's Version Abstract

Boston's Gene Sharp learned how to turn nonviolence into a weapon - and helped quite literally change the world.

Gene Sharp founded the Program on Nonviolent Sanctions at the Center for International Affairs. Originally published in The Boston Globe, May 29, 2005 (http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/05/29/war_by_ot...).

Condoleezza Rice's first trip to Europe and the Middle East as secretary of state this month creates a perfect opportunity for the Bush administration to accelerate the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The stalled road map for peace envisages a final and comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2005. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, on the other hand, envisages not a peace treaty but a ''disengagement" of Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza by the end of 2005. Disengagement will reduce the tension created by the 21 Israeli settlements and the Israeli military deployed to protect them. But it does not address the need for a final peace agreement and it does nothing to remove the Israeli stranglehold over the Palestinian economy by control over Gaza's borders, port and airport.

At a time when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to fulfill the road map's preconditions for negotiating peace and recent polls show a majority of Palestinians and Israelis favor a two-state solution for the conflict, it would be a mistake to allow the unilateral disengagement to frustrate negotiated peace efforts.

Why accelerate the peace process?

The United States and its European allies are locked in a global struggle against jihadi Islamic-inspired terrorism that feeds off Muslim frustration, one source of which is perceived support for the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Ending the occupation through a negotiated peace will help win the war against terror. Cooperating with Europe within NATO to further the peace process will also help the United States heal its rift with Germany and France over Iraq. The United States has expended substantial resources without the aid of most of Europe in trying to defeat terrorism and build democracy in Iraq. It will take far fewer resources with European assistance for the United States to help Abbas control terrorism and build democracy in Palestine.

Sharon wants to slow down the peace process. He believes that Israel will achieve more security from unilateral moves such as disengaging from Gaza or building a ''security fence," than from negotiating a peace treaty. This is illusory. Palestinian violence will spiral from increased frustration with economic deprivation and the indignities of personal humiliation from the Israeli occupation with no end in sight. Real security for Israel will be found in real peace.

The United States can use the disengagement from Gaza to reduce the prospect of spiraling violence and increase Israel's long-term security with a three-part plan. First, a US-led NATO force can help the Palestinians achieve security within Gaza. With Israeli and Egyptian cooperation, the NATO force can provide security training for the Palestinian Authority and patrol Gaza's borders, port, and airport.

Second, the United States, Europe, wealthier Arab states, and other members of the international community can coordinate economic development efforts to improve the daily lives of Palestinians.

Third, the United States should propose a comprehensive peace plan and help the Israelis and Palestinians negotiate and implement it in order to resolve the critical issues of Jerusalem, borders, Palestinian refugees, and Israeli settlements.

Using NATO to coordinate security in Gaza is not far-fetched. There have already been discussions of Israel upgrading its relationship with NATO and using NATO in Gaza. To overcome Israel's historically based distrust of international peace-keeping forces, the United States should command the NATO force. An immediate benefit of a US-led NATO force in Gaza would be to ease the import and export of Palestinian goods and services. This will enable a donor-dependent Palestine to develop a more self-sustaining economy.

However, only by expediting the process of achieving a comprehensive peace agreement will the United States and its allies help to strengthen security and promote economic development in Palestine, important preconditions for a sustained democracy.

Abbas needs the strong support of the United States and the international community in order to combat Islamic extremists and violence in Gaza and the West Bank. He will gain the political legitimacy he needs with a fair resolution of the conflict. There is no lack of model agreements that propose such resolution, including the Clinton Plan, the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Plan, and the Geneva Initiative. Let the secretary of state and the administration propose their own Bush Plan and create a lasting legacy for this president by getting the parties to implement it now while the opportunity exists.

Lenore G. Martin is an associate of Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, where she co-chairs the Middle East Seminar. She is also chairman of the of the Department of Political Science at Emmanuel College.
Ferguson, Niall. 2005. “Cowboys and Indians”. Publisher's Version Abstract

"I think that this could still fail." Those words—uttered by a senior American officer in Baghdad last week—probably gave opponents of the war in Iraq, particularly those clamoring for a hasty exit, a bit of a kick. They should be careful what they wish for.

