Here are some data resources that may be helpful to you while researching and writing your first paper assignment. I’ll be showing you how to use/access some of these sources in class on Thursday, September 23rd.
Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig. 2009. The Handbook of National Legislators. A Global Survey. Cambridge University Press. [On reserve at Bennett Library] JF 511 F57 2009.
Harkan, Joel D. ed. 2009. Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies. [On Reserve at Bennett Library] JQ 1877 L44 2009
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems: http://www.csesdb.com/ [Note: you have to register to access the data base.]
World Bank Database on Political Institutions (DPI) (Thorsten Beck, George Clarke, Alberto Groff, Philip Keefer, and Patrick Walsh)
In a recent article in Foreign Policymagazine, G. Pascal Zachary argues that it’s time to redraw Africa’s political borders, which are “unnatural” and a legacy of 19th and 20th-century colonialism. As is well-known the newly independent states that comprised the Organisation for African Unity met in 1964 and agreed that the extant international borders in Africa were sacrosanct, believing that this would best guarantee stability on the continent. It worked, to a degree. While there have certainly been very few international (i.e. inter-state) wars in Africa in the intervening 45 years, the continent has been ravaged by intra-state (i.e., internal, or “civil”) wars during the same period. What are the potential benefits of redrawing Africa’s borders to make them more coterminous with ethnic boundaries (as has been done recently in, amongst other places, the Balkans and the former Soviet Union)? Zachary’s claim:
Borders created through some combination of ignorance and malice are today one of the continent’s major barriers to building strong, competent states. No initiative would do more for happiness, stability, and economic growth in Africa today than an energetic and enlightened redrawing of these harmful lines.
How important is for for state strength and stability for ethnic and political border to be coterminous? The redrawing of borders–and it is obvious that the mechanism would be military force–would almost certainly lead to tremendous suffering and bloodshed, with competing campaigns of ethnic cleansing. But, as Zachary notes, since the start of the post-colonial era millions of Africans have died in internal conflicts, and:
Rethinking the borders could go far to quelling some of these conflicts. Countries could finally be framed around the de facto geography of ethnic groups. The new states could use their local languages rather than favoring another ethnicity’s or colonial power’s tongue. Rebel secessionist movements would all but disappear, and democracy could flourish more easily when based upon policies, rather than simple identity politics. On top of that, new states based on ethnic lines would by default be smaller, more compact, and more manageable for governments on a continent with a history of state weakness.
Assuming that the political will to achieve this goal were to evolve, what would be the best mechanism? What would Herbst’s argument be? Is this even feasible? Where would one draw the new boundaries? How would one define an ethnic group? Refer to these two maps to get a sense of the near impossibility of the task at hand. While there are about 50-odd states in Africa, there are literally hundreds of geographically-concentrated ethnic groups. In addition, there is a tremendous amount of inter-mingling of ethnic groups as well.
On Thursday, September 23rd we will begin to analyse the exceptionally important concept–the state. It will become strikingly obvious that a strong state is a necessary–but not sufficient–condition for political stability, political and personal liberty, democracy, and economic well-being. Conversely, citizens living in weak, failing, or failed states face lives of economic destitution, personal insecurity (think of Hobbes’ state of nature, where life is nasty, brutish, and short), and lack of basic rights and freedoms. The Fund for Peace publishes an annual index of failed and failing states. A quick look at the results over the last decade or so finds that the same dozen or so states are continually at the top of the list of failed/failing states. Here is a map depicting the results of the most recent index:
Notice the geographical concentration of failed states (in red). Why are the vast majority of the world’s failed states found in central Africa and southwest Asia?
What are the characteristics of failed states that distinguish them from more stable states? Maybe this video of life in Somalia will provide some clues:
In chapter 3 of Humanitarian Intervention Weiss analyses “new wars” and “new humanitarianisms.” The changing nature of humanitarian work is characterized by many things, but I’d like to focus on one particularly, which will lead us to a discussion of the importance of neutrality and the concepts of rule and act utilitarianism.
Weiss argues that humanitarian responses, by NGOs particularly, are becoming more ambitious in scope and thereby shifting from a focus on short-term emergency relief to “attacking the root causes and post-conflict peacebuilding.” He continues,
“rather than provide band-aids, they [humanitarians] wish to use assistance and protection as levers. Many aid agencies desire to spread development, democracy, and human rights and create stable, effective, and legitimate states.” (76)
This has led, concomitantly, to a change in the humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality. These principles, Weiss notes, “made sense if the objective was to provide relief and gain access to affected populations.” These principles, it is argued, foundered upon the reality that contemporary wars–“new wars”–were creating “unanticipated and unintended negative consequences.” Moreover, in a world in which the combatants are state militaries, neutrality and impartiality retained some internal logic. However, as genocidaires and other ty[es of rebel groups become the main combatants in civil wars and the predominant perpetrators of crimes against humanity, the principles of neutrality and impartiality come to be seen increasingly as relics of a bygone era.
A few students took issue with this argument, insisting that there are also likely to be unintended consequences of humanitarian organizations repudiating the principles of neutrality and impartiality. They mentioned some of these in class. This prompted a quick excursion by me into the difference between act and rule utilitarianism/consequentialism. I’ll explain below the fold:
Bosnia Muslim leaders argued that the neutrality policy allowed Messrs. Karadzic and Mladic free reign in their campaign to ethnically cleanse large swaths of Bosnia of (well-fed) Muslims.
