David Brooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/opinion/30brooks.html

This op-ed piece offends me. First, I think it's kind of silly to assume that encouraging a wider distribution of information makes Assange an anarchist. Somehow, I can't quite make the leap from transparency to anarchy, but maybe that's just me.

Second, Brooks' point that governments lying is healthy and natural (well, it might be natural, but probably not healthy) is good provided it maintains some form of order. This idea begs a few questions in my mind: what's the value of a world order that is predicated on lies and a lack of openness? Who really benefits from this world order Brooks would encourage us to maintain? I think the global south would have a different take than someone writing from inside the Beltway...

Procrastinating

"Capable psychonauts who think about thinking, about states of mind, about set and setting, can get things done not because they have more will power, more drive, but because they know productivity is a game of cat and mouse versus a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty which can never be excised from the soul. Your effort is better spent outsmarting yourself than making empty promises through plugging dates into a calendar or setting deadlines for push ups."

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/10/27/procrastination/#more-922

Homeless Evac

There was a homeless encampment on a piece of land near my apartment in DC. Today, they were evicted. There were about 5 police, 6 workers, and a number of administrators present.

Court of Neptune

Badass.

Dear Glenn

Earlier today, I was minding my own business in a B&N in downtown DC when I noticed that the lady next to me was, by most reasonable standards, a complete wingnut. She was reading a pamphlet titled "10 reasons to oppose socialism," she had a copy of "Pocket Pistol" magazine on the table in front of her, and there was a "don't tread on me" flag sticking out of her purse. At first, this surprised me because ladies like this one are usually pretty scarce in downtown Washington. As I looked around, I noticed there were many people who I would readily describe as "her type." It then dawned on me that today was the day of Glenn Beck's speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

As someone who went to a very crunchy high school and a left leaning liberal arts college, people like this are wholly foreign to me. I realize that they must exist somewhere because elections are usually pretty close and someone must keep Fox's advertising rates up. Until this point, however, the arch-conservative, gun-enthused, god bless america gear wearing Americans had always seemed very distant; like an imaginary monster that Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart use to frighten progressive citizens into voting. Similarly, it's very easy to imagine that no one actually adheres to that type of jingoism because, to someone like me, it's completely nuts.

Their reason for being there was not lost on me: one of their most important seers was making a grand speech intended to somehow reclaim America's honor in an afternoon (commemorative T-shirts are $25. No refunds in the event of an unsatisfactory reclamation of honor). The bigger question in my mind is why people take someone like Glenn Beck so seriously. It seems to me that most reasonable people dismiss 99% of what he has to say as absolutely preposterous. An example is the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or "the bailout." Glenn Beck would have his viewers believe that this is entirely President Obama's doing, which is completely ridiculous. The bill was signed by President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008, months before Obama took office or had even been elected.

Or the steadfast claims that the Cordoba House is funded by a terrorist organization. Anyone with even a modicum of critical thinking in their body would need no more than 5 minutes to discover that the financing group behind the Cordoba House, the Kingdom Foundation, is owned by Al-Waleed bin Talal, largest owner of Newscorp stock outside the Murdoch family. If we assume that the Cordoba House is in fact a training ground for terrorists, as countless talking heads on Fox have speculated and then "follow the money" as Mr. Beck loves to say, we can reach only one conclusion: Fox News funds terrorism.

Fox News -> Newscorp -> Bin Talal -> Kingdom Foundation -> Cordoba House -> Terrorism

The most troubling part of this is that, despite both being matters of public record and also indisputable fact, it seems that a very small portion of Glenn Beck's audience takes the time to look this up. If they did, surely there would be no room for debate. You can't disagree with when a bill was signed or who signed it because their signature is on it. Nor can you dispute the fact that the Al-Waleed bin Talal owns a large share in Newscorp. Both are empirical facts and not up for debate, which can only mean that a large portion of America is either unwilling to ask questions or engaging in willful ignorance. Neither bodes well.