For history strongly suggests that a hasty American withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster. "If we let go of the insurgency," said another of the officers quoted anonymously last week, "then this country could fail and go back into civil war and chaos."

As many of the war's opponents seem to have forgotten, civil war and chaos tend to break out when American military interventions have been aborted. Think not only of Vietnam and Cambodia, but also of Lebanon in 1983 and Haiti in 1996. To talk glibly of "finding a way out of Iraq," as if it were just a matter of hailing a cab and heading for the Baghdad airport, is to underestimate the danger of a bloody internecine conflict among Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiites.

Instead of throwing up our hands in an irresponsible fit of despair, we need to learn not just from past disasters but also from historical victories over insurgencies. Indeed, of all the attempts in the past century by irregular indigenous forces to expel regular foreign forces, around a third have failed.

In 1917 British forces invaded Mesopotamia, got to Baghdad, overthrew its Ottoman rulers and sought—in the words of the general who led them, Sir Stanley Maude—to be its people's "liberators." The British presence in Iraq was legitimized by international law (it was designated a League of Nations mandate) and by a modicum of democracy (a referendum was held among local sheiks to confirm the creation of a British-style constitutional monarchy). Despite all this, in 1920 there was a full-scale insurgency against the continuing British military presence.

Some may object that warfare today is a very different matter from warfare 85 years ago. Yet the striking thing about the events of 1920 is how very like the events of our own time they were. The reality of what is sometimes called "asymmetric warfare" is how very symmetrical it really is: an insurgency is about leveling the military playing field, and exploiting the advantages of local knowledge to stage hit-and-run attacks against the occupiers, as well as anybody thought to be collaborating with them.

Indeed, if there is asymmetry it lies in the advantages enjoyed by the insurgents. The cost of training and equipping an American soldier is high; by contrast, life is tragically cheap among the young men of Baghdad and Falluja. Even if the insurgents lose 10 men for every 1 they kill, they are still winning, not least because the American side takes its losses so much harder.

How, then, did the British crush the insurgency of 1920? Three lessons stand out.

The first is that, unlike the American enterprise in Iraq today, they had enough men. In 1920, total British forces in Iraq numbered around 120,000, of whom around 34,000 were trained for actual fighting. During the insurgency, a further 15,000 men arrived as reinforcements.

Coincidentally, that is very close to the number of American military personnel now in Iraq (around 138,000). The trouble is that the population of Iraq was just over three million in 1920, whereas today it is around 24 million. Thus, back then the ratio of Iraqis to foreign forces was, at most, 23 to 1. Today it is around 174 to 1. To arrive at a ratio of 23 to 1 today, about one million American troops would be needed.

The United States also faces two other problems that the United Kingdom did not 85 years ago. The British were able to be ruthless: they used air raids and punitive expeditions to inflict harsh collective punishments on villages that supported the insurgents. The United States has not been above brutal methods on occasion in Iraq, yet humiliation and torture of prisoners have not yielded any significant benefits compared with what it has cost the country's reputation.

The Americans' other problem has to do with timing and expectations. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said that American forces should aim to work to a "10-30-30" timetable: 10 days should suffice to topple a rogue regime, 30 days to establish order in its wake, and 30 more days to prepare for the next military undertaking. I am all in favor of a 10-30-30 timetable—provided the measurement is years, not days. For it may well take around 10 years to establish order in Iraq, 30 more to establish the rule of law, and quite possibly another 30 to create a stable democracy.

Those American officers who say that it could take years to succeed in Iraq are therefore right. But the Bush administration has just three and a half years left. Is it credible that American troops will still be in Iraq for even another four years after that?

The insurgents don't think so. They know that American democracy puts time on their side. Once again, the contrast with the British experience is instructive. Although Iraq was formally granted its independence in 1932, there was still some form of British presence in the country until the late 1950's.

So, if we acknowledge that the United States simply does not have the luxury of time that the British enjoyed and cannot be similarly ruthless, can it at least increase the manpower at its disposal in Iraq?

The official answer from Washington is that Iraqi security forces will soon be ready to play an effective role in policing. Few who have seen those forces on the ground find this strategy realistic. Some fear that the training that Iraqi soldiers are receiving may prove useful only when they fight one another in an Iraqi civil war.

