In 1942, economist Joseph Schumpeter introduced the concept of creative destruction in his seminal work, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. He described it as the process by which innovations such as new technologies, products, or methods, disrupt and ultimately dismantle established economic structures to pave the way for novel systems and opportunities. This relentless cycle of renewal is not merely a feature of capitalism but its very engine, driving progress through the destruction of the old to make room for the new. Beyond economics, creative destruction serves as a powerful lens for understanding transformation in art, culture, and society, acting as a bridge between the analytical rigor of economics and the expressive freedom of creative disciplines.
The transition from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles exemplifies creative destruction because the innovative technology of cars disrupted and largely eliminated the established carriage industry, displacing related jobs and infrastructure while creating new markets, industries, and opportunities for economic growth.
Schumpeter argued that capitalism thrives on innovation, but this comes at a cost. Established industries, firms, and practices often become obsolete as entrepreneurs introduce groundbreaking ideas. The rise of the automobile, for instance, decimated the horse-drawn carriage industry, while digital streaming platforms have largely supplanted traditional media like DVDs and broadcast television. This process is not gentle, as it disrupts livelihoods, renders skills obsolete, and reshapes markets. Yet, Schumpeter saw it as essential for economic vitality, as it fosters efficiency, growth, and adaptation.
The shift from Neoclassical art to Impressionism exemplifies creative destruction as Impressionist artists like Monet and Renoir rejected the rigid, idealized forms of Neoclassicism, disrupting traditional artistic conventions with innovative techniques like loose brushwork and vibrant colors, thus creating new avenues for expression while rendering older styles less dominant.
The parallels between economic and artistic innovation are striking. In art, creative destruction manifests as the rejection of established norms, styles, or mediums in favor of bold experimentation. Consider the transition from Romanticism to Impressionism in the 19th century. Artists like Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir broke with the rigid conventions of academic painting, embracing loose brushwork and vibrant color palettes to capture fleeting moments of light and life. This shift shocked the art world, rendering traditional techniques less relevant while opening new avenues for expression.
Similarly, the 20th century saw movements like Dadaism and Abstract Expressionism dismantle prevailing aesthetic frameworks. Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), a readymade urinal presented as art, challenged the very definition of artistic value, forcing a reevaluation of creativity itself. These disruptions, while initially controversial, expanded the boundaries of art, inspiring future generations to explore uncharted territory.
The concept of creative destruction serves as a bridge between economics and art, illuminating their shared reliance on reinvention. In both domains, progress demands a willingness to let go of the familiar. Just as entrepreneurs disrupt markets with innovative business models, artists challenge cultural norms with provocative works. This shared dynamic invites reflection on broader societal phenomena, such as reinvention, disruption, and even gentrification.
Gentrification can be viewed through the lens of creative destruction, as it revitalizes areas and creates new opportunities, but at times comes at the cost of cultural erasure.
Gentrification, for example, can be viewed through the lens of creative destruction. As urban neighborhoods evolve, new businesses, residents, and cultural trends displace longstanding communities and traditions. While this process can revitalize areas, it often comes at the cost of cultural erasure or displacement, raising ethical questions about who benefits from such transformations. Similarly, in technology, the rise of artificial intelligence disrupts traditional labor markets but also creates opportunities for new industries and creative pursuits.
Creative destruction reminds us that progress is not linear or painless. It requires courage to dismantle the old, whether it be an obsolete industry or a revered artistic tradition. Yet, this destruction is not an end but a beginning, a catalyst for innovation that drives societies forward. By embracing the discomfort of change, we unlock the potential for reinvention, ensuring that both economies and cultures remain dynamic and resilient.
In conclusion, Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction transcends economics, offering a framework to understand transformation across disciplines. Its resonance in art underscores the universal need for disruption as a precursor to creation. As we navigate an era of rapid technological and cultural change, creative destruction challenges us to balance the costs of disruption with the promise of renewal, fostering a deeper appreciation for the cycles that shape our world.
In economics, externalities are costs or benefits that affect parties who did not choose to incur them. A factory polluting a river, for example, imposes costs on downstream communities, including health issues, contaminated water, and dead ecosystems, while the factory reaps profits without bearing the full burden. This concept, though rooted in economics, reverberates far beyond, offering a lens to examine exploitation, ethical failures in the art world, and the unaccountable sprawl of global supply chains.
A factory polluting the air in pursuit of a profit is an example of a negative externality, as it results in a producer offloading harm onto others.
Externalities occur when the price of a good or service does not reflect its true social cost or benefit. Negative externalities such as pollution, arise when producers offload harm onto others. Positive externalities occur when benefits spill over, often unintentionally. For example, a homeowner who maintains a vibrant community garden not only enjoys their own harvest but also enhances property values and fosters social bonds for neighbors, who reap these benefits without contributing to the garden’s upkeep. The issue lies in accountability: those creating the externality often face no consequences, leaving society to clean up the mess.
An example of an externality would be a coal plant. A coal plant generates cheap energy but spews carbon, worsening climate change. The plant’s owners profit, while the global public pays the price in floods, heatwaves, and displacement. The market, left unchecked, incentivizes this imbalance. Economists propose solutions such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems to internalize these costs, but implementation lags, especially across borders.
The production of consumer products such as smartphones often amplifies externalities.
Global supply chains amplify externalities by diffusing responsibility. For example, a smartphone’s production spans continents: cobalt mined in Congo, assembled in China, sold in the US. Each step generates externalities, child labor, toxic waste, carbon emissions, yet no single entity is held accountable. The consumer enjoys a sleek device, unaware of the social and environmental toll embedded in its supply chain.
International trade agreements often prioritize profit over people. Developing nations, desperate for economic growth, become dumping grounds for externalities. Factories in Bangladesh or Vietnam produce cheap goods for Western markets, but lax regulations mean workers face unsafe conditions, and rivers turn toxic. The harm is outsourced, invisible to the end consumer. Globalization’s promise of efficiency masks a darker truth: it thrives on exploiting those least equipped to resist.
The art world, often seen as a bastion of creativity, is not immune to externalities. Consider the ethics of art production. Large-scale installations may rely on materials sourced through exploitative labor or environmentally destructive practices. Artists and galleries rarely account for these costs, yet their work is celebrated in pristine white cubes. The harm, deforestation, and displaced communities remain out of sight.
The art world is increasingly confronting the concept of negative externalities. .
Patronage also breeds externalities. Wealthy collectors or institutions fund art to burnish their image, but their money may come from industries tied to social or environmental damage. The art world becomes complicit, laundering reputations while ignoring the broader impact. A museum funded by an oil magnate might showcase “radical” art, but the contradiction festers: the institution profits while externalizing the cost of its patron’s legacy.
Externalities expose a core flaw in institutions, that they are often built to prioritize self-preservation over systemic responsibility. Governments, corporations, and cultural bodies often deflect blame, leaving marginalized groups to bear the brunt. For instance, urban development projects gentrify neighborhoods, displacing low-income residents while developers profit. The social cost, fractured communities, lost cultural heritage, is externalized, unaddressed by those who caused it.
Institutional criticism, a practice rooted in questioning power structures, can challenge this. Artists like Hans Haacke have used their work to expose how institutions evade accountability, from corporate sponsorships to political influence. By shining a light on externalities, such a critique forces us to question who pays the price for progress, and why they are left holding the bill.
Policies such as carbon taxes can help address externalities, but there is much resistance to such policies by entrenched interests.
Addressing externalities requires systemic change. Policy tools like carbon taxes or labor regulations can help, but they face resistance from entrenched interests. On a cultural level, society might need to rethink value, not just in markets but in art, ethics, and global systems. Consumers can demand transparency in supply chains. Artists can interrogate their materials and patrons. Institutions can prioritize accountability over optics.
The concept of externalities is not just economic; it is a moral framework. It asks us to see the hidden costs society has normalized and to demand a world where harm is not offloaded onto the voiceless. Until we confront these unseen burdens, exploitation will persist, cloaked in the guise of progress.
In many countries, a striking economic divide persists which is known as the dual economy. This phenomenon describes the coexistence of two distinct economic sectors within a single nation: an advanced, modern sector integrated with global markets, and a subsistence sector characterized by informal, low-productivity activities. The dual economy can be thought of as two parallel worlds, operating side by side yet rarely intersecting, each with its own rules, opportunities, and challenges.
Within the concept of the dual economy, the advanced sector of the economy is usually centered around an urban area that is technologically sophisticated and globally connected.
The advanced sector is typically the face of progress: urban, technologically sophisticated, and globally connected. It encompasses industries including tech, finance, and manufacturing, where workers enjoy higher wages, formal employment, and access to global supply chains. The advanced sector drives innovation, attracts investment, and fuels economic growth.
Cities such as Buenos Aires are characterized by having both an advanced economic sector and a subservient sector existing side by side.
The duality creates a layered reality. A city like New York or London might boast gleaming financial districts while nearby slums house workers scraping by in the informal economy. These are not just economic divides but social and cultural ones, shaping distinct lifestyles, opportunities, and even worldviews.
This divide inspires powerful narratives. Artists and writers often explore themes of exclusion, who gets to participate in the “modern” world? The informal sector’s invisibility resonates in stories of marginalized voices, while the idea of parallel worlds invites speculative takes on alternate realities coexisting in one space.
Advanced sectors of the economy, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) often benefit from government policies and public investment, while the subservience sector is left to fend for itself. This dynamic perpetuates inequality.
The dual economy is not just a quirk; it is a structural challenge. The advanced sector often benefits from government policies, infrastructure, and global trade, while the subsistence sector is left to fend for itself. This perpetuates inequality, as those in the informal economy lack access to education, healthcare, or capital to transition to higher-productivity work. Bridging this gap requires targeted policies: microfinance, skill development, and infrastructure investment can help integrate the subsistence sector into the broader economy.
Yet, the dual economy also highlights resilience. Informal workers, often excluded from formal systems, demonstrate remarkable adaptability, creating livelihoods against the odds. Their stories deserve to be told, not just as tales of struggle but as testaments to human ingenuity.
The dual economy is more than an economic framework, it is a reflection of stratified, parallel worlds within a single society. It challenges us to see the invisible, to question who benefits from progress, and to imagine ways to bridge the divide. Whether through policy, art, or storytelling, exploring this concept invites us to confront the layered realities of our world and envision a more inclusive future.
President Joe Biden said on November 23 that the administration will tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a global effort by energy-consuming nations to calm 2021′s rapid rise in fuel prices. The coordinated release between the US, India, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom is the first such move of its kind. The US will release 50 million barrels from the SPR. Of that total, 32 million barrels will be exchanged over the next several months, while 18 million barrels will be an acceleration of a previously authorized sale. US oil dipped 1.9% to a session low of $75.30 per barrel following the announcement, before recovering those losses and moving into positive territory. The contract last traded 2.5% higher at $78.67 per barrel. International benchmark Brent crude stood at $82.31 per barrel, for a gain of 3.2%.
The announcement follows the Biden Administration saying for months that it was looking into the tools at its disposal as West Texas Intermediate crude futures surged to a seven-year high, above $85. Prices at the pump have followed the ascent and are hovering around their highest level in seven years. The national average for a gallon of gas stood at $3.409 on Monday, according to AAA, up from $2.11 one year ago. Crude prices make up between 50% and 60% of what consumers pay to fill up their tanks, AAA said. “The President stands ready to take additional action, if needed, and is prepared to use his full authorities working in coordination with the rest of the world to maintain adequate supply as we exit the pandemic,” the White House said in a statement.
As of November 19, the SPR held 604.5 million barrels spread across four sites, according to the Department of Energy. It takes 13 days after a presidential announcement for the oil to hit the market, the department said. In total, the SPR, which was founded in 1975 after the oil embargo, can hold 727 million barrels. The SPR can be tapped in three ways: a full drawdown to counter a “severe energy interruption,” a limited drawdown of up to 30 million barrels, or a drawdown for an exchange or test sale, according to the DOE. “This is a well-timed move to try and lower oil prices,” John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital, said after the announcement. “This added supply should help to bridge the production shortfall ahead of winter, especially if we get confirmation of meaningful supply, as well, from several of the major Asian consuming nations.”
In August, the Biden administration called on OPEC and its oil-producing allies to boost output in the face of rising energy prices. But the group decided to maintain its previously agreed-upon schedule of raising production by 400,000 barrels per month. In April 2020, the group made the unprecedented decision to remove nearly 10 million barrels per day from the market as the pandemic sapped demand for petroleum products. Other producers, including the US, also curbed production as oil prices plunged to never-before-seen lows. Since then, demand has rebounded while producers have been slow to return oil to the market, which has pushed crude to multiyear highs. “Today marks an official emergence of an ‘anti-OPEC+’, a group of top oil-consuming countries that are taking the supply-side dynamics into their own hands in the unconventional and unprecedented release of strategic petroleum reserves to create artificial looseness in the oil market and deliver a negative blow to oil prices,” said Louise Dickson, senior oil markets analyst at Rystad Energy.
The US and China jolted the United Nations climate summit here with a surprise announcement on November 10, pledging the two countries would work together to slow global warming during this decade and ensure that the Glasgow talks result in meaningful progress. The world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters said they would take “enhanced climate actions” tomeet the central goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord, limiting warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) beyond preindustrial levels, and if possible, not to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius. Still, the declaration was short on firm deadlines or specific commitments, and parts of it restated policies both nations had outlined in a statement in April of 2021. To try to keep those temperature limits “within reach,” Chinese and American leaders agreed to jointly “raise ambition in the 2020s”and said they would boost clean energy, combat deforestation and curb emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
The US and China, plus other major emitters such as the European Union, have come under fire in recent days for not yet delivering on some of the lofty rhetoric their leaders showcased last week. But many leaders have demonstrated a willingness during COP26 to go further than they have before, as shown by a new draft of the agreement conference president Alok Sharma released barely 12 hours before the US-China declaration came out. The draft, which Sharma said he hoped would be signed by the end of the week, proposed a breakthrough not seen in three decades of U.N. climate negotiations: an explicit acknowledgment that nations must phase out coal-burning faster and stop subsidizing fossil fuels. “It’s fossil fuels that cause climate change,” said Mohamed Adow, director of the Kenya-based think tank Power Shift Africa. “Explicitly mentioning it gets on the path to addressing it.”