Wedeen Review

I found Lisa Wedeen's book to be very interesting for a few reasons. First, it's interesting to read an account of how a government might saturate as many different spheres of public life as possible. Her descriptions of the prevalence of Asad's portrait and other cult icons in shop windows and taxi cabs despite the lack of official requirements to display them was particularly interesting because it shows how a self regulating system of cult-like behavior can be constructed. Although I'm sure many Syrians are resentful of their government to at least a certain degree, seeing Asad's portrait must discourage any would be dissidents because how do you separate people who are playing along from true believers without putting yourself at risk?

I also found her book interesting because it focuses on areas that we have not previously explored and that are conceptually more challenging. The rentier state, for example, is much easier for me to decipher. Bribing people is, at its core, a fairly simple process: you figure out who might cause you trouble and give them some cash. Although the process of deciding who needs how much money and when might be an intricate and delicate process, conceptually it is not all that complex. How one might go about creating a "fearless leader" seems to be much more challenging in my mind, mostly because of the risk of overdoing it.

My third point of interest is exactly that, and perhaps better described as a point of amusement than anything else. The anecdote about soldiers claiming to have had dreams about climbing ladders of fire to kiss the face of the leader, for example, made me chuckle; everyone in the room must have known that they were all lying through their teeth. What are the odds that everyone just happened to dream of Asad? But the amazing thing is that everyone still participated, which begs a big question in my mind: when do people throw up their hands and say to one another "this is such nonsense...when can we stop playing along with this charade of a government?"

One party systems etc.

It seems to me that paries play a significant role in non-democratic states in MENA. Although they bear the same name as political parties in Western democracies, and are superficially similar in that they sometimes participate in elections, parties in authoritarian states play a very different role. To borrow some terminology from IR theory, they are primarily interested in maintaining power, rather than serving the best interest of their constituent (if you can call it that, since their electoral decisions apparently have very little impact on the party) populations.

King describes a number of ways in which ruling parties have redirected economic reform to suit their own interests, and there is a plethora of examples of the powers that be using elections as a way of legitimizing their power. In the context of political systems, this tendency is logical because, once again, a ruling elite is ostensibly interested in maintaining their status by denying other people the opportunity to run the country. Moreover, their desire to stay in power is also reinforced by their ability to do so; it seems to me that the chances of lower class citizens manipulating economic reform to their own benefit is rather slim.

The sum of it all is that political parties play an important role in the persistence of authoritarianism in MENA. They have the means and the motive to reconstruct legal systems and manipulate affairs in their respective countries such that they maintain their grasp on power. It is also important to note that parties have played an increasing role in authoritarianism since the outside world began putting greater pressure on non-democratic states to liberalize; in many cases, the ruling class has been quite content to put on a good show and appear democratic by forming parties rather than cabals of military leaders in order to please the West.

Rentierism

I think that rentierism is a useful concept in explaining authoritarianism in MENA. It seems particularly valid to me because it provides a lucid logical framework for explaining the authoritarian tendency in the Middle East without resorting to arguments that fall along the lines of "it's just how they are, those Arabs." It takes into account what makes the region singular without making sweeping assumptions about the people who live there. Whether or not the theory is entirely accurate is another matter entirely, the fact that it provides a theory that can be tested and empirically evaluated means that it is sound, at least as far as its methodology is concerned.

Rentierism is also useful in that it provides a mechanism through which colonial powers exert their influence. It is almost certainly true that colonialism has a significant impact on MENA, however, simply leaving it at that is not a particularly satisfying explanation. Rentierism provides an avenue through which the effects of colonial powers can be explained and quantified by a reasonably empirical method.

That being said, I am skeptical of almost any single factor explanation for anything. It seems somewhat far fetched to assume that an abundance of mineral resources is the only factor that plays a role. Norway (sigh) is a perfect exception to rentierism. Despite having vast mineral resources in the form of North Sea oil, Norway rates as one of the most democratic countries on earth, and has not displayed any authoritarian tendencies for many decades.