What, then, of America's own resources? Almost no one (least of all the Pentagon) wants to go back to the draft. So could today's all-volunteer force somehow be expanded to double (at least) the troops available? That too seems unlikely. Indeed, the current system is already showing alarming signs of stress and strain as more and more is asked of the "weekend warriors" of the reserves and National Guard, who account for roughly two-fifths of the force in Iraq. In December, the Army National Guard acknowledged that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the preceding two months. Many members of the Individual Ready Reserve have been contesting the Army's right to call them up.

How did the British address the manpower problem in 1920? By bringing in soldiers from India who accounted for more than 87 percent of troops in the counter-insurgency campaign. Perhaps, then, the greatest problem faced by the Anglophone empire of our own time is very simple: the United Kingdom had the Indian Army; the United States does not. Indeed, by a rich irony, the only significant auxiliary forces available to the Pentagon today are none other than ... the British Army. But those troops are far too few to be analogous to the Sikhs, Mahrattas and Baluchis who fought so effectively in 1920.

No one should wish for an overhasty American withdrawal from Iraq. It would be the prelude to a bloodbath of ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence, with inevitable spillovers into and interventions from neighboring countries. Rather, it is time to acknowledge just how thinly stretched American forces in Iraq are and to address the problem: whether by finding new allies (send Condoleezza Rice to New Delhi?); radically expanding the accelerated citizenship program for immigrants who join the army; or lowering the (historically high) educational requirements demanded by military recruiters.

YES, as that anonymous officer said, the Bush administration's policy in Iraq could indeed still fail. But too few American liberals seem to grasp how high the price will be if it does. That is a point, unfortunately, that also eludes most of this country's allies. Does it also elude the secretary of defense? If "10-30-30" are the numbers that concern him, I begin to fear that it does. The numbers that matter right now are 174 to 1. That is not only the ratio of Iraqis to American troops. It is starting to look alarmingly like the odds against American success.

Niall Ferguson, a history professor at Harvard, a Faculty Associate of the Weatherhead Center for Interational Affairs, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is the author of "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire."

Too busy taking sides in the tragedy that has befallen Terri Schiavo, we have forgotten to question the choices open to us and to her. In fact, this debate is less about dying than about how to die.

Schiavo wanted and deserved to die with dignity, yet nothing of what she received came close to a dignified death. Together with food and water, society withheld from her the option of a quiet, peaceful and swift death by active euthanasia. We should think of Schiavo as not just the victim of an accident that occurred 15 years ago, but also of a society that has structured its public conversation about matters of life, death and dignity in ways that fail to do justice to those who need it most.

Instead of asking only whether a person would prefer to die should she find herself in a permanent vegetative state, we ought to factor in the ancillary question of what kind of death she would be willing to die. As we know, in Schiavo's case, the withholding of food and water over a period of two weeks triggered chemical imbalances in her organism, and ultimately her death. She died slowly, gradually. Although she apparently did not feel any of this, her family did, and so did we.

From close or from afar, the spectacle of a human being fading away had a symbolism to it that is a heavy burden to carry. It is not unreasonable to intimate that forcing her to die this kind of death violates her right to decide how she wanted to be remembered, as U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan argued in his dissent in Cruzan vs. Director in 1990.

Schiavo was probably unfamiliar with the distinction between acts and omissions that is still a pillar of her country's legal system. She probably could not have fathomed that in her society it is legal to let someone starve to death, but illegal, unless when motivated by society's will to punish, to inject a lethal substance into that person. We find it more acceptable to see a human being dying away slowly without food and water than to imagine euthanasia.

It is hard to grasp why that should be so. The experience of other countries has proved flat wrong the familiar argument that euthanasia can be abused, which is regularly invoked in this context and has figured prominently whenever courts confronted this question. Another possible argument to the effect that actively killing someone would have a negative impact on the image of the medical profession in society wrongly assumes that removing the feeding tube followed by inaction is less damaging to how we look at our medical doctors. We are left with the conclusion that such a framework is steeped in a hypocritical belief that we society, we judges, we doctors, are not the ones ending Schiavo's life. That is a lie, and not a noble one.