Many nations have come under scrutiny at the summit, but few have faced closer examination than the US and China. Speaking before US Climate Change Envoy and former Secretary of State John Kerry at an unannounced news conference, Chinese special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said that as superpowers, the two countries have a special obligation to work together on keeping the world a peaceful and sustainable place. “We need to think big and be responsible,” Xie said, adding, “We both see that the challenge of climate change is an existential and severe one.” He acknowledged that “both sides recognize there is a gap between the current efforts and the Paris agreement goals.”
Both envoys on November 10 said the joint declaration was a product of nearly three dozen negotiating sessions over the year. While many of those meetings were virtual, US and Chinese diplomats also had face-to-face talks in China, London, and during the Glasgow summit. The declaration also marked a payoff for the men who announced it. John Kerry has spent this year pursuing extensive personal diplomacy, and he has broken with other Biden aides to advocate robust engagement with China on climate issues. Meanwhile, Xie, a veteran Chinese climate negotiator who led his delegation at previous talks in Copenhagen and Paris, came out of retirement to manage China’s climate diplomacy in the run-up to the high-profile talks in Glasgow.
The news drew various reactions, from outright praise to skepticism over whether the agreement would lead to new and concrete action. “Tackling the climate crisis requires international cooperation and solidarity, and this is an important step in the right direction,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres tweeted. “This is a challenge which transcends politics,” tweeted the EU’s top climate envoy, Frans Timmermans. “Bilateral cooperation between the two biggest global emitters should boost negotiations at #COP26.” Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, agreed that having the US and China on the same page on climate change trumps having them at odds. But, he added in a statement, if the world is to meet the goals it set six years ago in Paris, “we urgently need to see commitments to cooperate translate into bolder climate targets and credible delivery.”
China and the US, which together account for about 40 percent of the world’s emissions, are central to any international accord on climate change. The two nations have joined forces before with outsize influence, most notably when President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping forged a similar partnership a year before the Paris climate accord, helping to make that landmark pact a reality.
Nonfarm payrolls rose by a lower than expected 661,000 in September, and the unemployment rate was 7.9%, the Labor Department said on October 2 in the final jobs report before the November election. Economists surveyed had been expecting a net job gain of 800,000, and the unemployment rate to fall to 8.2% from 8.4% in August. The payrolls miss was mainly due to a drop in government hiring as at-home schooling continued, and Census jobs fell. “The issue is momentum, and I think we’re losing it,” said Drew Matus, chief market strategist for MetLife Investment Management. “When you go through a significant disruption to the labor market, it takes time to fix itself. That’s without regard to whether there’s a virus.”
The decline in the unemployment rate came with a 0.3 percentage point drop in the labor force participation rate to 61.4%, representing a decline of nearly 700,000. However, a separate, more encompassing measure that counts discouraged workers and those working part-time for economic reasons also saw a notable decline, falling from 14.2% to 12.8%. The unemployment decline for African Americans was even sharper than the headline rate, falling from 13% to 12.1%. The Asian rate declined from 10.7% to 8.9%. Leisure and hospitality led job gains with 318,000 while retail added 142,000 and health care and social assistance increased by 108,000. As expected, government jobs were the biggest drag on the month, losing 216,000 due to a drop in local and state government education as many schools maintained at-home instruction due to the virus. A reduction in Census workers also pulled 34,000 from the total. In other sectors, health care and social assistance gained 108,000, professional and business services contributed 89,000 and the transportation and warehousing sector was up 74,000. Manufacturing grew by 66,000, financial activities added 37,000, and the other services category rose by 36,000. Markets reacted little to the report, with stocks still heading for a lower open following news that President Donald Trump said he and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for Coronavirus.
Despite the deceleration in job creation, there were some positive signs as the economy continues its pandemic-era recovery. Those reporting being on temporary layoff fell by 1.5 million to 4.6 million. Workers holding part-time jobs for economic reasons fell by 1.3 million to 6.3 million, and the totals for longer-term layoffs also decreased considerably. The temporary layoff total peaked at 18.1 million as payrolls fell by 22 million in March and April. However, permanent job losses increased by 345,000 to 3.8 million, in total a 2.5 million increase since February, the month before the World Health Organization declared the Coronavirus pandemic. “Permanent jobs losses rose by more than 300,000. That’s not a good thing. The labor force participation rate declined, which pulled the overall unemployment rate down. That’s not a good sign, either,” said Kathy Jones, head of fixed income at Charles Schwab. “We’re looking at state and local government layoffs, we’re looking at a higher level of permanent job losses and more people leaving the workforce. None of that is good for the long run.”
The US Economy contracted at a 32.9% annual ratefrom April through June, its worst drop on record, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said on July 30. Business ground to a halt during the pandemic lockdown inbeginnign in early March of 2020, and America plunged into its first recession in 11 years, putting an end to the longest economic expansion in US history and wiping out five years of economic gains in just a few months. A recession is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of declining gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the economy. Between January and March, GDP declined by an annualized rate of 5%. But this is no ordinary recession. The combination of public health and economic crises is unprecedented, and numbers cannot fully convey the hardships millions of Americans are facing. In April alone, more than 20 million American jobs vanished as businesses closed and most of the country was under stay-at-home orders. It was the biggest drop in jobs since record-keeping began more than 80 years ago. Claims for unemployment benefits skyrocketed and have still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. While the labor market has been rebounding since some states began to reopen, bringing millions back to work, the country is still down nearly 15 million jobs since February.
The Coronavirus pandemic pushed the US economy off a cliff. The second-quarter GDP drop was nearly four times worse than during the peak of the 2007-2010 financial crisis, when the economy contracted at an annual rate of 8.4% in the fourth quarter of 2008. Quarterly GDP numbers are expressed as an annualized rate. This means that the economy did not actually contract by one-third from the first quarter to the second. The annualized rate measures how much the economy would grow or shrink if conditions were to persist for 12 months. Not annualized, GDP declined by 9.5% between April and June, or by $1.8 trillion. But by either measure, it was still the worst quarter on record. The US only began keeping quarterly GDP records in 1947, so it is difficult to compare the current downturn to the Great Depression. Earlier recorded quarterly declines also pale in comparison to this year. Between April and June of 1980 (the start of the 1980-82 recession), the economy contracted at an annual rate of 8% on the heels of rising oil prices and restrictive monetary policy to control inflation. Additionally, in early 1958, GDP declined by an annualized 10%, as production slowed and high-interest rates put an end to the post-World War II expansion. The downturn followed the Asian flu pandemic of 1957, which killed 116,000 people in the US, according to the Center for Disease Control.
In response to the Coronavirus pandemic shutdown, the US government has deployed trillions of dollars in monetary and fiscal stimulus to help the country through the recession. Loan programs for companies, expanded unemployment benefits, and checks sent directly to many Americans were designed to get the economy back on track as quickly as possible. Economists predict the current, third quarter of the year will witness a sharp upswing, with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for example, forecasting an annualized 13.3% jump between July and September. While that would be good news, it does not mean the crisis is over. Earlier this week, the Fed extended its various lending programs through the end of the year to help business and market functioning. The central bank’s main street lending facility that is geared at small and medium-sized companies became operational only in mid-June, three months after the lockdown began.
President Donald Trump on July 14 signed legislation and an executive order that he said will hold China accountable for its oppressive actions against the people of Hong Kong, then quickly shifted his speech in the Rose Garden into a campaign rally-style broadside against Democratic rival Joe Biden. The legislation and order are part of the Trump administration’s offensive against China for what he calls unfair treatment by the rising Asian superpower, which hid details about the human-to-human transition of the Coronavirus. The almost daily administration broadsides against China come as Trump is defending his response to the virus, despite a surge in Coronavirus cases, in the US and as he works to portray Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, as weak on China. “So Joe Biden and President Obama freely allowed China to pillage our factories, plunder our communities and steal our most precious secrets,” Trump said, adding, “I’ve stopped it largely.” Trump added: “As vice president, Biden was a leading advocate of the Paris Climate accord, which was unbelievably expensive to our country. It would have crushed American manufacturers while allowing China to pollute the atmosphere with impunity, yet one more gift from Biden to the Chinese Communist Party.”
During his address, President Donald Trump Trump did not limit his criticism of Joe Biden to China. He delivered broadside after broadside against Biden on issues from energy to the economy, education, to immigration. Aides have pushed the president to go more negative on Biden, whom President Trump has largely spared from attacks, save for the “Sleepy Joe” nickname. Trump has gone after Biden far less aggressively than he did against his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump, once more, talked up his own tough approach to Beijing, though he spent the early weeks of the pandemic praising Chinese President Xi Jinping, in hopes of securing a new trade deal. But since the two nations signed phase one of the trade deal, the talks have stalled with virtually no hope of restarting before the November election.
The legislation President Donald Trump signed into law targets police units that have cracked down on Hong Kong protesters as well as Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for imposing a new, strict national security law widely seen as chipping away at Hong Kong’s autonomy. The mandatory sanctions are also required to be imposed on banks that conduct business with the officials. Lawmakers from both parties have urged President Trump to take strong action in response to China’s new national security law that erodes the “one country, two systems” framework under which the UK handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997. Hong Kong is considered a special administrative region within China and has its own governing and economic systems. “This law gives my administration powerful new tools to hold responsible the individuals and the entities involved in extinguishing Hong Kong’s freedom,” Trump said. “Their freedom has been taken away. Their rights have been taken away, and with it goes Hong Kong in my opinion because it will no longer be able to compete with free markets. A lot of people will be leaving Hong Kong, I suspect.”
The American economy defied forecasts for a Depression-style surge in Unemployment this week, signaling the economy is picking up faster than anticipated from the coronavirus-inflicted recession amid reopenings and government stimulus. A broad gauge of payrolls rose by 2.5 million in May, trouncing forecasts for a sharp decline following a 20.7 million decrease during the prior month that was the largest in records back to 1939, according to Labor Department data released on June 5. The figures were so astonishing that President Donald Trump held a news conference, where he called the numbers “outstanding” and predicted further improvement before he is up for re-election in November. While the overall picture improved, there remain several underlying issues facing the economy. For example, 21 million Americans remain unemployed with a jobless rate higher than any other time since 1939, indicating a full recovery remains far off with many likely to suffer for some time. And the return to work is uneven, with unemployment ticking up among African Americans to 16.8%, matching the highest since 1984, even as unemployment rates declined among white and Hispanic Americans. That comes amid nationwide protests over police mistreatment of African-Americans, which have drawn renewed attention to race-based inequality.
The latest figures may give a boost to President Donald Trump, who has siginficantly fallen behind Democratic challenger Joe Biden in polls amid dissatisfaction with his response to the pandemic and the death of George Floyd. The numbers could also reduce pressure on policy for another round of fiscal support, with Democrats and Republicans at odds over the timing and scope of new measures following record aid approved by Congress. “The only thing that can stop us is bad policy, like raising taxes and the Green New Deal,” President Trump said on June 5. He also said that he will ask Congress to pass more economic stimulus, including a payroll tax cut.
One caution noted by the US Labor Department is that the unemployment rate “would have been about 3 percentage points higher than reported,” so 16.3% if data were reported correctly, according to the agency’s statement. That refers to workers who were recorded as employed but absent from work due to other reasons, rather than unemployed on temporary layoff. The broader U-6, or underemployment rate, which includes those who have not searched for a job recently or want full-time employment, fell only slightly to 21.2% in May from 22.8%, which is its highest rate since 1982. In February, it was 7%, with the main unemployment rate at a half-century low of 3.5%.
This video by CaspianReport presents an overview of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative Project. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the launch of both the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, two ambitious infrastructure development and investment initiatives that would stretch from Eastern Asia to Western Europe. The project, termed as either the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) or the New Silk Road, is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever conceived. Some analysts see the project as an extension of China’s rising power on the global stage. Additionally, the US is concerned that the BRI could be a Trojan horse for China-led regional development, military expansion, and the decline in the bilateral global order implemented by the US over the past few decades. Here is an analysis of the BRI project.
The original Silk Road came into being during the westward expansion of China’s Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), which forged trade networks throughout what are today the Central Asian countries of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as modern-day India and Pakistan to the south. Those routes extended more than four thousand miles to parts of the Middle East such as present-day Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and into parts of Europe including modern-day Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Central Asia was thus the epicenter of one of the first waves of globalization, connecting eastern and western markets, spurring immense wealth, and intermixing cultural and religious traditions. Use of the route peaked during the first millennium, under the leadership of first the Roman and then Byzantine Empires, and the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) in China. With the advent of the Crusades in the 11th Century, as well as the conquering of China by the Mongols during the 13th Century, the old Silk Road trade routes began to lose much influence and their decline in influence and use economically isolated Central Asian countries from each other.
President Xi Jinping first announced the BRI during visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013. The plan was two-pronged: the overland Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road. The two were collectively referred to first as the One Belt, One Road initiative but eventually became the Belt and Road Initiative. Xi’s vision included creating a vast network of railways, energy pipelines, highways, and streamlined border crossings, both westward, through the mountainous former Soviet republics, and southward to Pakistan, India, and the rest of Southeast Asia. Such a network would expand the use of Chinese currency, while new infrastructure could “break the bottleneck in Asian connectivity,” according to Xi. In addition to physical infrastructure, China plans to build numerous economic zones, modeled after the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which China launched in 1980 during its economic reforms under leader Deng Xiaoping. Xi subsequently announced plans for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road at the 2013 summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Indonesia. To accommodate expanding maritime trade traffic, China would invest in port development along the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia all the way to East Africa.
