Empty Olympic Promises? China as Global Citizen

The New York Times editorial board has chosen to use its valuable op-ed space to evaluate the nature of China’s behavior on the world stage.   The granting of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games to China years ago was meant to serve as a “carrot” in the carrot-and-stick approach being used by sovereign states, like the US, Canada, etc., and IGOs, like the United Nations to nudge China along the road to democratic reform and the protection of personal liberties in that communist state.  Has it worked?  Here’s a data point that rebuts the theory:

Six months out from the 2008 Olympics, China has jailed another inconvenient dissident. Hu Jia was dragged from his home by state police agents, and last week he was formally charged with inciting subversion. To earn the right to host the Games, China promised to improve its human rights record. Instead, it appears determined to silence anyone who dares to tell the truth about its abuses.

Mr. Hu and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, are human rights activists who spent much of 2006 restricted to their apartment. She used the power of the Internet to blog about life under detention while he wrote online about peasant protests and human rights cases.

Mr. Hu’s recent testimony, by telephone, to the European Parliament about Olympics-related rights violations may have been the last straw. Ms. Zeng and the couple’s two-month-old baby remain in their apartment under house arrest, with telephone and Internet connections now severed.

Improving its human rights record isn’t China’s only unmet commitment to the International Olympic Committee. It also promised to improve air quality. Now athletes and their coaches are figuring out how to spend as little time as possible in China’s smog-swamped capital, where they may need masks to breathe.

I’ve written about China before and mentioned the work of an NGO whose goal is to make the Chinese Olympics, the “Genocide Olympics”, highlighting China’s complicity in the genocide in Darfur.  See this post also by one of my students in Intro to IR.

It Just Keeps on Getting Worse: Violence Escalates in Chad

From the BBC, we learn that the situation in the African state of Chad is going downhill quickly. According to the Failed States Index compiled by the Fund For Peace, Chad was the 5th most failed state in 2007. Chad has been affected negatively by the ongoing conflict and genocide in the neighboring state of Sudan.

Thousands of people are fleeing the Chad capital, N’Djamena, after two days of fierce fighting between government and rebel forces in the city.

chad.jpgThe government says it has pushed the rebels out of the city but they say they withdrew to give civilians the chance to evacuate. Aid workers report that fighting is continuing outside the city, while dead bodies litter the streets.

The UN Security Council has urged member states to help the government. The BBC’s Laura Trevelyan at the UN in New York says this non-binding statement gives the go-ahead to France and other countries to help President Idriss Deby’s forces against the rebels.

Chad’s former colonial power France has a military base in Chad and has previously helped the government with logistics and intelligence. Thousands of people have been streaming across the Ngueli bridge, which separates Chad from Cameroon.

Local officials have told the UN refugee agency that thousands were also crossing at the border town of Kousseri. “We’re expecting a lot more people coming,” said UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond. He also said he was extremely concerned for the 240,000 Darfur refugees in Chad.

The International Crisis Group released a report back in 2006 detailing the situation in Chad and fearing a return to war in that country. You can view the executive summary here, where there is a link to the full report (the full report is only in French, however). Here is a snippet from that summary:

The April 2006 rebel offensive brought Chad to the brink of all-out civil war. The victory that President Idriss Déby ultimately achieved in pushing the United Front for Democracy and Change (FUCD) back from the gates of the capital, N’Djamena, to its Darfur sanctuary settled nothing on the military front and underscored the political fragility of the regime. The army’s success was primarily due to French logistical and intelligence support, while the setback paradoxically may encourage the armed opposition groups to forge closer links in order to pursue a war of attrition in the north, the east and along the border with the Central African Republic. The crisis is far from resolved, and is likely to be an enduring one.

Only weeks before the 3 May presidential elections, Déby had to fight off spectacular defections of senior figures from the army and the political elite as well as assassination attempts, all likewise aimed at preventing him from gaining a third term but he won the controversial elections with 64.67 per cent of the vote.[1] Though opposition groups challenged the result, France and the wider international community hastily accepted it to avoid further destabilisation, while declaring that they now expected the president to democratise his regime.

Chad (red on the map) is in north-central Africa and is on the eastern border of Sudan.

chad_map.jpg

Centrist wins run-off Election for Serbian Presidency

The BBC reports that centrist candidate Boris Tadić has won more than 50% of the vote in the second round of the Serbian presidential elections held on Sunday. Turnout was high and the Serbian electorate has, with a slight majority, signaled its intention of looking towards the future and the West, rather than returning to the nationalist rhetoric and policies of Serbia’s recent past.