We all want to die with dignity. We hope to exit this life uncrushed by the fear of our passing and of the unknown that awaits us. Death is as deeply personal as it incomprehensible, and a mature society should aim at respecting the decisions of its members about when and how to die. The laws of Terri Schiavo's country made it impossible for her to die with dignity, as she wanted, and virtually no voice echoed her all-too-human wish. She deserved better.

Vlad Perju and Paulo Daflon Barrozo are doctoral students at Harvard Law School.
Paarlberg, Robert L. 2005. “The Great Stem Cell Race.” Foreign Policy. Publisher's Version

The insurgency in Iraq goes on, but attention has shifted toward the structure of an independent government. One key issue is whether the new regime will have a state religion, as envisioned by the U.S.-imposed transitional administrative law. Research by Rachel M. McCleary and me at Harvard University's Project on Religion, Political Economy & Society suggests that the Iraqi government will have an official religion. Although separation of religion and state has long been a Western ideal, it seems politically unrealistic for Iraq.

The consequences of state religion are complicated in practice. We find that the presence of state religion encourages participation in formal religious services (likely because of governmental subsidies to organized religion) and provides a smaller boost to religious beliefs. There is a weak negative impact on economic growth. And although some rich countries such as Britain and most of Scandinavia maintain religious liberties despite having official religions, state religions tend to coincide with curbs on religious freedoms.

In our research, we used international data to isolate the demographic, social, and economic factors that lead to the establishment of a state religion. Most important is whether a country has a diversity of religions or is concentrated in a single faith. For example, in 2000, the largest U.S. group was Protestants, with 44%, whereas in Morocco it was Sunni Muslims, with 98%. We estimate that this difference made the probability of a state religion in Morocco (which had one) higher by 69 percentage points than in the U.S. (which did not).

LESS CLEAR IS WHETHER the identity of a country's main religion influences the likelihood of state religion. In 2000, among the 40 countries where more than 50% of the people were Muslim, 28 (or 70%) had a state religion. In contrast, among the 91 countries with more than 50% in a single non-Muslim religion, 42 (or only 46%) had a state religion. We found that half of the Muslim/non-Muslim difference arose because the share of population that adhered to the most popular religion was higher in Muslim countries. The rest of the difference involves a greater tendency by government to curb religious freedoms in Muslim countries.

Another important factor is that communist countries rarely have a state religion (if communism does not count as a religion). However, this influence lacks staying power: Since 1990, 15 ex-communist countries, including six Muslim ones, set up state religions.

The size of a country matters; neither very small nor very large countries tend to have state religions. For small nations, the cost of maintaining an official religious administration is simply too great. For large countries, even a small proportion of the population in minority religions constitutes a large number of people and, therefore, creates resistance to a monopoly religion supported by the government.

For Iraq, a big question is whether the stronger force toward state religion is the 96% of the population that is Muslim or the 61% that is Shiite Muslim. We analyzed this issue using estimated breakdowns of Muslim populations into Sunni, Shiite, and other sects. Sunni is by far the largest worldwide, and only Iran is mainly Shiite (86% of the people). Only a few Muslim countries have substantial representation in more than one category: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, and Yemen. Some other Muslim countries -- Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates -- are 10% to 20% Shiite. But our results suggest that overall Muslim share, not size of the most popular sect, is what influences the creation of state religion.

No model predicts perfectly, but ours gets the right answer more than 80% of the time. Thus, it is instructive that the model's probability for a state religion in Iraq is 96%. True, our method also gives neighboring Turkey an 88% probability for state religion, even though it has been officially secular for decades. One can view this mistaken prediction two ways. One is that, despite forces that favor state religion, Turkey can be a model for Iraq on how to separate church and state. The other is that Turkey's secular status represents hard-to-duplicate political influence by its strong President, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in the 1920s and '30s. Conceivably, the factors that favor a state religion will eventually generate an Islamic state in Turkey. That reversal seems more likely than Iraq's becoming a secular state.