China’s overall ambition for the BRI is staggering. As of early 2019, more than sixty countries, accounting for nearly 70% of the world’s population, have signed on to projects or indicated an interest in doing so. Analysts estimate the largest so far to be the $68 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a collection of projects connecting China to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. Additionally, the trade and infrastructure development agreements between China, Iran, and Russia constitute a major part of the BRI initiative. In total, China has already spent an estimated $200 billion on such efforts. It has been predicted that China’s overall expenses over the life of the BRI could reach over $1 trillion by 2027, though estimates on total investments vary.
China has both geopolitical and economic motivations behind the BRI. President Xi Jinping has promoted a vision of a more assertive China and sees China’s rise as an opportunity to end the US-dominated world stage. Additionally, China’s economic growth has declined somewhat in recent years, which has put pressure on the country’s leadership to open up new markets for its goods and excess industrial capacity. International observers see the BRI as one of the main planks of Chinese statecraft under Xi, alongside the Made in China 2025 economic development strategy.
The BRI is also seen as a Chinese response to a renewed US focus on Asia, launched by the Obama administration in 2011. Many in China read this as an effort to contain China by expanding US economic ties in Southeast Asia. In a 2015 speech, retired Chinese General Qiao Liang described the BRI as “a hedge strategy against the eastward move of the US.” At the same time, China was motivated to boost global economic links to its western regions, which historically have been neglected. Promoting economic development in the western province of Xinjiang, where separatist violence has been on the upswing, is a major priority, as is securing long-term energy supplies from Central Asia and the Middle East, especially via routes the US military cannot disrupt.
Despite the overwhelming success of the BRI thus far, there have been some roadblocks preventing its full implementation. While several developing countries in need of new roads, railways, ports, and other infrastructure have welcomed BRI investments enthusiastically, the initiative has also stoked opposition, particularly related to the costs associated with the project in relation to the overall GDPs and resources of many of the developing nations that have expressed interest in signing onto the project. Additionally, some BRI investments have required the use of Chinese firms and their bidding processes have lacked transparency. As a result, contractors have inflated costs, leading to canceled projects and political pushback.
Several major world powers have also expressed some concern regarding the implementation of the BRI project. For example, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi argued that the BRI is an embodiment of a “String of Pearls” geoeconomic strategy whereby China creates unsustainable debt burdens for its Indian Ocean neighbors and potentially takes control of regional choke points. Additionally, the US government under both Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump have argued that the BRI represents a major threat against continued American hegemony and power and have responded to the BRI with proposals ranging from the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the BUILD Act. Despite much US opposition to the BRI, some international observers argue that the implementation of the project may benefit the US in a number of ways. For example, Jonathan Hillman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies stated that the US could use BRI projects as a way to have China pay for infrastructure initiatives in Central Asia that are also in the interest of the US.
President Donald Trump backed off his plan to impose tariffs on all Mexican goods and announced through Twitter on June 7 that the US had reached an agreement with Mexico to reduce the flow of migrants to the Southwestern border. President Trump tweeted the announcement only hours after returning from Europe and following several days of intense and sometimes difficult negotiations between American and Mexican officials. Trump’s threat that he would impose potentially crippling tariffs on the US’ largest trading partner and one of its closest allies brought both countries to the brink of an economic and diplomatic crisis, only to be yanked back from the precipice nine days later. The threat had rattled companies across North America, including automakers and agricultural firms, which have built supply chains across Mexico, the US, and Canada.
I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico. The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended. Mexico, in turn, has agreed to take strong measures to….
Business leaders in the US, Mexico, and Canada had warned that the Trump Administration’s proposed tariffs would increase costs for American consumers, who import a whole host of goods ranging from automobiles to appliances from Mexico, and prompt retaliation from the Mexican government in the form of new trade barriers that would damage the US economy. But the trade war ended before it began, forestalling that economic reckoning and an intraparty war that President Donald Trump had created by threatening tariffs to leverage immigration policy changes. Trump’s tactic had drawn protests from Republicans, including many Senators who have long opposed tariffs and worried the measure would hurt American companies and consumers. In an unusual show of force against their own party’s President, Republican Senators had threatened to block the tariffs if President Trump moved ahead with them, and had demanded a face-to-face meeting with Trump before any action. For Mexico, Trump’s threat was a replay of past episodes in which he ranted about the country’s lack of immigration enforcement. This year, he threatened to shut down the entire Southwestern border, backing off only after aides showed him evidence that Mexican authorities were taking aggressive action to stop migrants.
According to a US-Mexico Joint Declaration distributed late on June 7, Mexico agreed to, “take unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration,” including the deployment of its national guard throughout the country to stop migrants from reaching the US. The declaration, distributed by the State Department, said Mexico had also agreed to accept an expansion of a Trump administration program that makes some migrants wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are heard in the US. “The United States looks forward to working alongside Mexico to fulfill these commitments so that we can stem the tide of illegal migration across our southern border and to make our border strong and secure,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. But the declaration by the two countries included an ominous warning, as well, stating that if Mexico’s actions “do not have the expected results,” additional measures could be taken. The declaration said the two countries would continue talking about other steps that could be announced within 90 days to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration,” including the deployment of its national guard throughout the country to stop migrants from reaching the US.
On November 23, the US government released a long-awaited report stating the effects of global warming and climate change in the US are worsening and that the potential for irreversible environmental damage is steadily increasing. The report’s authors, who represent numerous federal agencies, say they are more certain than ever that climate change poses a severe threat to Americans’ health and pocketbooks, as well as to the country’s infrastructure and natural resources. And while it avoids policy recommendations, the report’s sense of urgency and alarm stands in stark contrast to the lack of any apparent plan from President Trump to tackle the problems, which, according to the government he runs, are increasingly dire.
The Congressionally mandated document, the first of its kind issued during the Trump administration, details how climate-fueled disasters and other types of worrisome changes are becoming more commonplace throughout the country and how much worse they could become in the absence of efforts to combat global warming. The report notes that Western mountain ranges are retaining much less snow throughout the year, threatening water supplies below them. Coral reefs in the Caribbean, Hawaii, Florida and the Pacific territories administered by the US are experiencing severe bleaching events. Wildfires are devouring ever-larger areas during longer fire seasons. And the country’s sole Arctic state, Alaska, is seeing a staggering rate of warming that has upended its ecosystems, from once ice-clogged coastlines to increasingly thawing permafrost tundras.
The National Climate Assessment’s publication marks the government’s fourth comprehensive look at climate change impacts on the US since 2000. The last came in 2014. Produced by 13 federal departments and agencies and overseen by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the report stretches well over 1,000 pages and draws more definitive, and in some cases more startling, conclusions than earlier versions. The authors argue that global warming “is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and quality of life, the economy, and the natural systems that support us.” And they conclude that humans must act aggressively to adapt to current impacts and mitigate future catastrophes “to avoid substantial damages to the U.S. economy, environment, and human health and well-being over the coming decades.” “The impacts we’ve seen the last 15 years have continued to get stronger, and that will only continue,” said Gary Yohe, a professor of economics and environmental studies at Wesleyan University who served on a National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the report. “We have wasted 15 years of response time. If we waste another five years of response time, the story gets worse. The longer you wait, the faster you have to respond and the more expensive it will be.”
That urgency is at odds with the stance of the Trump administration, which has rolled back several Obama-era environmental regulations and incentivized the production of fossil fuels. President Trump also has said he plans to withdraw the nation from the Paris climate accord and questioned the science of climate change just last month, saying on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that “I don’t know that it’s man-made” and that the warming trend “could very well go back.” Furthermore, as the Northeast faced a cold spell this week, Trump tweeted, “Whatever happened to Global Warming?” This shows a misunderstanding that climate scientists have repeatedly tried to correct, a confusion between daily weather fluctuations and long-term climate trends. President Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday’s report. However, the administration last year downplayed a separate government report calling human activity the dominant driver of global warming, saying in a statement that “the climate has changed and is always changing.”
In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!
This video by CaspianReport discusses “Saudi Vision 2030,” a plan proposed by the government of Saudi Arabia that seeks to reduce the countries dependence on oil, diversify its growing economy, and develop public service industries such as health, education, infrastructure, recreation, and tourism. The goals of the plan include reinforcing economic and investment activities, increasing non-oil industry trade between countries through consumer goods, and increasing government spending on the military. The details of the plan were first announced on April 25, 2016, by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS), and the Council of Ministers has tasked the Council of Economic and Development Affairs with identifying and monitoring the mechanisms and measures crucial for the implementation of “Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.”
The main rationale behind the Saudi Vision 2020 plan is to decrease the dependence that the Saudi economy has on oil revenues. The oil industry comprises close to 50% of Suadi Arabia’s total GDP, and the Saudi government has sought to decrease its reliance on oil revenues since the 1970s with an overall poor track record of success. The core priority of the Saudi government is to be able to develop more alternative sources of revenue for the government such as taxes, fees and income from the sovereign wealth fund. Another significant proposal is to lower the dependency of the citizens of the country on public spendings such as spending on subsidies and higher salaries and to increase the portion of the economy contributed by the private sector to provide more employment opportunities and to provide growth in the GDP.
Suadi Vision 2020 has three main pillars: the status of the country as the “heart of the Arab and Islamic worlds,” the determination to become a global investment powerhouse, and to transform the country’s location into a hub connecting three of the most influential areas of the world (Western Asia, Europe, and Africa). The plan is supervised by a group of people employed under the National Center for Performance Measurement, the Delivery Unit, and the Project Management Office of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs. The National Transformation Program was designed and launched in 2016 across 24 government bodies to enhance the economic and development center
Saudi Vision 2030 is built around four major themes which set out specific objectives that are to be achieved by 2030. The four themes are:
A vibrant society: urbanism, culture and entertainment, sports, Umrah, UNESCO heritage sites, life expectancy.
A thriving economy: Employment, women in the workforce, international competitiveness, Public Investment Fund, Foreign direct investment, the private sector, non-oil exports
An ambitious nation: Non-oil revenues, government effectiveness, and e-government, household savings and income, non-profits and volunteering.
Projects: About 80 major projects are to be developed in Saudi Arabia by the year 2030. Most of these projects are financed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
One such project that is part of the Saudi Vision 2030 is the National Transformation Program. First approved on June 7, 2016, the National Transformation Programa sets out the goals and targets to be achieved by the Kingdom by 2020. It is the first out of three phases each lasting for five years. Each step will accomplish a certain number of goals and targets that will eventually help the Kingdom in reaching the ultimate goals of Vision 2030. To assist the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to finance all the projects to be developed and facilitate the process of achieving the goals and targets of Vision 2030, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman announced in early 2016 that an IPO of Saudi ARAMCO is going to take place. However, only 5% of the company will be offered on the stock market. Other projects put forward under the Saudi Vision 2030 plan are the construction of a luxury resort located on the Red Sea between the cities of Umluj and Al-Wajh, the expansion of the Saudi entertainment industry, and the expansion of women’s rights. In the realm of women’s rights, the Saudi Vision 2030 plan seeks to grant women the right to vote, own property, travel abroad freely, and attend higher education facilities.
Overall, the international reaction to the Saudi Vision 2030 plan has been somewhat mixed. Many critics argue that the lack of formal political institutions, inefficient bureaucracy and a significant gap between the labor force required by the Saudi labor market and current educational system serve as a hindrance on many of the growth prospects that the country has proposed. Other critics argue that the Saudi Vision 2030 plan does not take into account the fact that rapid reform efforts may not be entirely accepted by the Saudi population, and that a slow and gradual reform plan would be a more viable policy to implement. Despite some criticism towards the reform proposals, many international observers feel that it represents a genuine opportunity for the Saudi government to reform and create a far more positive view on the country in the eyes of the international community.
In the third chapter of the book “Democratization: theory and experience,” Laurence Whitehead looks at the concept of civil society and its relationship to democratization. If democracy is to be viewed as a complex and open-ended process, a more explanatory account is needed to describe it more effectively. Before a democratic transition can begin, there must exist a political community receptive to such change and willing to participate in a democratic system. The ideas of civil society and social capital provide condensed analogies to explain the structure of and simplify the ideas regarding the long-term changes that stem from democratization. Instead of focusing on political actors and what they seek to accomplish, political theorists should instead focus on the large-scale and broadly-based features of the entire political community.
Laurence Whitehead then goes on to highlight the factors that help to define the idea of civil society. Theorists of civil society have seen more success in erasing its highly specific origins and have converted it into a free-standing category of thought that comes to mind when Westerners make comparative statements about the density of associative life in diverse political communities. Additionally, most non-Western discourses tend to lack an equivalent concept to the idea of civil society. Even though some argue that non-governmental organizations can be considered to be civil societies, they tend to lack the surrounding ethos, authenticity, and autonomy that are considered to be hallmarks of civil societies. Moreover, non-governmental organizations also lack the well-structured support from the larger community that civil societies often have. The definition of civil society also excludes associations such as households, religious institutions, and hierarchical institutions such as conscripted military forces and the bureaucracy of national government. Between such extremes, there may be an independent sphere of voluntary association in which interactions are governed by the principles of autonomy and self-respect.
Laurence Whitehead also considers the factors that characterize stronger civil societies. Strong civil societies are characterized by a wider set of boundaries for interaction between individuals in society and by a larger acceptance of personal freedom and individual rights. As such, a strong civil society will allow for a greater chance for democracy to be successful and long-lasting despite challenges. Even if people reach an agreement on the factors that allow for the successful implementation of civil society, the results of their agreement will not be quantitative and more descriptive in nature. The idea of a descriptive category, according to Whitehead, is akin to an “empty box,” as there are not previously existing theories within it. As such, people can apply their own theories in interpretations regarding the political process. Additionally, such factors raise the question of how an “empty box” descriptive category shape such dynamic and long-term political process such as democratization. Any linkage between both factors would require both a description and an explanation of how the norms of civility can be compelling enough to reproduce over generations and override the loyalty demands of the state and the primary descriptive groups.