Serbian President Boris Tadic, 3 February 2008

Mr Tadic wants to push forward his European integration agenda

Serbia’s pro-Western president, Boris Tadic, has won a second round election run-off against nationalist challenger Tomislav Nikolic, who conceded defeat. Mr Tadic was re-elected by more than 50% of voters in a contest that saw a high voter turnout.

Car horns could be heard around Belgrade as Tadic supporters took to the streets of the Serbian capital to celebrate the victory.

The election was seen as a referendum on Serbia’s relations with Europe.

“Serbia has shown its great democratic potential,” said Mr Tadic said in his victory speech, in which he lauded Mr Nikolic for his performance in the knife-edge contest, and said the country still had hard work ahead.

President Bush’s Speech Announcing Start of Military Operations in Iraq

Here is President Bush’s address to the nation announcing the beginning of military operations in Iraq in 2003.  How can we use the framework of the “levels-of-analysis” to understand the Bush administration decision to take military action against the Saddam Hussein regime?

Using Powerpoint-type Presentations in Class

latex.jpg

The rise in the ubiquity of use of Powerpoint-type (and I use the phrase Powerpoint-type since Powerpoint is but one–although the most popular–type of software used for electronic lecture presentations; I use the Beamer package add-on for the type-setting software LaTeX) presentations has led to a spirited debate in the field of academia. Some argue that the presentations are self-defeating and do not advance any sane pedagogical objective, while others swear by the benefits.

I see both advantages and disadvantages to their use but believe that ultimately, like with most tools, there is no inherent value in the tool itself, but that the value of the tool (for better or worse) comes in its application. Thus, I think that Powerpoint-type lectures can be used to enhance the educational experience and one’s pedagogical objectives. The issue, then, revolves around determining just what the best use of Powerpoint is.

Thankfully, there has been some research on the subject. From the blog “Thinking about College Teaching“, here is a snippet from a post explaining the best use of Powerpoint in classs:

I found a research study that compared student learning for four ways of combining PowerPoint presentations with distribution to students. (I no longer have a citation for that study.) One group of students did not receive any handouts, a second group received complete handouts prior to discussion, a third group received complete handouts after discussion, and a fourth group received skeletal handouts prior to the discussion and complete handouts after the discussion. Learning was greatest in the last group, and that was the model I followed…

…I went through that file and deleted most content except for slide headings. I made that file available to students on the Blackboard site for my course prior to class, and those who wanted it could download it and bring a printed copy to class. After I completed the class discussion, I made the [complete] file available. The most enterprising students brought the outline version to class, took notes on it, and later compared their notes to my complete version. In any case, I did not spend the school’s money to duplicate materials that only some students wanted. Students were satsified with that arrangement when I explained that they would learn the most that way.

This is what I will do for the remainder of the semester. When I am using Powerpoints, which will be about every second or third session, I’ll post the Powerpoint lecture outlines on Blackboard, the post the complete version there after I have completed the lecture. If it takes more than one session to finish a lecture, the completed version will be posted after the lecture has been completed in full.

War and the Process of State-making

As we discussed in class on Thursday, there is a close relationship between the war, the state, and state-making.  Thus, violence is at the root of the idea of the modern state, as Weber’s famous definition of the state aptly demonstrates.  Norbert Elias suggested that the state-formation process in Europe was “an elimination contest.”  In addition, Charles Tilly famously wrote* “war made the state and the state made war.”  In a much-read paper** on the topic, Tilly wrote:

What distinguished the violence produced by states from the violence delivered by anyone else? In the long run, enough to make the division between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” force credible. Eventually, the personnel of states purveyed violence on a larger scale, more effectively, more efficiently, with wider assent from their subject populations, and with readier collaboration from neighboring authorities than did the personnel of other organizations.  But it took a long time for that series of distinctions to become established. Early in the state-making process, many parties shared the right to use violence, the practice of using it routinely to accomplish their ends, or both at once. The continuum ran from bandits and pirates to kings via tax collectors, regional power holders, and professional soldiers.