Robert J. Barro is a professor of economics at Harvard University and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution.
Domínguez, Jorge I. 2005. “Liberty for Latin America.” Washington Post. Publisher's Version

With stem cell legislation pending on Beacon Hill, proponents and opponents have taken to the airwaves, as lawmakers and citizens struggle to think their way through the ethical and scientific thicket. In Massachusetts, the real debate is not about stem cell research as such, but about whether scientists should be allowed to use cloning techniques to create embryos for stem cell research.

The bills passed this week by the Legislature would permit stem cell cloning; Governor Mitt Romney would ban it. While much of the discussion has focused on scientific complexities, the debate is at heart about ethics.

There are two main objections to cloning embryos for stem cell research—the "right-to-life" objection, and the "brave new world" objection.

The right-to-life objection regards the embryo as inviolable, as morally equivalent to a fully developed human being. Since extracting stem cells from the blastocyst (the cluster of cells that comprise the early embryo) destroys it, those who consider the embryo a person regard such research as the taking of a human life.

The brave new world objection worries less about the embryo than about where our new scientific powers may take us. It fears that allowing scientists to use cloning techniques for stem cell research will lead us down a slippery slope to dehumanizing practices such as cloning human babies or growing fetuses in the lab for spare parts.

How persuasive are these objections? The right-to-life objection raises hard questions about the origins and sanctity of human life. But it is important to notice that the right-to-life question is not really at issue in the debate between Romney and the Legislature.

At first glance, Romney's opposition to stem cell cloning seems to be based on the idea that the embryo is inviolable and should never be destroyed for the sake of science. The principle at stake is that "no life should be exploited for the benefit of another," Romney wrote in explaining his opposition to the stem cell bill. "Every human being has inalienable rights, and first among them is life."

But this principle is too broad for Romney's position. For if he believes that embryos are human beings with inalienable rights, he should oppose all embryonic stem cell research, not only research on cloned embryos. If extracting stem cells from a blastocyst is morally equivalent to yanking organs from a baby, then it is abhorrent no matter how the embryo came into being.

But Romney favors stem cell research on embryos left over from fertility clinics, provided the parents consent. Given the rigors and uncertainties of in-vitro fertilization, most fertility clinics create more fertilized eggs than are ultimately implanted. The "spare" or "surplus" embryos are typically frozen and ultimately discarded. Some argue that, even if embryos are persons with inalienable rights, those already doomed might as well be used for stem cell research.

As Romney reasoned in a radio ad that aired this week, "These embryos would otherwise be destroyed."

The doomed embryo argument seems to offer Romney the distinction he wants: It is ethical to sacrifice surplus embryos that will die anyway, but deplorable to create embryos for the sake of research. But the distinction does not hold up, because it evades the question whether the surplus embryos should be created in the first place. The fact that US fertility clinics are allowed to create and discard excess embryos is as much a policy choice as whether to permit cloning for stem cell research.

If Romney believes that embryos are persons, he should condemn the creation and destruction of excess embryos in fertility clinics as vigorously as he is opposing stem cell cloning. If, on the other hand, he believes the creation and sacrifice of embryos in fertility clinics is morally acceptable, it's not clear why he doesn't consider the creation and sacrifice of embryos for stem cell research also acceptable. After all, both practices serve worthy ends; in fact, curing diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's is at least as important as treating infertility.

There is nothing inconsistent in a principled right-to-life position that opposes all stem cell research and all fertility treatments that create and discard excess embryos.

But Romney can't have it both ways. He cannot oppose stem cell cloning on the grounds that it violates the embryo's inalienable right to life and at the same time defend fertility treatments that create surplus embryos and stem cell research that uses them.

In the face of this difficulty, Romney might retreat to the brave new world objection. Permitting scientists to use cloning techniques for stem cell research, he might argue, will lead down a slippery slope of exploitation and abuse—therapeutic cloning today, cloned human babies tomorrow.

The danger that embryo research will lead to exploitation and abuse is worth taking seriously. But sensible regulations can prevent our sliding down the slippery slope.

Rather than ban cloning for stem cell research, the governor should join the Legislature in banning human reproductive cloning, limiting the length of time that research embryos can be grown in the lab, and restricting the commodification of eggs to prevent the exploitation of women.

Such regulations are the friend, not the foe, of responsible science. They can enable us to redeem the promise of biomedical advance while saving us from slouching toward a Brave New World.