After going over some of the theoretical approaches to the idea of civil society, Laurence Whitehead goes over what would be a tentative definition of the concept of civil society. If groups such as terrorist organizations, armed paramilitary groups, and criminal organizations are not to be defined as being members of civil society, Whitehead highlights the need to stipulate a general definition of civil society that highlights the importance of civility. According to Whitehead, civil society is defined as a set of self-organized intermediary groups that are relatively independent of both public authorities and private units of reproduction and production, can discuss collective actions in the defense and promotion of their interests, do not seek to replace state agents or private reproducers or to accept responsibility for governing the polity as a whole, and agree to act within pre-established legal guidelines. Additionally, Whitehead states that civil society rests on four different conditions. The first two conditions are that of dual autonomy and collective action. The next two conditions are non-usurpation and civility. The definition of civil society tends to exclude criminal organizations and paramilitary groups and any organizations that threaten individual rights.
Laurence Whitehead next looks at the idea of civility and incivility. Following such a definition of civil society, it is unlikely that political scientists will find forms of voluntary associative organizations distributed evenly throughout the geographical and social terrain that is covered by the modern nation-state. Whitehead argues that neither the market or the state can be effectively used to even out the uneven social geography that is present throughout the world. The reason why the market is ineffective in evening out social geography because it obeys consumer sovereignty. Additionally, the state cannot solve such issues because its policies are skewed towards societal groups with the highest level of influence. Such factors lead to the question of what mechanism can be used to address the issue of uneven social geography, as civil society will eventually become out of sync with democratic citizenship. The weaknesses of civil society are often evident in many of the newer democracies. For example, efforts at democratization in many post-authoritarian countries are often overshadowed by antisocial forms of individualism that substitute the forms of civil associationalism favored by civil society theorists. Thus, the main advantages of civil society tend to be highly concentrated among a minority of the people in many of the new democracies.
The dynamic between civil society and democratic citizenship is also addressed by Laurence Whitehead. Civil society tends to develop unevenly over time in a logic distinct from state formation. The resulting patterns of associative life and social communication typically emerge as highly structured with insiders, traditional favored sectors, and excluded sectors. Additionally, new democracies often only work effectively if they can restrain such exclusionary tendencies and indulge the people with the most social capital to adapt to a broader and longer-term view of their civic engagement in society. Even though civil society developed incrementally, modern political regimes are often created quickly and with short notice. Examples of political regimes created abruptly include the new nations created Europe after World War One, Asia and Africa during the 1950s and 1960s, and the democracies created in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s. In all cases, formal political equality was established at a specific moment and the citizens earned a full set of democratic rights even though the creation of exclusionary political societies did not coincide with pre-existing maps of associative life between the citizenry.
Civil society may also experience slow growth that eventually allows for the creation of the conditions favorable to democracy. Examples of the gradual development of civil society include Great Britain during the 17th Century and Spain during the 1970s. Additionally, it is also the case that the implementation of a democratic government will foster the development of civil society and create the conditions necessary for its success. Examples include many of the former communist countries and to the experience of many of the former territories of countries such as the US and Great Britain. There also exists the possibility that a civil society attains a high level of development, but never produce a democratic political regime, as in the case of Hong Kong. Moreover, a civil society may develop on the basis that its freedoms and rights can only be secured if there exists a series of exclusionary measures that prevent some members form full participation. Examples include the Palestinian population in Israel, the Cypriot population in Turkey, and African Americans in the Southern part of the US up until the 1960s.
In conclusion, Laurence Whitehead explores the concept of civil society and its role in democratic transitions in “On Civil Society.” Whitehead underscores the importance of political theorists examining the factors that result in the development of strong civil societies that allow for the long-term stability of democratic governments. Additionally, Whitehead goes on to characterize the factors that characterize an effective civil society and the dynamic between civil societies and the expectations of democratic citizenship. An in-depth understanding of the idea of civil society will allow political scientists and political theorists to more effectively understand the factors that allow democratic governments to succeed in certain countries but ultimately fail in others. Moreover, the concept of civil society can be applied to explain potential democratic transitions in countries that a presently authoritarian.
In the book “The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, An Analytic Study,” Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba present a study of the political culture of democracy and discuss the social structures and processes that help to improve its overall stability. A common concern among political scientists is the future of democracy at the global level. In the years following World War II, events such as de-colonialization have raised some questions about the long-term stability of Democratic political systems and placed the issue into the broader context of the world’s culture. Despite the fact that Almond and Verba feel that the direction of political change at the global level is unclear, they argue that a political culture based upon individual participation will emerge due to demands by ordinary citizens. Additionally, Almond and Verba propose that the emerging nations will be presented with two different models of the participatory state, the democratic and totalitarian models of participation. The democratic model of participation offers the ordinary man the opportunity to take part in the political decision-making process as an influential citizen, whereas the totalitarian offers him the role of the “participant subject.” Both the democratic and totalitarian models of participation have appealed to emerging nations, but it is unclear which one will ultimately win.
According to Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, the democratic model of participation will require more than the introduction of formal institutions of democracy such as freedom of speech, an elected legislature, and universal suffrage. A participatory democratic system also requires a consistent political culture. On the other hand, Almond and Verba argue that there are several problems with transferring democratic political culture to emerging nations. The first issue is that many of the leaders in developing states have little experience with the working principles of democratic policy and civic cultures such as political parties, interest groups, and electoral systems. As a result, the idea of democratic policy as conveyed to the leaders of new countries is incomplete and heavily stresses ideology and legal norms as opposed to conveying the actual feeling and attitude towards democratic ideals. A further reason why the diffusion of democracy to new nations is difficult is that they are confronted with structural problems. For example, many of the new nations are entering the global stage at a time in which they have not fully developed industrially. As a result, individual leaders may be drawn to a policy in which authoritarian bureaucracy promotes industrial development and technological advancement, and where political organization becomes a device for human and social engineering.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba then go on to discuss the idea of the civic culture. The civic culture is a mixed set of values that contains attributes from both modern and traditional cultures and allows them to interact and interchange without polarizing and destroying each other. Additionally, Almond and Verba describe the civic culture as pluralistic and based on communication and persuasion, consensus, diversity, and accessibility to gradual political change. Almond and Verba then explore the development of civic culture in Great Britain. One of the circumstances that resulted in the creation of a modern society in Britain was the emergence of a thriving merchant class and the involvement of the court and aristocracy in economic decisions. Moreover, the English Reformation and the increasing prevalence of religious diversity resulted in a higher level of secularization within British society, leading to greater modernization. As a consequence of both factors, Britain entered the 18th Century with independent merchants and aristocrats who established a parliamentary system that made it possible to assimilate rapid social changes without any sharp discontinuities. By establishing a civic culture, ordinary people were able to enter into the political process and develop British democratic structures.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba describe several different types of political cultures. According to Almond and Verba, political culture refers to the overall attitudes that individuals have regarding the political system and their attitudes toward their respective roles in the system. The term political culture is used because it allows Almond and Verba to separate the non-political concepts from their study and allows them to employ an interdisciplinary approach to their analysis of mass attitudes towards democracy. In classifying objects of political orientation, Almond and Verba start with the general political system, which deals with the organization as a whole. In explaining the components of the political system, Almond and Verba distinguish the specific roles or structures, the functions of incumbents, and particular public policies, decisions, or enforcement of decisions. These structures, incumbents, and decisions are then classified by involvement either in the political (input) process, or in the administrative (output) process.
In their study of mass attitudes and values, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba have identified three distinct types of political cultures. The first type of political culture mentioned by Almond and Verba is the parochial political culture. A parochial political culture emerges when the citizens of a particular nation have no understanding of the national political system, do not possess any tendency to participate in the input processes and have no consciousness of the output operations. Additionally, there are no specialized political roles within a parochial political culture, and the leadership roles are not separated from their religious and social orientations. Examples of parochial political cultures include African and Native American tribes and indigenous communities within particular nations. A subjective political culture is when people are aware of the mechanism of government and the political process, but are not taught to or are not allowed to participate in the system. Examples of subjective political cultures include traditional monarchies or authoritarian government systems. In a participant political culture, the populace is involved in the decision-making process and more or less has a say in public policy decisions. Examples of participant political cultures include the United States, Great Britain, and many other countries throughout the world. The three different classifications of political culture described by Almond and Verba does not assume that one classification replaces the other. On the other hand, the introduction of new classifications serves as a way to encourage previous political orientations to adapt.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba also mention that a number of political cultures are systematically mixed. A systematically mixed political culture occurs when there are elements of more simple and more complex patterns of political orientations. The first example of a systematically mixed political culture is the parochial-subject culture, which occurs when a majority of the population has rejected the exclusive claims of diffuse tribal, village, or feudal authority and has developed allegiance towards more complex political systems. Examples of parochial-subject political cultures include the Ottoman Empire and the loosely articulated African kingdoms. In a subject-participant culture, a substantial part of the population has acquired the ability and desire to become more engaged in governmental decisions, whereas the rest of the population continue to be oriented toward an authoritarian political structure and have a relatively little desire to get involved in critical public policy decisions. Additionally, a successful shift from a subject to a participant culture requires the diffusion of positive orientations toward a democratic infrastructure, the acceptance of norms of civic obligation, and the development of a sense of civic competence among a substantial proportion of the population. France during the 19th Century and Germany during the early 20th Century are examples of subject-participant political cultures. A parochial-participant political culture occurs when elements of a participatory system are introduced to a traditionally parochial society. As a result of the lack of structure and experiences with democracy, parochial-participant political cultures have the most experiences with instability and teeter back and forth between democracy and authoritarianism.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba focus on the political cultures of five different countries in their study: The United States, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Mexico. Almond and Verba selected these countries because they have experienced a wide range of historical and political experiences and have gone through a number of events that influenced their political systems. The United States and Great Britain both represent relatively successful experiments in democratic governance despite the fact that the rationale behind their acceptance of democratic values is different. For example, the political culture in Great Britain combines deference toward authority with a lively sense of the rights of citizen initiatives, whereas the political culture of the United States is based on political competence and participation rather than obedience to legitimate authority. Germany is included because its experiments in democratic governance during the late 19th and early 20th Century never resulted in the development of a participatory political culture necessary to legitimize democratic institutions of government. Almond and Verba include Italy and Mexico in their study because both represent less developed societies with transitional political systems.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba then go on to discuss the feelings towards government and politics that are prevalent in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Mexico. The first metric that they measured was the national factors in which the resident of all five countries were most proud of. A majority (85%) of American respondents cited their political system as the greatest source of pride they feel towards their country. In contrast, only 46% of British, 30% of Mexican, 7% of German, and 3% of Italian respondents cited their governmental institutions as their greatest source of national pride. Moreover, American and British respondents were more likely to refer to public policy accomplishments than the respondents from other countries. The Italian respondents cited their countries contributions to the arts and its cultural treasures, whereas the German respondents cited their countries economic system as the greatest source of national pride. Additionally, Mexican pride was distributed equally between the political and economic systems and the physical attributes of their country.
The findings show that the Americans and British express great pride in their political institutions and thus feel the least alienated towards their political systems. On the other hand, the Germans and Italian respondents express a low level of pride in their political institutions and feel more alienated towards their governments. The results from the Mexican respondents show that they have a keen interest in political involvement despite the fact that their political culture is largely parochial. The fact that Mexican respondents expressed an interest in politics is due to past feelings associated by the populace with events such as the Mexican Revolution. The continued connection to the Mexican Revolution shows that the Mexican people believe that the revolution did not accomplish its stated political goals and that the process of political change is ongoing. When broken down by educational level, a majority of American, British, and Mexican respondents with higher levels of education expressed more pride in their respective political systems. Additionally, the fact that educational attainment does no influence the levels of national pride among the German and Italian respondents further suggests alienation from the political system as opposed to a lack of awareness of the system.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba also go on to explore the expectation of treatment by governmental authorities among the respondents from all five countries. Both Almond and Verba hypothesized that if the respondents expected fair treatment by governmental authorities, they would, in turn, express more support for legitimate authority. The respondents from the United States, Great Britain, and Germany expected a higher level of treatment by governmental authorities than the respondents from Italy and Mexico. Additionally, the expectation of treatment by governmental authorities varies by educational attainment. For example, respondents from the United States, Great Britain, and Germany with higher educational levels expect more equitable treatment by political authorities than respondents with lower levels of education. Even though the number of Italian and Mexican respondents expecting fair and equal treatment in government were relatively low, the differences between the advantaged and less advantaged groups regarding education were larger than in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. Such findings show that there is a connection between expectations regarding treatment by governmental authorities and alienation from the political system.
The attitudes towards political communication are also discussed by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba. A key component of democratic governments is the willingness for ordinary men and women to get involved in the political process. The main factor that influences such willingness is the level of comfort with discussing political issues. Respondents from the United States and Great Britain expressed the highest level of willingness to discuss politics. Additionally, even though German respondents expressed the highest frequency of following reports about public affairs, the number of people who discuss politics on a regular basis was lower than in the United States and Great Britain. On the other hand, the Mexican and Italian respondents expressed a relatively low willingness to discuss political affairs. With regards to the percent of respondents who refused to report their voting decision, the American, British, and Mexican respondents expressed little reluctance when revealing their political choice, whereas the German and Italian respondents expressed the highest level of reluctance. The reluctance on the part of the German and Italian respondents to reveal their voting choices shows that they feel that identifying with a political party is unsafe and inadvisable. Additionally, their unwillingness to reveal their voting choices indicates that there is a higher level of alienation from the political system on the part of the German and Italian respondents when compared to the American, British, and Mexican respondents.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba then discuss the relationship between the civic culture and democratic stability and the impact of political culture on the political system that it belongs to. One view that Almond and Verba discuss is the rationality-activist model, which stipulates that a stable democracy involves the population to be informed and active in politics. Additionally, the rationality-activist model requires the citizens to base their voting choices on careful evaluation and carefully weighing in the alternatives. On the other hand, Almond and Verba mention that current research shows that most citizens in democratic nations rarely live up to the rationality-activist model. As such, Almond and Verba feel that the rationality-activist model is only a part of the civic culture and does not make up its entirety. Moreover, Almond and Verba describe the civic culture as a mixed political culture that involves both citizens who are informed and take an active role in politics and citizens who take a less active role in politics. The diverse nature of the civic culture also implies that the different roles in political such as parochial, subject, and participant do not replace each other and instead build upon each other.