I think that rentierism, assuming that it is a problem, can be solved by imposing conditions on the purchase of oil. Although it seems highly unlikely given the appetite for oil, mandating that oil be purchased only from legitimately democratic and transparent states might be a good way to mitigate the lack of representation that the citizens of authoritarian regimes experience. It would also be worthwhile to stipulate where and how oil revenue is spent, however this also seems like a long shot because of how high the demand for oil is; rentier states could easily find other buyers, whereas the buyers would be hard pressed to find other sellers.

Pigeon holes?

For this assignment, we were asked to assess Henry & Springborg's assertion that countries in MENA can be classified as 'praetorian republics,' monarchies, or democracies. The prompt asks specifically whether this classification is the most useful, and I don't have a good answer to that question.

Given the readings by Anderson and Entelis, it seems that these classifications might not be particularly useful. I think that for the purposes of our class, classifying the different regimes in MENA is counterproductive because it encourages generalization and trying to force countries into categories where they don't quite fit. For example, Israel and Iran are both democratic, but how similar are they actually? Although the classification might provide some basic framework or structure to a discussion, I think that terms such as 'democracy' and 'monarchy' have too much baggage; it seems likely that people are likely to draw comparisons whatever democratic country and monarchy they are most familiar with whatever MENA country they have been asked to think about.

That being said, I don't feel comfortable prescribing a system of classification of my own. When I think about trying to devise broad categories, I run into two problems. First, the limited knowledge I have and the discussion in our most recent class make me hyper aware of not trying to make arbitrary generalizations. It's easy to assume that Islam or other cultural factors weigh heavily on the politics of the region as a whole, and more importantly, that important comparisons can be drawn between the states in question based on these cultural and religious commonalities.

Second, I think that classifying the countries without a more substantial understanding of the individual states is counterproductive. My concern is that categorizing something I'm not very familiar with will lead to drawing foregone conclusions and being reluctant to discard the labels, even if they are proven erroneous. I think that it's worthwhile to look at states by themselves before you start categorizing them, simply because categorizing before you understand might as well be completely arbitrary. In theory, understanding should help you make a more informed argument as to a decision to place something in a certain category. That or it will paralyze you, bog you down in details and prevent you from seeing the forest for all the trees.

Anderson

Anderson argues that one of the major problems that faces political scientists in their analysis of the Middle East is a tendency to view the region through the wrong lens. As Western thinkers, we are prone to adhering to a strong tradition of political liberalism. That is to say that we tend to more or less assume that democracy is the end all, be all of political organizations. This is all well and good as long as we are analyzing states populated by other people prone to this assumption. However, this narrative of "democracy=good" breaks down when you start looking at societies that have different political and philosophical traditions.

Although I am not an expert Arab political philosophers, I have a hunch (based on the reading) that there is no direct equivalent to the likes of John Locke et. al. Without a similar tradition, it seems logical to think that democracy might seem a strange and foreign concept in MENA. Also, it is important to consider the difference in language. Whereas most European languages have similar roots and developed next to one another, Arabic and Farsi are descended from different sources and therefore give rise to significant differences in how it is possible to communicate ideas.

As far as our class is concerned, I think that the best way to address this tendency is to make a concerted effort to step away from the assumption that democracy is the best way to go, as well as acknowledge the different academic tradition that has shaped thought in MENA. This is likely to be uncomfortable as the virtue of democracy is something we tend to take for granted, and uprooting the notion of universal suffrage is likely to feel very strange. As Anderson puts it "We may have to search a bit more in the shadows, in the arenas of political life less well illuminated by conventional political science."

(This post refers to the following journal article by Lisa Anderson:

Anderson, Lisa. "Searching Where the Light Shines: Studying Democratization in the

Middle East." Annual Review Political Science9 (2006): 189-214.)

Middle East

The Middle East is the geographic area that spans roughly between Egypt, the Mediterranean, Turkey, and Afghanistan.