Here’s an exhaustive list of the peacekeeping operations established by the UN since its inception.Notice how long some of the operations have lasted (and continue to last). The longest continuing peacekeeping operation is UNMOGIP, which continues to the present and was established in 1949! For the complete list, click here.
Acronym
Mission name
Start date
Closing date
UNTSO
United Nations Truce Supervision Organization
May 1948
Present
UNMOGIP
United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan
January 1949
Present
UNEF I
First United Nations Emergency Force
November 1956
June 1967
UNOGIL
United Nations Observation Group in Lebanon
June 1958
December 1958
ONUC
United Nations Operation in the Congo
July 1960
June 1964
UNSF
United Nations Security Force in West New Guinea
October 1962
April 1963
UNYOM
United Nations Yemen Observation Mission
July 1963
September 1964
UNFICYP
United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus
March 1964
Present
DOMREP
Mission of the Representative of the Secretary-General in the Dominican Republic
We discussed Tom Weiss’ book–Humanitarian Intervention–in IS 302 today. We spent some time on the changing nature, and number, of peacekeeping operations since the end of the Cold War. Below is a map listing the 16 current UN peacekeeping operations. You can find the source image, which is clickable, here. How many of these operations are proceeding under the auspices of Chapter VII of the UN Charter?
Here is part of the textof the UNSC resolution, authorizing the establishment of MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:
Resolution 1925 (2010)
Adopted by the Security Council at its 6324th meeting, on 28 May 2010
Current leader of the Canadian Federal Liberal Party, Michael Ignatieff has long been involved in the issue of human rights–as a historian, journalist, public intellectual, and as the former Carr Professor and Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government.
In the aftermath of the contentious NATO military intervention in Kosovo (1999), Ignatieff sat down with WBUR’s Chris Lydon to assess what had gone right (and wrong) during the intervention. A self-identified member of the “something must be done [to stop alleged Serbian war crimes against the Kosovar Albanians]”, Ignatieff stands by his support for the intervention, claiming that, on the whole, the benefits outweighed the costs.
I’ll use this blog to keep you informed about lectures and events that may be of interest to you that are taking place on campus or in the greater Vancouver area. There are two events this week that are relevant.
This evening, Monday September 13th, at 7:00pm the Philosophers’ Cafe is kicking off the first event of its fall series at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts at Deer Lake in Burnaby. This evening’s discussion is titled “Mixed Up: Is Canada’s cultural mix more like a melting pot, mosaic or matrix?” We’ll be addressing issues of identity and culture in about two weeks time in IS 210. The admission is $5, and the event will be moderated by Randall Mackinnon, who has served as a president, board member, executive and consulting staff for a diversity of community service organizations since 1970. For more information about tonight’s event and directions to the venue, click here.
The second event is a one-woman show entitled Miracle in Rwanda, which is showing all of this week at Pacific Theatre Company and will also have a two-week run on Granville Island beginning later this month. To learn more about the show, and to purchase tickets, go here.
Update: The website I linked to above links to the wrong page. Miracle in Rwanda is part of this year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival. Here’s the correct link to information regarding show times and tickets.
In IS 302 today, we watched the opening statements of four distinguished panelists debating the merits of humanitarian intervention, which was held at the Munk Centre of the University of Toronto in 2008. Two panelists–Gareth Evans and Mia Farrow–took the pro-intervention side, while the other two–John Bolton and General Rick Hillier–argued in support of the anti-interventionist position.
Here are just some of the issues that were discussed in class following the viewing:
Evans’ reformulation of the concept of “the national interest.” Why did he do this? Were you convinced?
Bolton’s admonition that if you want to intervene militarily to prevent humanitarian crises, do it with your soldiers, not mine.
Farrow’s claim that states currently have the responsibility–as a result of international conventions and treaties–to do everything within their means to stop humanitarian disasters and genocides such as those occurring in Sudan.
Hillier’s claim that if the international community were truly serious about intervening in a manner consistent with the rhetoric, governments in countries such as Canada and Australia would have to double the size and capabilities of their militaries. That they don’t is a sign, Hillier asserts, of the lack of will on the part of these countries specifically, and the broader humanitarian world more generally.
A link to the whole video can be found here. Note that you’ll have to register with the Munk Centre website in order to be able to watch the video.
Over the course of the semester, we’ll address the issue of economic growth and economic well-being. We’ll ask–and attempt to answer–question such as “why are most African countries still so poor?”, “why has there been an economic miracle in many parts of east Asia?”, etc. As we’ll see, the most widely used measure of economic welfare (or well-being) is gross domestic product (GDP), which is a measure of the total goods and services produced in a country in a given year.
Evidence suggests that the higher a country’s GDP, the better that country’s residents live; that is, they are better off. Recently, there has been increasing criticism of the focus on GDP as a measure of societal welfare. Think of the recent oil spill of the US coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The money spent to (attempt to) clean the waters and beaches served to increase the GDP in this area during the clean-up. It doesn’t take too much imagination to understand that this increase in GDP was probably not a boost in the general welfare of the individuals living in the region.
Robert Kennedy, at the start of his ill-fated run for the US presidency in 1968, remarked about GDP:
“The GDP* measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”
In a recent TED talk, statistician Nic Marks tackles some of the issues of using the GDP as a measure of a society’s “success.” From the abstract:
Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation’s success by its productivity — instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn’t have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.
Clouds, Clocks, and Sitting at Tables 
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