In conclusion, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba discuss the idea of the political culture and its relationship to democracy in “The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, An Analytic Study.” A major concern among political scientists is what factors result in the establishment of a political culture that allows for the stability of democracy within a particular country. In their study of political culture, Almond and Verba looked at several factors such as citizen views on government, views on treatment by governmental authorities, and the willingness of people to discuss political issues and the views that respondents from five different democracies have regarding them. The results of their study determined that countries with a long-term history of democratic governance were more likely to have political cultures that foster democratic ideas than countries with a shorter history of democratic government. Additionally, Almond and Verba discuss the relationship between political culture and the long-term stability of democratic political systems.
Everyone is shocked oil has gone down in the last few years when it was close to $4 a gallon now under $3. Why has gas dropped so low in the US and worldwide?
In the United States under the Obama Administration, an increased amount of “fracking” occurred where they increased domestic production to reduce dependence abroad. The strong U.S. dollar has been the main driver for the price decline of crude oil over the last few years. In fact, the dollar is at a 12-year high against the euro, leading to appreciations in the U.S. dollar index and a reduction in oil prices. This puts the market under a lot of pressure because when the value of the dollar is strong, the value of commodities falls. Global commodity prices are usually in dollars and fall when the U.S. dollar is strong. For example, the surge in the dollar in the second half of 2014 caused a sharp fall in the leading commodity indexes (Evan Tarver Investopedia). More reason are that OPEC has been unwilling to stabilize oil prices and is actively competing with the US. But also higher fuel efficient US/EU (somewhat due to Obama) has resulted in less demand for oil. The Iran Nuclear Deal also help Iran sell more oil on the market lower prices.
The reason oil and many other industries are likely to die is simple, they require to much water. It takes 2-7 barrels of water to create 1 barrel of oil. Varies based on method. Let’s talk fracking!
“Water use and wastewater production are two of the chief environmental concerns voiced about hydraulic fracturing,” said Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. (Duke Staff)
So to get oil, it requires the intense use of water and dumping of the dirty water back into areas which can create more water problems.
Kondash said. “Drilling a single well can require between 3 to 6 million gallons of water, and thousands of wells are fracked each year. Local water shortages could limit future production.”Finding ways to treat and dispose of or recycle the large volume of chemical-laden flow back water and brine-laden wastewater that is produced over the lifetime of an unconventional oil or gas well also poses challenges, the researchers stated.“Given the high levels of contaminants these waters contain, it’s startling that the amount of wastewater being produced from hydraulic fracturing in the United States is nearly on the same level as the amount of water used to frack the wells in the first place,”(Duke Staff).
So if you following me here, there will be a major shift in the use of petroleum because profits are declining, the benefits are being reduced and the dollar value of clean water will only continue to increase. This does not way in regulations like a carbon tax or other taxes likely to take affect in the next 20 years. Almost all countries are Earth will have water problems in the next 15 years. The only direction to move is away from oil production and into new energy sources. Electric cars, a proper transit system, solar, tidal and other technologies that have a lower impact on the environment and aren’t as resource heavy. To speed it up, a good plan would be to increase taxes or higher standards to speed up the process.Another good way is to encourage divestment from oil producers/heavy use things like cars and into more community-based technology like transit. The only problem with that is the World currency is the US dollar. The US dollar is based on Petroleum. A collapse of Petroleum could have ripple effects that most economists probably don’t have the wherewithal to predict. Looks like the sun is setting on the future of petroleum.
Read more: 4 Reasons Why the Price of Crude Oil Dropped
Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/102215/4-reasons-why-price-crude-oil-dropped.asp#ixzz4wwjh8qem
What is Universal Basic Income?
The idea that every citizen of a state should receive a basic income to survive. Instead of work 9-5 regular job, you would only need to if you want extra then bear minimum in society.
Who is proposing Universal Basic Income?
Right now many people see a future of automation as a destroyer of “jobs” for people to survive in the current monetary society. Major captains of industry have come out supporting it. Like who? Elon Musk -Mark Zukeburg Sam Altman, Andrew Ng, Bill Gross, Ray Kurzweil and more. You can find an introduction to the people on a link below.
The How, What and Why?
As robots replace human labor what is to become of the workforce? How will society coop with men not operating jobs that maintain and produce capital? Well as the narrative goes, they are supposed to be good little workers and accept what society hands them. If people fight for the Universal basic income then it can become their right to have it. If they don’t get it, they have to accept it. But is universal basic income anything but to keep the fundamental restructuring of society and to keep the management of “production” out of the hands of the average man? The leaders of industry clearly see a time where the work is 95% machine driven and people really won’t have a place in the type of society it will create. It is saying there are no losers just above the tide people and people above the floor of desuetude. But it neglects to address the fundamental arguments of inequality, power, and egalitarianism. Who gets a say in what gets done? Who gets a say in what’s made? Who gets a say in how we do things? Fundamentally a society with and or without Universal basic income still presents a serious dilemma. Wealth in most societies like the US, influence, determines and often changes elections against the “popular” consensus of society. So Elon Musk is willing to give you a basic house, with solar panels and probably other essentials but it should not be mistaken men like him do this to keep his big house, expensive car and the mob off his company. Jean Ziegler a former UNO Special Rapporteur said it best when he said,
“The agriculture of the world could feed 12 billion people with no problem. A child that starves to death today is murdered.”
The human potential to feed everyone is possible, it’s the governments and large companies that prevent them from doing so because they would lose money-“capital”. Proposing that we feed everyone is a good start but asking why they are hungry is a better one.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” Dom Helder Camara, a Brazilian Archbishop
The quote by the Brazilian Archbishop echoes a truth, the reason people starve is because we let them. The reason people let it happen is because small groups of generally wealthy American men find it immoral to lose a profit even though someone loses a life. Distribution of resources is a key area here that is not well discussed in Universal Basic Income. Yes, everyone in the state would theoretically receive an income to survive, but what they would not receive is real opportunities to climb out of that zone, lets call it climbing the ladder. With wealth concentration, monopolization of industry, patenting of technology it would become increasingly difficult for individuals to climb up to a substantially higher level of “wealth” or up the ladder.Currently, economic mobility is at its lowest point in a very long time in the US and around the world. Could UBI fix this? It remains to be scene with it not addressing the monopolization of wealth and industry. Why should one man own more than 90 or 100 million? There is no good answer to that, especially with the result of it, the concentration of power. Regardless of your stance on any political issue, who argues that one man should be a king when he has no right to be a king?It is not divinely ordained. It is not because of merit or intelligence, its is largely the result of being born at the right place at the right time to the right circumstances. Under an increasing non-competitive, low labor society we could see worse inequality rise. I am not applying that historically competition was strong because it has usually been the opposite, but it will likely become worse. You have 400 families controlling half the world’s wealth today. Under Universal basic income will that change? I am not sure. But a great doubt hovers the minds of many on the issue.
Dangers
What could evolve is an exacerbation of the current problem, dumb, bullshit pass time crap. I am talking about wasting 3 hours a day watching sports when it has no “value” whatsoever. In the days of the Romans, they built Colosseum’s like the Circus Maximus, not just because they wanted to see people cut each other heads off for fun, but to keep people entertained and not thinking too much. It is important to constantly question the hierarchy and establishments of power in current human civilizations. Fuck apes. Society has the potentially to become an even more trapped and detached human consciousness with the increase of technologically development in virtual reality. Today we have an intense focus on entertainment while the world falls apart, environmental destruction, the potential for nuclear holocaust, drug epidemics, disease, famine, deep poverty and more. Many of these things will not be addressed by simply giving a “citizenry” Universal Basic Income. Be Weary my friends and stay thirsty for knowledge. For without the thirst we lose our humanity.
“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.” Socrates
Jean Zieglar
https://www.theguardian.com/world/poverty-matters/2012/oct/05/jean-ziegler-africa-starve
Circus Maximus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_Maximus
Said something about Apes?But here is some fun aside from it
http://www.consumepopculture.com/#/make-america-apes-again/
Why will Universal Basic Income become the future? Understanding Automation, video somewhat neo-liberal perspective
Afghanistan, the United States, the Soviet Union, And Illegitimacy PS 401: Seminar in Political Science
Fall 2016
Marco Palladino
(Work In Progress citations not cited properly due to format of blog- can submit original copy if needed(word doc)
Abstract
Intervention in a failed state is not an effective counterterrorism tool when it is reliant on military power to prop up a perceived illegitimate government. Additionally, foreign hegemonic forces are often viewed as invaders even if that does not represent the underlying goal of the intervention. This study will focus on the policies implemented by the US and the Soviet Union over the courses of their interventions in Afghanistan, which is at the forefront of America’s failed counter-terrorism campaign in the Middle East and North Africa. Afghanistan has a history of being invaded and pushing invaders out. For example, Greece, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union all invaded Afghanistan at various points in time, but their efforts ultimately ended in a resounding defeat. All these unsuccessful invasion help give Afghanistan the nickname of “The Graveyard of Empires.” This paper seeks to explore what are the likely results of an intervention by foreign hegemonic forces in a failed state to install and maintain an illegitimate government. The methods measured include casualty rates, economic indices, military spending on intervention by hegemonic power and results of such interventions, and various social indices. Examining the long-term effects of war and insurgency will be critical to determine the effectiveness of foreign intervention against terrorism.
Introduction
The ongoing “War on Terrorism” has been a major foreign policy challenge over the past decade and a half.
A major foreign policy issue in recent years has been the ongoing War on Terror, which is an international effort to destroy groups, organizations, and affiliates that are a threat to the United States or its Allies. The War on Terror began as a response to the 9/11 Attacks by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which includes the United States, France, United Kingdom and Germany. Even though NATO was set up as a military and political alliance during the Cold War era, its focus has shifted towards intervention in numerous failed states and has conducted many aerial bombings in attempting to combat “terrorism” and to implement governmental change.
According to the Global Political Forum, a failed state is “a government that can no longer provide basic functions such as education, security, or governance, usually due to fractious violence or extreme poverty”. Using United Nations data on casualty rates, stability, corruption, and social well-being will determine if the country is moving forward or backward. Military spending will also factor in the results if the amount of money invested was spent wisely and has had a noticeable positive effect on national progression. Is there a lack of diplomacy or willingness to negotiate that could be reducing possible results?
This paper will examine the effects of foreign intervention by hegemonic forces and their role in exacerbating the problems in “failed states” such as Afghanistan. The hypothesis is that a heavy reliance on military intervention in a country to prop up a perceived illegitimate government will have largely negative results. This paper will also look at the robust strategic patterns of the United States and the lack of ensuing results through military intervention in failed states in addition to general campaigns in Afghanistan and their correspondence to the objective of the reduction of terrorism and increasing stability in the nation-state. This paper focuses on Afghanistan, which has been considered the epicenter for global terrorism and had large-scale intervention by foreign hegemonic forces. The result of the intervention in many states has been largely negative for the population in question. The cases study will look at Afghanistan as a whole and the large-scale military intervention by NATO in the last few year’s outcomes. The case study will look at spending habits and how they factor into the successful elevation of suffering and counter-terrorism in a failed state. The final area will be how diplomacy factors into resolving a crisis in a failed state.
Originally part of Iran, Afghanistan received its independence in 1709 after a successful revolt against the Iranian government, then under the leadership of Shah Sultan Husayn, a member of the Safavid dynasty which ruled Iran from 1502-1722. Over the ensuing centuries, Afghanistan was characterized by conflicts with European powers such as Great Britain and the Russian Empire. By 1919, Amanullah Khan was finally able to remove British influence from Afghanistan and began to pursue an independent foreign policy. Over the next few decades, Afghanistan was led by Mohammed Zahir Shah, who ascended to the throne in 1933. Mohammed Zahir Shah shares some similarities with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of neighboring Iran in that he sought to increase economic modernization and secularism within Afghanistan. Additionally, Mohammed Zahir Shah was generally a far less repressive leader than Pahlavi and allowed a much higher level of political freedom overall in Afghanistan than in Iran.
Beginning in 1955, the Soviet Union provided large amounts of military training and materials to Afghanistan that gradually increased over the next two decades. For example, 1 out of every 3 members of the Afghan military was trained on Soviet soil by the early 1970s. The major political event to note during Mohammed Zahir Shah’s rule was the creation of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in 1965. The PDPA ultimately split into two factions, the Khaliqis led by Noor Taraki, and Parachamists led by Babrak Karmal. The Khaliqis has a base of support in rural areas and among the Pasthuns. The Parachamists primarily had support from urban areas and were the reformist political faction within Afghanistan. In 1973, Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud peacefully overthrew Mohammed Zahir Shah. The Khalq faction never fully recognized Daoud’s leadership, viewing his overthrow of the King as a plot to gain power.
On April 28, 1978, Afghani soldiers supportive of the Khalq faction killed Mohammed Daoud and his family in his presidential palace, thus allowing Noor Taraki to become Prime Minister and Babrak Karmal to become Deputy Prime Minister. The Carter Administration viewed the overthrow of Daoud as a communist takeover. Internal Afghan politics complicated the US and Soviet influence during this period. Hafizullah Amin, an ally of Taraki received word that Karmal was planning a Paracham plot to overthrow the Taraki regime. Amin executed many Parchasmists to reinforce his power. The overthrow damaged the communist revolution that was attempting to spread across the country. The communist governance was now by the winter of 1978 met with armed insurgency across the country. Amin and Taraki signed a treaty allowing direct Soviet military assistance against any insurgency threatening the regime.