Michael J. Sandel teaches political philosophy as a professor of government at Harvard University. He is a member of the Weatherhead Center's Executive Committee.
In 2004, Latin America and the Caribbean grew 6 percent, the highest rate since 1980. And the party is not over yet. In its most recent report dated August 2005, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) forecasted that Latin America and the Caribbean will grow 4.3 percent in 2005. For 2006, ECLAC is forecasting 4 percent growth. If these predictions come true, the region would complete 4 consecutive years of growth, accumulating an increase of 10 percent in income per capita between 2003 and 2006. So after nearly a decade beginning with the Mexican crisis of 1994, when talk of stagnation dominated the headlines, growth is back. ECLAC is not alone in its optimism. Earlier, in its World Economic Outlook dated April 2005, the International Monetary Fund had predicted 4.1 percent for Latin America in 2005, and 3.7 percent in 2006. The Fund writes that “the strength of the recovery in Latin America has continued to exceed expectations.” (p. 37) That Latin America should be growing at a time of record high commodity prices, record low international interest rates, and robust global demand, is not surprising. What is surprising is that the region is not growing more in this environment of the fastest world growth in 30 years. Indeed, according to the same IMFWorld Economic Outlook, the region will post the slowest average growth in 2005-06 of any developing region. Developing Asia will grow by 7.4 and 7.1 in each of those two years, according to the Fund. Even Africa, at 5.1 and 5.4 percent, will amply outgrow Latin America. And this is even though recent Latin growth is overstated by the ongoing recoveries in Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela, countries that experienced large absolute declines in output earlier this decade.
Robinson, James A, and Sebastián Mazzuca. 2005. “Political Conflict and Power-sharing in the Origins of Modern Colombia”. Abstract
In this paper we present historical evidence and a theoretical analysis of the origins of political stability and instability in Colombia for the period 1850-1950, and their relationship to political, particularly electoral, institutions. We show that the driving force behind institutional change over this period, specifically the move to proportional representation (PR), was the desire of the Conservative and Liberal parties to come up with a way of credibly dividing power to avoid civil war and conflict, a force intensified by the brutal conflict of the War of a Thousand days between 1899 and 1902. The problem with majoritarian electoral institutions was that they did not allocate power in a way which matched the support of the parties in the population, thus encouraging conflict. The strategic advantage of PR was that it avoided such under-representation. The parties however could not initially move to PR because it was not 'fraud proof' so instead, in 1905, adopted the 'incomplete vote' which simply allocated 2/3 of the legislative seats to the winning party and 1/3 to the loser. This formula brought peace. The switch to PR arose when the Liberals became condent that they could solve problems of fraud. But it only happened because they were able to exploit a division within the Conservatives. The switch also possibly reflected a concern with the rising support for socialism and the desire to divide power more broadly. Our findings shed new light on the origins of electoral systems and the nature of political con ict and its resolution.
Ramseyer, Mark J, and Yoshiro Miwa. 2005. “The Good Occupation”. Abstract
Many Americans picture the Allied (i.e., U.S.) Occupation of Japan (1945-52) as the quintessentially good occupation: elaborately planned in advance, idealistically administered until derailed by anti-Communist indeologues in its later years, it laid the foundation for Japan’s post-War democracy and prosperity. In fact, the Americans—especially those Americans celebrated as most "idealist"—did not plan a Japanese recovery, and for the first several years did not work for one. Instead, they mostly just planned retribution: whom to hang, and which firms to shutter. Economic issues they entrusted to Japanese bureaucrats, and those bureaucrats merely manipulated the controls they had used to disastrous effect during the War. Coming from a New Deal background in Washington, the Americans enthusiastically urged them on. Although the Japanese economy did grow, it did not grow because of the Occupation. It grew in spite of it. In early 1949, Japanese voters overwhelmingly rejected the political parties offering economic controls. In their stead, they elected center-right politicians offering a non-interventionist platform. These politicians then dismantled the controls, and (despite strong opposition from New Deal bureaucrats in the Occupation) imposed a largely non-interventionist framework. As a result of that choice—and not as result of anything the Occupation did—the Japanese economy grew.
Also John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business, Working Paper no. 514.
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