The uncertain, elastic line between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” violence appeared in the upper reaches of power. Early in the state-making process, many parties shared the right to use violence, its actual employment, or both at once. The long love-hate affair between aspiring state makers and pirates or bandits illustrates the division. “Behind piracy on the seas acted cities and city-states,” writes Fernand Braudel of the sixteenth century. “Behind banditry, that terrestrial piracy, appeared the continual aid of lords.”‘ In times of war, indeed, the managers of full-fledged states often commissioned privateers, hired sometime bandits to raid their enemies, and encouraged their regular troops to take booty. In royal service, soldiers and sailors were often expected to provide for themselves by preying on the civilian population: commandeering, raping, looting, taking prizes. When demobilized, they commonly continued the same practices, but without the same royal protection; demobilized ships became pirate vessels, demobilized troops bandits.

It also worked the other way: A king’s best source of armed supporters was sometimes the world of outlaws. Robin Hood’s conversion to royal archer may be a myth, but the myth records a practice. The distinctions between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” users of violence came clear only very slowly, in the process during which the state’s armed forces became relatively unified and permanent.

The process of legitimation of state violence came, as Tilly argues above, slowly.  What, according to Weber, are the different types of legitimacy that attended to this process?

*Charles Tilly, “Reflections on the History of European State-Making,” in Charles Tilly, ed.,  The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1975), p. 42.

**Tilly, Charles. “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime, ” in Evans, Rueschemeyer and Skocpol, ed., Brining the State Back in (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p.172-173.

***Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process  (Oxford: Blackwell), 1993.

India’s Role in the Illegal Trafficking of Body Parts

This worrisome story in the New York Times sheds light on an increasingly brazen network of doctors and bandits who have organized an international trafficking ring in human body parts, such as kidneys.  While increasing numbers of Indians, and residents of other less-developed countries willingly sell their kidneys many, like the gentleman in the story, are the victims of deception and fraud.

GURGAON, India — As the anesthetic wore off, Naseem Mohammed said, he felt an acute pain in the lower left side of his abdomen. Fighting drowsiness, he fumbled beneath the unfamiliar folds of a green medical gown and traced his fingers over a bandage attached with surgical tape. An armed guard by the door told him that his kidney had been removed.

Mr. Mohammed was the last of about 500 Indians whose kidneys were removed by a team of doctors running an illegal transplant operation, supplying kidneys to rich Indians and foreigners, police officials said. A few hours after his operation last Thursday, the police raided the clinic and moved him to a government hospital.

Many of the donors were day laborers, like Mr. Mohammed, picked up from the streets with the offer of work, driven to a well-equipped private clinic, and duped or forced at gunpoint to undergo operations. Others were bicycle rickshaw drivers and impoverished farmers who were persuaded to sell their organs, which is illegal in India.

Although several kidney rings have been exposed in India in recent years, the police said the scale of this one was unprecedented. Four doctors, five nurses, 20 paramedics, three private hospitals, 10 pathology clinics and five diagnostic centers were involved, Mohinder Lal, the police officer in charge of the investigation, said.

Human Security Resources

A general trend has developed, amongst governments, academics, and (especially) activists working in IGOs and NGOs worldwide that has moved the focus of security away from traditional concepts–such as protecting borders from external threat–to a new approach that focuses specifically on human security. What is “human security?” Well, the Human Security Report Project, at Vancouver, Canada’s Simon Fraser University, defines human security in this way:

Unlike traditional concepts of security, which focus on defending borders from external military threats, human security is concerned with the security of individuals…

For some proponents of human security, the key threat is violence; for others the threat agenda is much broader, embracing hunger, disease and natural disasters. Largely for pragmatic reasons, the Human Security Report Project has adopted the narrower concept of human security that focuses on protecting individuals and communities from violence.

Traditional security policy emphasizes military means for reducing the risks of war and for prevailing if deterrence fails. Human security’s proponents, while not eschewing the use of force, have focused to a much greater degree on non-coercive approaches. These range from preventive diplomacy, conflict management and post–conflict peacebuilding, to addressing the root causes of conflict by building state capacity and promoting equitable economic development.

The website has an informative and very useful set of links to various organizations, governmental institutions, research institutes, etc., that focus on issues of human security.

Another excellent source for information related to human security is the Human Security Gateway. Below is a thumbnails which will take you to a screen shot of their home page. (Notice the RSS feed icons in the left sidebar.)

human_security_gateway_homepage1.jpg

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started