In mid-1979, the Soviets began to sends advisers to Bagram Air Base outside Kabul. In response, the Carter Administration started supplying non-lethal aid to Afghan Mujahideen, a Sunni Islamic insurgent group. Amin believed the Soviet intervention was designed to strengthen Taraki at his expense. As a result, Amin ordered the death of Taraki in October of 1979, earning the ire of the Soviets. Additionally, Islamic fighters were defeating the Afghan army and the Soviets were forced to either lose their foothold in Afghanistan. As such, the Soviets invades Afghanistan on December 26, 1979, and initially sent in motorized divisions and Special Forces. The Soviets killed Amin and installed Barak Karmal as head of Afghanistan. President Carter subsequently stepped up aid to the insurgents and announced his own doctrine to protect Middle Eastern oil supplies from encroaching communism. Washington wanted to make the Soviet occupation as painful and as brief as possible. The Soviet war in Afghanistan ended up lasting 10 years and millions of lives lost. The Soviets spent $50 billion dollars and lost 15,000 men in addition to a strong uprising emerging in Afghanistan, this igniting a civil war.
After the Soviets left in 1989, Afghanistan was destabilized and was characterized by various political groups vying for power. The Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group, ultimately took power by 1992. The Taliban would later allow Osama bin Laden to establish training bases in Afghanistan beginning in 1996. Their rationale behind this decision was to make Afghanistan an outpost for Wahabbi Islam and to ultimately attack Iran, which is majority Shi’a and strongly opposed to radical Islamic ideologies.
Afghanistan would subsequently suffer from major social, political, economic, and governmental problems following the 2001 invasion by the United States. The result of the invasion would be the exacerbation of all the problems in Afghanistan from food shortages to increased levels of violence precipitating the region and more complex problems arising. Before the invasion, millions of people were on the edge of starvation and many aid groups had to leave before the invasion because it wasn’t safe. The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan is increasing every year. A United Nations Assistance in Afghanistan report states ” During the time covered by this report, 157,987 Afghans were displaced because of the war. This brings the estimated total number of conflict-induced displacement Afghans to 1.2 million.” All this is indicative of 40 years of intervention by NATO in a conflict-prone area increasing casualties and failing to solve the problem through the use of diplomacy.
Methodology
The paper will use various variables relating to the state of Afghanistan, either progressing further into or out of a “failed state” that help demonstrate government legitimacy. The United State’s relation to that progression or regression will be key in the country. Such variables like civilian deaths per year (graphs/charts, including deaths from violence), drug production levels (estimated # of tons), internal/external displaced populations (note population displacement is hard to calculate and numbers often conservative, Afghans are the 2nd largest refugee population in the world).
The fiscal problems facing the Afghan government include a small GDP and a heavy reliance on foreign money from the United States. Looking at insurgent attacks over the last decade will help paint a picture of future violence. The goal of the gathering of these statistics is to map out where the future of Afghanistan is headed and to provide an overview of the growing problems in the country. In relation to these problems, the United States & Soviet Union’s role in the country may be positive or negative. What has been the effectiveness of the United States at legitimizing through solving these problems? Examining basic areas of spending patterns will support understanding on if investments proved worthwhile long-term (10-15 year period).
There are some limitations to this analysis, however. One such issue is the measurement of insurgent members in Afghanistan. Finding this data is difficult due to the fact that many attacks are unreported because the government of Afghanistan does not have effective record-keeping procedures. As such, the level of casualties is used to help blanket insurgent levels. Looking at micro use-spending habits could also prove difficult to uncover and total spending habits also may be hard to figure out, as a result of how certain projects are classified. Examples could include, weapons programs being tested, use of special forces, the cost of technology, soldiers with PTSD or other medical issues that encompass US Spending in Afghanistan. The numbers keep growing and examining simpler terms would provide a better overview of the situation rather than smaller difficult programs to map out the impacts. Determining the number of munitions dropped by the US in Afghanistan alone is an impossible task for the research to dive into because there is a lot of shock and awe tactics (where large sums of bombs are dropped quickly). The cultural, linguistic, and religious variables that affect Afghanistan will not be included. A 14-week schedule makes an analysis of a wide variety of data difficult at best. The motivation behind the methodology is to look at simpler variables to construct a conceptualization and overview of Afghanistan at present as well as its future. The research is by no means to suggest solid claim of Afghanistan future but merely a roadmap in the direction in which the country is heading.
Literature Review
Carl Von Clausewitz was one of the earliest philosophers who studied the notion of warfare.
The philosophy of war has a long and arduous history ranging from the Ancient Greeks to the modern members of Congress that make military decisions. The literature review will focus on contemporary theorists in the philosophy of war. One of the earliest theorists was Carl Von Clausewitz, a 19th Century Prussian general, and military theorist. Primarily influenced by the Napoleonic Wars and Frederick the Great, Clausewitz focused on the moral and political aspects of war and said that “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” According to Clausewitz, the US war in Afghanistan would be considered an unideal and unjust war due to the fact that the US has been indiscriminate in harming civilians and other non-military targets.
On the other hand, John Keegan has the opposite perspective and is referred to in political science as the anti-Clausewitz. His perspective is that modern wars like Vietnam were not immoral and instead fought the wrong way. Essentially, Keegan is saying that it is not the crusade that was wrong but the way the crusade was carried out. According to Keegan, the War in Afghanistan would be perfectly moral and flawed only due to the fact that the US did not entirely commit itself to fight the war successfully. Keegan would suggest that the US should dramatically expand its presence in Afghanistan and not hold back in its efforts to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion.
it is not the crusade that was wrong but the way the crusade was carried out
Neorealism is another well-known theory in international relations.
Kenneth N. Waltz, Patrick James, and David Fiammenghi are proponents of neorealism. The neorealist theory states that international politics is defined by anarchy, and by the distribution of capabilities. As such, there exists no formal central authority and that every sovereign state is formally equal in this system. The states, in turn, act according to the logic of self-help, meaning they seek their own interest and will not subordinate their interest to the interests of other states. Additionally, the security dilemma in realism states that a situation in which actions by a state intended to intensify its security, such as increasing its military infrastructure or building alliances, can lead other states to respond with similar measures, producing increased tensions that create conflict, even when neither side desires it.
Charles L. Gaster is a proponent of the concept of the security dilemma and illustrated the political consequences of military strategies within individual countries. Gaster stated that “The first focused on military capabilities and implicitly assumed that the basic goals of the Soviet Union were fixed; its central concern was to determine what military capabilities the United States required to deter or defeat the Soviet Union. The second component focused on what I term political consequences the effect of U.S. policy on the basic goals of the Soviet Union and on Soviet views of U.S. resolve. Sharp disagreements about political consequences played an important role in dividing the American cold war debate over military policy.”
Another theory in realism is the prisoners’ dilemma. As described by Robert Jervis and R. Harrison Wagner in a January 1978 World Politics journal article, the prisoners’ dilemma shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears to be in their best interests to do so. An example could be the dynamic between Iran and Russia on one hand, and the US on the other hand regarding the Syrian Civil War.
Defensive Realism is the theory that aggressive expansion as promoted by offensive neorealists upsets the tendency of states to follow to the balance of power theory, thus decreasing the primary goals of the state, namely ensuring their security. Kenneth N. Waltz considered the founder of defensive realism as a theory, explains his perspective on international relations after the cold war by stating that the “one condition for success is that the game is played under the shadow of the future. Because states coexist in a self-help system, they may, however, have to concern themselves not with maximizing collective gain but with lessening, preserving, or widening the gap in welfare and strength between themselves and others. The contours of the future’s shadow look different in hierarchic and anarchic systems ”
Offensive Realism holds the anarchic nature of the international system responsible for aggressive state behavior in international politics. John Mearsheimer is one of the first who explored this theory in his 2001 book “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.” Offensive Realism depicts powerful states as power-maximizing information control entities, that force others to fight while they are on the sidelines, overbalancing strategies in their ultimate aim to dominate the international system. Contributing theorists include Glen H. Snyder, Eric J. Labs, Fareed Zakaria, Colin Elman, Randall L. Schweller. Steven E. Lobell writes, “According to offensive realism, security in the international system is scarce. Driven by the anarchical nature of the international system, such theorists contend that states seek to maximize their security through maximizing their relative power by expansionist foreign policies, taking advantage of opportunities to gain more power, and weakening potential challengers. The state’s ultimate goal is hegemony. How a state will go about expansion will vary from nation to nation (due to geography, military tradition, etc.)—offensive realism does not predict the same security strategy for every state. ”
Is there an offensive-defensive theory of realism? According to Sean M. Lynn-Jones, “Offensive-defense theory argue that there is an offense-defense balance that determines the relative efficacy of offensive and defensive security strategies. Variations in the offensive-defensive balance, the theory suggests, affects the patterns of intentional politics.”
The Neo-Classical realist perspective is closer to the defensive realistic perspective, the actions of a state in the international system can be explained by systemic variables, the distribution of power capabilities among states, as well as cognitive variables, such as the perception of systemic pressures, other states’ intentions, or threats and domestic variables such as state institutions, elites, and social actors within society, affecting the power and freedom of action of the decision-makers in foreign policy. While holding true to the neorealist concept of balance of power, neoclassical realism further adds that states’ mistrust and inability to perceive one another accurately, or state leaders’ inability to mobilize state power and public support can result in an under expansion or under balancing behavior leading to imbalances within the international system, the rise and fall of great powers, and war.
Gideon Rose states that “Neoclassical Realism argues that the scope and ambition of a country’s foreign policy are driven first and foremost by the country’s relative material power. Yet it contends that the impact of power capabilities on foreign policy is indirect and complex because systemic pressures must be translated through intervening unit-level variables such as decision-makers’ perceptions and state structure.”
Noam Chomsky is a critic of the idea of American Exceptionalism.
Relative material power brings the discussion to the United States with its exceptional power over other nations. American Exceptionalism is the idea that American is unique and superior to other nations, Marilyn B. Young, a Harvard scholar on American Foreign Relations, says “There’s an arrogance born of power”. In here view America has become very deceptive in how a leader in government talk about, how the military reacts to war and the lack of transparency in some areas. Noam Chomsky depicts the United States as a country which goal of its foreign policy is to create more open societies where the United States can expand control of politics and the market.
In contrast, Neo-Conservatives think that the military is there for the United States to use it. Essentially we have the power so we need to use it to push our way into practice by force. Senior officials in the Bush Administration such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are prominent followers of this ideology which is an extension of American Exceptionalism. Former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick is another neoconservative who criticized the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter, who endorsed de-escalation of the Cold War.
Another component of neoconservatism is the Bush Doctrine, which holds the idea of a preemptive attack on perceived enemies of the US. William Kristol, a supporter of the Bush Doctrine, wrote in 2002 that the “world is a mess. And, I think, it’s very much to Bush’s credit that he’s gotten serious about dealing with it. … The danger is not that we’re going to do too much. The danger is that we’re going to do too little. ” Neo-Conservatives hold true the idea of policing the world as a way to ensure political peace and stability and would argue that intervention in Afghanistan by the US is an appropriate step for this goal.
Current Problems Facing Afghanistan
The decade-long Soviet intervention in Afghanistan left 15,000 Soviet military personnel and nearly a million Afghani civilians dead. The war was a proxy for the United States against the Soviets in which the United States used “our gold and their blood” (referring to Afghani civilians). During the war, the CIA encouraged Islamic extremists to join in the war to defend Islam against an invasion by the “godless Communists.”. Much of the weapons in Afghanistan today were paid for by either the United States or the Soviet Union and left there an estimated total of 45 billion dollars in arms/ammunition. The mass amounts of weapons would aid the conflict of the civil war that plagued Afghanistan from 1989 to 1996. The Taliban came to power in the ruins of the civil war and ruled Afghanistan as an Islamic state based largely on the ideology of Wahhabism. Bin Laden would later find refuge there where he helped the government fight off the Soviets in the 1980s and was largely viewed as an honorable man within Afghanistan due to the fact that he successfully repelled a foreign imperialist invader who sought to install an illegitimate government into power.
The United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7th, 2001 in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban government did not provide any material support or personnel (mostly Saudi Nationals) for the attacks on 9/11, though they allowed Osama Bin Laden to have a safe haven. The Taliban refused to release Bin Laden to the United States and said they would give him to a neutral 3rd party. The United States rejected their offer. The Taliban also asked for evidence and the US declined their request. According to the UN and aids groups, prior to the invasion, it was thought there would be a mass famine where millions would starve because of Afghanistan’s dependence on foreign food. After the United States bombed Afghanistan for 2 months, the Taliban government ultimately surrendered in December of 2001. The United States would install a government that Afghani civilians view as illegitimate, corrupt, and weak. Displacement of the population is one of the biggest problems in Afghanistan and the Middle East from war and conflict.
Afghanistan has one of the worst population displacements problems in the world. Afghans make up the 2nd largest refugee population in the world and it is estimated that 3.7 million Afghans have been displaced by the conflict in the last decade or so. That is a daunting number no government or institution can handle alone to manage. One million are estimated to have fled to Iran, another 1.5 million into Pakistan. From a 2014 report, 700,000 are expected to be displaced in Afghanistan itself. Every year the numbers get worse and worse, more death and more casualties beating the last year. There is a variety of reason for this but many civilians die in either ground engagements or through IEDs that are leftover or part of the current war. The surge under President Obama, which was the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, did not make Afghanistan safer and their withdrawal has not reduced the casualties rates. Killing members of Taliban have only created more instability and turned various areas of the country into a devastated war zone. In this climate, these policies undermine government legitimacy constantly because the government cannot provide basic necessities. Additionally, this policy has the government of Afghanistan largely taking orders from NATO and the US, which have large cultural differences and questionable understanding of the country. For example, Afghanistan is predominantly Muslim (~85-93% Sunni and ~7-15% Shi’a) and the main languages spoken are various dialects of Farsi (an Iranian-based language which is not widely taught in the West).
Heroin usage and production is a major problem facing Afghanistan, as it produces 80-90% of the world’s supply of Heroin. The Taliban profits nearly a billion dollars a year from the trade, namely by exporting opioids to other countries. It is estimated that there are around 1.6 million drug users in Afghan cities and another 3 million in the countryside. Unfortunately, the opium production has helped fuel severe problems with addiction to opium which has worsened the situation in Afghanistan. In 2001, The Taliban government issued a fatwa forbidding heroin use, which essentially put a stop to the problems of its use in Afghanistan. The US invasion that same year and the subsequent installation of Hamid Karzai as the Afghan President saw the prior ban go away and thus opium production skyrocket starting in 2002.
The US invasion had multiple coalitions of groups such as the Northern Alliance in Northern Afghanistan and the Puston Warlords in the South-East who also played a major role in the trafficking in Heroin which would result in it’s come back largely in Afghanistan. The whole story isn’t told there, “The drug trade accounted for most of its tax revenues, almost all its export income, and much of its employment. In this context, opium eradication proved to be an act of economic suicide that brought an already weakened society to the brink of collapse. Indeed, a 2001 U.N. survey found that the ban had “resulted in a severe loss of income for an estimated 3.3 million people,” 15% of the population, including 80,000 farmers, 480,000 laborers, and their millions of dependents”. As such, banning opium, which was largely pushed by Westerners, was a severe miscalculation on the part of the Taliban-led government. Ideally, it would have been smarter to have a transition period meant to phase out opium production and allow those whose livelihood depends on its production to developing alternative sources of income.After the invasion in 2001, the Taliban went back to selling heroin to fund the insurgency but there are other segments that sell and control opium distribution.
Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-1989), opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. The CIA helped design the Afghan Narcotics economy to fund the Taliban and launder money during the War against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Currently, the problems of heroin fuel the insurgency and corrupt the government while increasing drug usage both inside and outside the country. The US would later spend 7.6 billion to eradicate opium in Afghanistan and in every measurable way they have failed. Instead, it helps fuel the insurgency by upsetting locals and fueled government corruption. Again undermining the legitimacy of the government while pushing cultivation practices that they have helped start in the first place. That 7.6 billion wasted in opium eradication is just the tip of the iceberg with unsustainable spending patterns.
The financial problems facing the Afghan government, such as a small GDP and reliance on foreign money from the United States and others present serious problems. The reliance of foreign money make long-term success difficult and, if foreign money is withdrawn from the economy, the government would collapse. Corruption is also a major problem in Afghanistan. Many hands are taking money out of the government coffers for personal gain. The corruption isn’t something that is only on the local level but stretches all the way to the top. It’s difficult to measure the level of corruption but there are key findings to support the idea that the Afghan government has serious corruption problems which undermine the government as an institution and waste precious money needed to support the Afghan people. In 2012, nearly half of Afghan citizens paid a bribe while requesting a public service and the total cost of bribes paid to public officials amounted to $3.9 billion US dollars. This corresponds to an increase of 40 percent between 2009 and 2012. So the government abuses its position which increases the cost for the people who pay taxes and then pay again to get something done. A snapshot of Afghan culture is that bribery is embedded in social practices, with patronage and bribery being an acceptable part of Afghan culture. These practices of bribery are also in other regions without government.
Non-governmental groups like village associations and the Taliban have patronage systems. Bribery usually occurring in government to change police or judicial results or provide governmental services faster. The bribes can undermine government institutions which are flooded with money. Examples of government corruption can be to keep a family or relative from going to jail by paying the judge or police off. An instance of corruption is the people put in power, namely family relatives, for example, the director of Education was put in power because of his relatives but could not read or write.
These problems are worsened by the uncertainty of how long the US will stay and fight. If one thinks they’re leaving next week or not here to stay then obviously you’re going to abuse the money that comes in. You have elections where they have large accusations of voter fraud and reinforcement of the idea that Afghanistan looks like a “tin-pot dictatorship”. It costs somewhere around $12 billion dollars a year to train Afghan security forces and neither the US nor the Afghan government can sustain that figure. So in no way is the situation an economically manageable one, especially with record numbers of security forces being killed and high levels of desertions. “Between October 2013 and September 2014, more than 1,300 Afghan army troops were killed in action and 6,200 were wounded”. Senior US Officers have called that “unsustainable”. Desertion is a problem but there are poor numbers on this so it’s just important to mention it as a problem. The Taliban have been killing more and more people in the security forces and expanding their territory.
Growing insurgency problem across the countries level of violence grows worse.US Policy may appear to be helping reinforce insurgency numbers. The basic premise of counter-insurgency strategy is you’re only as good as the government you represent. The government that represents Afghanistan lacks legitimacy with Afghan people and it can’t even hold the Taliban at bay. While the US in for example in 2011, was killing 360 insurgent leaders in a 90 day period using Special Forces, there were more attacks against coalition forces and no reduction in overall violence. Basically, it goes back to the old adage of “if you hit me, I hit you.” Abdul Hakim Mujahidin, the Taliban Envoy to the UN from 1998 to 2001 said” They consider that the continuance of the war in this country is not for the benefit of their people. But in practice, they are using their military against the Taliban. They are forcing the Taliban to respond militarily”. Osama Bin Laden was not part of the Taliban but Al Qaeda and his objective were to drive the US into Afghanistan to shatter will at home and push US and Allies to get out of the Islamic world. The war in Afghanistan is now the longest war in US history and the US government has still been unable to ensure Al Qaeda’s come back into Afghanistan. Some reports show drone strikes are counterproductive and other say they are. It’s hard to tell productive ones from unproductive ones when they target high-ranking leaders but when they kill innocent civilians or low-level combatants they can help fuel an insurgency.
What has the US Invested For Afghanistan’s Success? The United States is spending too much money on Afghanistan, so much so that the numbers are often unknown or hard to pin down. Many different sources provide different estimates for costs on different things, but to figure out the total and cost year by year is simply too long of a process. For instances, some institution will say the cost of Iraq X and others Y. From Pew, it was shown that the US is spending around $16-17 billion dollars a year on counter-terrorism. What exactly does that cover? Again hard to pin down what exactly all these funds are being spent on. You also have heightened violence which is going to require more mobilization of the military to things like Veterans health which are extremely costly. These costs are often stuck with other wars. Here are some estimates on the spent money in key areas, reconstruction, $110 billion dollars, the largest portion of that is $60 billion being spent on training Afghan security forces.But this may not be accurate because many costs are left out of such reports so it’s better to give a bulk total of 4 to 6 trillion on the costs then try to micro-manage every cost exactly into the bill. Again this is unsustainable spending and if the US pulls out tomorrow and loses everything much of that investment could prove worthless, which is why many are reluctant to do so.
At the same times it getting harder for members of Congress to justify trillions of dollars spent for a deteriorating situation. The government gives aid to Pakistan and sometimes that aid is used to train the Taliban and other groups while fighting against Al Qaeda. Pakistan has received military aid from the US since 1948. Since 2001, the US has given Pakistan roughly $2 billion per year in military and assistance some of which has been used to support insurgent groups.This aid has gone up and down and appears to have no effect on reduction of violence in Afghanistan or Pakistan. These failures undermine the US influence in Muslim countries and appear to not give the Afghan government more legitimacy. Instead, it is akin to throwing money down a drain and hoping that something sticks.
American Exceptionalism
American Exceptionalism is the idea that America is unique, just and always on the side of good. The idea of American Exceptionalism date back to the founders, but has become largely ingrained in American Society and Politics in the 21st century following World War II. The American Military is a manifestation of this Exceptionalism and when it does something with the use of force it is always to protect our Democratic system and protect our national interests. An example of this is the perception of the Iraq where US citizens perceived the invasion of Iraq to be freeing the people of Iraq and keeping the world safe for democracy. The truth tends to be different from the perception by the American public. There is the problem of Amnesia, where people forget what the US had done wrong like people will say the government did that in the past or not remember it at all.
People also preach the perceived values of the US even if their false and the idea the US has the right to break the rules to enforce the appropriate world order. This type of clouded perception of US intervention has helped lead to two costly wars, namely, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Idea that the US was on the side of right when it invaded allowed it to label others as the bad guys versus the good guys which is one of the biggest reason for the strategic blunder. The biggest mistake the Bush Administration admits too is not differentiating the Taliban from Al Qaeda. That mistake has helped continue years of bloodshed which looks like a result of that clouded perception by the US mindset and no victory coming closer. Again this idea of American Exceptionalism is a weakness Osama Bin Laden used to push the US to invade Afghanistan and undermine its legitimacy has a hegemonic power.
The United States repeated and made the same mistakes the Soviets did in Afghanistan such as invading the country and installing/propping up an illegitimate government. There is also a large disillusion that the problems could be solved in a few months where it would appear they cannot t be solved in 16 years. Both the Bush Administration and the Soviet Union thought they would have victory in Afghanistan relatively quickly, but long-term insurgency never seemed to be defeated completely. They would kill tens of thousands and there would be a battle the next day. There was also this feeling that once the Soviets got in, the fight was about “National Prestige”(Vietnam Syndrome)(much like American Exceptionalism). If they left they would shame their country, so the Soviets stayed for 10 years and then got kicked out. There was a very large disconnect between the Afghan culture, language and the invaders (US/Soviet). There continues to be a problem that stems very much from Afghanistan, Jihad to protect Islam whether or not it’s true it is an idea that has spread. There was the idea that both the Soviet Union and the US had about creating stability even though their actions did the opposite (referencing actions of Soviets in the 1980s vs the US today). In Afghanistan, they were almost always high casualties largely taken by poor farmers who felt they were defending their country or pro-government forces caught between tribal disputes. There is still consistent aid and travel by the Taliban in and out of Pakistan. There is also the problems of people deserting the Afghan army which the hegemony supports. Both countries become involved in a war they thought they won in weeks but ended up turning into something like the Sopranos where everyone is killing everyone and the hegemony is caught in the middle.
Possible Options To Increase The Legitimacy Of The Government Of Afghanistan *Gain control of opium production and put it under some form of governmental control. The government needs the money and many of them are already involved in the opium trade it’s a legal barrier of just legitimizing it to gain more secure control of the country. It always puts a lot of people to work and helps many people to make a living, after Afghan is more built up its possible to move it away from there after large improvements are made.
* Make peace with large portions of the Taliban and allow them to govern more legitimately (in the eyes in the Afghan people). This policy is difficult to implement and will require much work, negotiation, and large term forward-thinking on the part of policymakers in the US.
*Reduce bombing campaigns to be more strategic and at all costs reduce refugee populations
* Figure a way to build large housing developments in a cost-effective manner and again working with the Taliban to make a safer country long term. These policies would help alleviate problems of population displacement and allow the people of Afghanistan to live in safety.
*Work heavily with Iran, Russia, Pakistan, and other neighboring countries to improve stability within the Middle East. Some of the ways include increased military cooperation, political planning, and population management. Another solution is to partition Afghanistan between Iran and Pakistan. Iran would gain the primarily Shi’a Western regions of Afghanistan, whereas Pakistan would get the Sunni-dominated regions in Eastern Afghanistan. The key to this proposal is to implement it democratically through an UN-sponsored referendum. If this step is not done democratically, it can further embolden insurgents and make the already difficult situation in Afghanistan much worse.
*Governance should be looked at a provincial level rather than a Federal state (small self-governing provinces). Tribalism playing a role here.
*There needs to be a transition from a strategy of killing Taliban and Al Qaeda Leaders to legitimizing Afghan government, as key counter-insurgency means.
*Increase and incorporate region cultural understand, natural, economic and political problems as the heart of counter-insurgency.
What does Trump mean for the future of Afghanistan? President Donald Trump has made many negative and inaccurate statements about Islam, which does not do any good to help the image of the legitimacy of the Afghan government. Trump is appointing neoconservatives which are generally more hawkish than Neo-liberals such as President Obama or Bill Clinton. A more hawkish approach would be to increasing militarizing the situation by increasing bomb campaigns which will likely worsen the situation. Trump’s view of the conflict with terrorism as an ideologically struggle against where the enemy is 110% evil echoes the same problems the Bush Administration pushed where they failed (even Obama), a reasonable understanding of the situation is crucial to success. Trump seems to display a profoundly ignorant understanding of the conflict.
Trump has also spoken in favor of a hardened US policy towards Iran for the nuclear reason, which is largely rooted in ignorance and misunderstandings of the sorts. If a war was launched against Iran, it would ensure that Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups become stronger than ever. Iran borders Afghanistan and conflict in the area would make both countries less safe. Trump’s dislike for NATO could mean the United States occupies Afghanistan alone and increases the requirements for more troop deployments. Trump embodies the idea of American Exceptionalism in a negative way. Trump’s position on Russia was formerly stable, but his advisers pushed him away from that stance into a more confrontational one due to the issue of Syria. Trump has already reneged on many campaign promises so it’s hard to tell what the policy will be but he has surrounded himself with the people who lead the country into Iraq.
Conclusion
The United States and NATO need to refocus on why they are in Afghanistan and the plans for the future. If they plan to continue fighting heavily in Afghanistan they need a new long-term strategy. The United States needs to increase accountability with aid and better keep track of resources in order to maximize efficiency. Increasingly high casualties taken by civilians and security forces undermine government legitimacy. A record number of refugees destabilize the region where countries like Iran, Pakistan, and others taken in millions of refugees. The new administration coming in needs to make sure it uses forces to find a political solution and not to defeat the insurgency because ultimately Afghanistan will be solved by a political solution whether it be dividing Afghanistan up or other solutions like negotiating heavily with the Taliban. If the government wants to become more legitimate curbing corruption is a major hill to climb as well as developing a proper narcotics strategy that makes sure the Afghan people are put first. Poor results have been shown to develop with high levels of violence, high population displacement, high corruption, and war. Perhaps it’s impossible given the problems to remove the label from Afghanistan of Failed State under the next administration.
Citations
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The theory on democratization by Seymour Lipsett focuses on the relationship between economic development and the likelihood of a country to become and remain a stable democracy. In the 1959 article “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development,” Lipsett hypothesizes that the more developed a country is economically, it is more likely that the country would be a democracy and be characterized by a more stable political situation overall.
For his study, Lipsett looks at a number of countries in both Latin America and Europe and uses several different indices such as per capita income, education levels, the percent of a countries population employed in the agricultural sector, and urbanization. Even though the indices were presented separately, they point in favor of Seymour Lipsett’s initial hypothesis that democracy and the level of development within societies are interconnected and show that if a country is more economically developed, the chances for the emergence of a democratic political system is much higher than for underdeveloped countries.
Lipsett’s study also suggests that the first step in modernization is urbanization, which is followed by media growth and literacy. The next stage is rapid industrial development, which fosters improved communication networks. The growth of advanced communication networks, in turn, encourages the development of formal democratic institutions such as voting and citizen participation in the decisions of their governments.
This article is a response to the article “Some Social Requisites of Democracy,” written by Seymour Lipsett in 1959 and available at: http://eppam.weebly.com/uploads/5/5/6/2/5562069/lipset1959_apsr.pdf
In the article “The political economy of democratic transitions,” Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman explore the effects of socioeconomic factors on democracy. Since the early 1970s, articles by Dankwart Rustow on democratic transitions have been reference consistently by experts. Rustow analyzed the socioeconomic, political, and psychological prerequisites of democracy. Democratization is the result of regime change, among numerous other factors. Most contemporary theories of democratization do not specify the resources that contending parties bring to negotiation and do not consider what is at stake for those involved. In contrast, the approach by Kaufman and Haggard examines the leverage of incumbents against the opposition. Additionally, they look at ten middle-income countries in Latin America and Asia to better explain where democracy came from.
Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman start in the 1970s. Guillermo O’Donnell argued that economic changes create issues and incentives for militaries and individuals to abandon democracy and turn to authoritarianism. Additionally, Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan (other theorists) instead argued that electoral institutions increased polarization (such as the recent Clinton-Trump Presidential divide). Both Linz and Stephan argue that polarization is a reflection of a failure of democratic leadership.
The collapse of authoritarian regimes in Southern Europe and Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s increased interest in democratic transitions. During this period, politicians were influenced by Rustow’s emphasis on strategic interaction and negotiation. For example, after the Cold War, a number of new democracies throughout Europe due to these strategic negotiations.
The approach by Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman focuses on the effects of economic circumstances on the preferences, resources, and strategies of the most important political actors in democratic transitions. In addition, they recognize that many factors contributed to the democratic transformations of the 1980s and 1990s such as diplomatic pressures, structural changes associated with long-term economic development, and the spread of democratization within neighboring countries Moreover, Haggard and Kaufman argue that there is no relationship between regime change and economic crises.
Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman go over the responses to the economic crises by authoritarian regimes. The financial crises of the 1970s and 1980s were far reaching and cut across all social classes, necessitating policy reform. Kaufman and Haggard argue that poor economic performance reduces the power of authoritarian leaders. Economic declines such as the 2008 Great Recession alter the status quo between governments and the private sector. Cooperation between private sector business groups and authoritarian rulers is crucial for the stability of authoritarian rule. If the private sector loses confidence in the ability of the government to manage the economy, businesses begin supporting opposition groups. In contrast, even though authoritarian regimes may decline in periods of weaker economic growth, they have greater power in a stronger economy because of public dissatisfaction.
Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman go on to further support their arguments by comparing transitions from military rule in ten different countries. The six crisis transitions the look at include Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, the Philippines, Brazil, and Peru. The regime transitions in Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, and the Philippines occurred during economic downturns. Even though the transition in Brazil occurred during economic recovery, it experienced severe economic shocks several years earlier and still continued to face a series of unresolved adjustment challenges at the time of their respective transitions. The four non-crisis transitions they examine are Chile, South Korea, Thailand, and Turkey. The authoritarian governments in these transitions withdrew due to a variety of international and domestic political pressures. Additionally, the transitions in each country occurred against the backdrop of strong economic growth and economic stability. These conditions help to account for variations in the terms of the transition and the political alignments that emerged under new democratic regime.
The first area that Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman look at is the terms of the transitions in both the crisis and non-crisis scenarios. One area in which the differences between the crisis and non-crisis cases exists is through the processes through which constitutional orders were written and implemented. In Chile, Turkey, and Thailand, the transitions occurred under constitutions drafted by the outgoing authoritarian government. Even though incoming opposition political leaders succeeded in including some amendments, these constitutions provided the framework in which new democratic governments operated. On the other hand, opposition forces held much greater influence during crisis transitions. Their influence was particularly strong in the Philippines and Argentina. In such cases, opposition political leaders made choices with little input from the outgoing government and returned to the constitutions in effect prior to authoritarian rule. The relative strength of authoritarian and opposition forces in the negotiation process also influenced governmental design. The two objectives of outgoing authoritarian rulers were to preserve the military’s organizational autonomy and to impose limits on the opposition.
Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman then go over the fact that outgoing authoritarian political leaders often create authoritarian enclaves in the noncrisis transitions. The main authoritarian enclave set up by the outgoing authoritarian rulers was the military. For example, Thailand’s military continued to be a dominant force in its political system despite the country’s transition towards democracy and Pinochet remained as the commander of the Chilean military after he stepped down from power in 1990. Additionally, civilian oversight of the Turkish army remained limited after its transition to democracy in 1983. On the other hand, economic difficulties and loss of support prevented outgoing leaders from preserving either military prerogatives or other means of political influence in the crisis scenario. In the case of the Philippines, the military provided crucial support for the democratic transition and thus had considerable support within the new democratic government. Additionally, the Brazilian military retained the most extensive institutional rights of any military among the crisis transitions but left office constrained by deep internal divisions and a decline in support among both politicians and the general public. As a result, its influence on the new Brazilian constitution is relatively limited when compared to a number of non-crisis transitions such as Chile and Turkey.
Restrictions on political participation is another way in which both the non-crisis and crisis scenarios vary. In the non-crisis transitions, mechanisms of exclusion range from bans on political activity and outright repression to subtle manipulation of electoral laws. Exclusionary mechanisms were most visible in Turkey. For example, the government used legal restrictions on Islamic fundamentalism to clamp down on press freedom. The main labor confederation also remained banned after the transition in 1983 and the government sought to persecute union activists. Moreover, the Turkish military also banned numerous political organizations. On the other hand, the elimination of restrictions on labor and political groups was much more evident in the crisis cases. For example, labor unions regained the right to organize, strike, and press their political demands in countries such as Bolivia and many of the countries characterized by crisis transitions implemented open electoral laws that resulted in the development of strong multi-party political systems.
Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman also explore the political economy of new democracies. Even though both Haggard and Kaufman reject the notion that social interests determine the prospects for democracy, they recognize that the opportunities for political elites to mobilize support is dependent on how economic policy affects the distribution of income across different social groups. The first important factor that Haggard and Kaufman note is that the economic legacy of authoritarian rule determines the policy agenda of democratic successors. New democratic governments that come to power in the wake of crises confront a difficult set of economic policy choices. New democratic leaders can often trade political gains for short-run economic losses, but the transition itself raises expectations that government will respond to new political challenges. Additionally, policy reform is difficult because economic problems are pressing and demands for short-term economic relief are widespread. Economic evidence from middle income developing countries provides broad support for these expectations. For example, average budget deficits were almost twice the level of the pre-transition period, whereas in the noncrisis cases deficits remained low. Moreover, four of the crisis cases (Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru) experienced hyperinflation during their first democratic governments.
In the noncrisis transitions, new democratic governments faced a different agenda of policy reforms. Even though economic reform was less pressing, even the most economically successful authoritarian governments were faced with societal issues that could erupt under democratic rule. Among the noncrisis transitions, the consequences of a large social deficit were most evident in Turkey, where inequality grew steadily during the 1980s. Despite such challenges, many of the countries that experienced non-crisis transitions made headway. For example, Chile’s democratic government had some success in reducing poverty and allowing for increased economic equality while maintaining strong economic growth throughout the 1990s. On the other hand, the continuing power of interests linked to the old regime placed limits on the extent to which the new democratic governments could adequately address the economic demands of previously excluded social groups.
Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman also argue that the transition paths also affect the evolution of the political institutions by which economic demands and policy dilemmas are addressed. In the non-crisis cases, new democratic governments often had to deal with the persistence of nondemocratic enclaves, the autonomy of the military establishment, and links between political groups and business elites. Efforts to address political legacies risked to unravel the democratic bargain and make the respective societies more at risk to return to authoritarianism. On the other hand, the crisis cases exhibited a different set of institutional dilemmas. The overall economic circumstances encouraged executives to concentrate their authority. Such a pattern has been evident where economic issues require complex stabilization packages. Divergent forces within the party system also increased the difficulty of sustaining support and strengthened the incentives for executives to govern in an autocratic manner. Democratic institutions may also be undermined by a failure to take swift and effective action in the cases of severe economic crises. However, the absence of institutionalized consultation with legislators and interest groups deprives executives of needed feedback that may be essential to correct past policy errors.
In conclusion, Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman explore the impact of economic crises on democratic transitions in “The political economy of democratic transitions.” Their case study includes several different countries from Latin America and Asia and focuses on factors such as economic performance and the types of transitions towards democracy in each country. Through their study of the experiences of each country, Haggard and Kaufman conclude that economic policy and performance serves as a way to influence both transitions towards democracy and the future success of newly established democracies.
In the book “The development of underdevelopment,” Andre Gunder Frank discusses the factors that have resulted in underdevelopment in certain areas of the world and rapid development in others.
Dependency Theory is a concept based on the global relation of economic domination and exploitation by the more economically powerful countries over the less economically powerful countries. As a result of the unequal distribution of power and resources, some countries have developed at a faster pace than others. Frank further argues that we cannot formulate an adequate development policy for a majority of the world’s population without knowing how their past economic and social history influenced their current underdevelopment. Additionally, he states that we tend to believe that their history tends to resemble the history of the more developed countries and that such assumptions lead to misconceptions about contemporary development and underdevelopment.
The ideas regarding development that Frank expresses in “The development of underdevelopment” go directly against the ideas that Rostow explored in “The Stages of Growth.” Frank rejects the idea that underdevelopment stems from an individual country’s isolation from the larger world and due to the influence of more traditional societies. On the contrary, Frank believes that underdevelopment results from the unequal distribution of resources and exploitation of the less developed and emerging countries by the more developed countries through the so-called “metropolis-satellite relations” theory. Additionally, Frank rejects the development belief promoted by Rostow that an accurate way to explain development is to look at the past experiences of countries in North America and Europe. On the other hand, Frank believes that holding such views creates numerous misconceptions and prevents an accurate view of contemporary development from emerging.
Dependency Theory is the idea that resources flow from a “periphery” of poor and underdeveloped states to a “core” of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former.
Additionally, it can be argued that the development theory proposed by Andre Gunder Frank is dissimilarly promoted by Seymour Lipsett in “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.” In his work, Lipsett argues that economic development and the level of democracy go hand in hand and that increased economic development will, in turn, result in increased democracy and political freedom. Furthermore, Lipsett requires that studying democracy requires the scholar to look at the conditions that caused democracy to emerge in specific countries. Much like with Rostow’s theories, Frank would reject this view because it requires looking at past experiences in certain countries as a way to generalize the belief of economic development and democracy. Moreover, Lipsett’s theory ignores the relationship between powerful (core countries) and the less developed (periphery) countries and the fact that the developed countries taking advantage of the less developed ones resulted in an unequal balance of power on the international stage.
Andre Gunder Frank asserts that Latin America experiences its highest rates of industrialization during the period between the end of World War 1 and the beginning of World War II. As a case study, Frank focuses on the economy of Brazil and describes how its capital, Sao Paulo, became one of the largest and most developed industrial hubs in Latin America. Despite the rapid development of Brazil, Frank argues that Brazil will not break out of the cycle of underdevelopment due to its continued reliance on the more developed nations as a way to export its resources.
In the realm of economic development at the global level, there are a multitude of theories that can be used to explain the development policy of certain countries. Each of the different development methods focuses on several factors, ranging from the history of growth to the factors that have resulted in growth in some countries and underdevelopment in others. Two examples of development theory are Structuralism and Institutionalism. Institutionalism focuses on the importance of formal government and economic structures and considers reliance on both to be critical to economic stability. On the other hand, structuralism attempts to explain the structural aspects that have had an effect on economic policy in individual states.
Structuralist development theory emerged in the 1950s as a response to the perceived failures of Classical Liberalism, in particular, the belief that economic stability and growth stems from a stronger reliance on the free market as opposed to the governments of individual states. On the contrary, Structuralism attempts to identify specific inflexibilities and intervals of the structure of developing economies that affect economic changes and the choice of development policy. Structuralism also serves as a way to explain the failures of the free market to address issues such as the uneven distribution of income and the balance of payments disequilibrium in developing countries. The methodology of Structuralism is based on the belief in a dual economy and the concept of complementarity in demand, which underlies the theories of balanced growth. The idea of the dual economy stems from the observation that development operates unevenly both between and within different sectors of the economy due to inherent structural inefficiencies. Additionally, Structuralism argues that the differences between both developing and developed countries will not disappear overnight. Instead, the structural differences between the developed and less developed countries call for an entirely new analytical approach than the one offered by proponents of alternate theories.
One such country that Structuralism can be applied to is South Korea. Shortly after the end of the Korean War, the South Korea government set up policies that encouraged domestic savings and opened up the country to international trade. South Korea’s economy is defined by a high-level government intervention in the economy, and its political system was characterized by an authoritarian system until the late 1980s. As a result of government-led economic planning, South Korea’s economy grew at a rapid rate since the early 1960s and the country served as a model for successful state economic planning. In 1997 however, the South Korean economy experienced a severe downturn that came about as a result of a shortage of foreign currency. In the years since the financial crisis, South Korea has taken steps to restore confidence in its economy and to reform its previously lax regulatory structure.
The economic experiences of South Korea can be used to both evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Structuralism. For example, Structuralism promotes the belief that the state must play a significant role in fostering economic growth and development. It can be argued that as a result of government intervention in the economy, the South Korean economy was able to undergo unparalleled success and emerge as one of the strongest economies in Southeast Asia. On the other hand, the fact that South Korean political leaders failed to heed the warnings that led to the 1997 financial crisis highlights the belief that structuralist theory may not adequately address issues such as market failure and may not be the best way to explain the causes behind financial collapses.
