Teaching Comparative

Using the Economist

The Economist is one of the vital resources to have access to if you're going to teach Comparative. Almost every issue has articles that are relevant either as background or as readings for students. The June 3, 2006 edition is no exception.

The first article could be used all by itself as a comparative lesson if your students are familiar with the US primary and caucus systems for choosing candidates. The process of selecting candidates in the UK is controversial now because of Cameron's announced intent to move the Conservative Party toward the center of political spectrum. (Well, it might require that you explain some things, but that's a good role for a teacher.)

1. The first article to pay attention to is

The Conservative Party: Paleos versus posers (This is a premium article. Access requires subscription.)

"...Back in December, Mr Cameron announced that Conservative associations would be expected to select [candidates] from a short 'priority' list, filled with women and ethnic-minority candidates... A handful of good male candidates, brushed off with the tale that they lacked campaigning experience, are convinced the real reason for their rejection is that they are too white or too posh...

"Some heat will be taken out of the row when new names are added to the A-list at the end of July. If the party is sensible, it will find room for some of those white males it spurned this time around. The leadership has already backtracked a little, saying that constituency associations will not be forced to select from the A-list..."

2. The second article has to do with Iranian social cleavages. An article like this adds depth and current data to what a textbook would let students know about civil society in Iran.

Uppity minorities: Unrest in the provinces is rattling the government at the centre
(This is also a premium story.)

"THE Islamic Republic's culture minister is under the cosh for reacting tardily to last month's publication of a cartoon, showing a cockroach speaking Azeri Turkish, which sparked rioting across Iran's Azeri-dominated north-west... Members of the Majlis, Iran's parliament, have threatened to impeach Mustafa Pourmohammadi, the interior minister, for failing to stem lawlessness in the part-Baluch south-east. Cast an eye over western Iran's troubled Kurdish and Arab regions and you may concur with Rahim Shahbazi, an Azeri nationalist based in America, who calls ethnic strife a 'nuclear bomb that will blow away the Iranian regime'...

"Amid daily boasts of captures, deaths and brilliant punitive operations, Iranian officials never admit the role of chronic unemployment and poverty, not to mention Iran's institutionalised distrust of minorities, in stoking the unrest. In Sanandaj, for instance, university graduates may find themselves choosing between manual labour and a life in the hills with PJAK. 'Is it surprising', the academic asks, 'that some choose the latter?' It certainly deters would-be investors. Rio Tinto, an Anglo-Australian mining company, recently said it was withdrawing from a gold-mining project in Kurdistan...

"Several days of protests by Iranian Azeris peaked on May 25th, when four demonstrators were killed in the part-Azeri town of Naghadeh. Many Azeris, the biggest minority in a country dominated by ethnic Persians, had not been placated by the banning of the government-owned newspaper in which the offending cartoon appeared, nor by the arrest of the cartoonist and an editor. The killings were only fleetingly acknowledged by the authorities. An official account was hastily withdrawn from the newswire where it was posted...

"In a fractious discussion among Iranian exiles last winter at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think-tank in Washington, it was plain that Iran's mainstream opposition groups are as hostile to minority irredentism as the Islamic Republic is. For all the unrest around its edges, Iran's heartland remains strong, centralised, and unsympathetic to uppity minorities. Iran's nuclear bomb, if it comes, is unlikely to be aimed inwards."

3. The thrid story in the current Economist is a comparative companion to the one about Iran's minorities in the way it offers exceptions to the common assumption that China's system and political culture are unitary. And it offers an interesting comparison to the story about how Cameron's Conservative Party is choosing candidates.

Atomised: Beijing no longer commands instant obedience from China's local authorities (This article is not a premium article.)

"THE Chinese Communist Party is a highly centralised beast, with a power structure little changed from the days of Mao Zedong. Over the next year or so it will be engaged in what official reports describe as one of the biggest shuffles of leaders at every level, with hundreds of thousands due to change their jobs. Nominally, appointments are made by local party committees. In practice top appointments in the provinces have always been made by leaders in Beijing. But that does not mean that Beijing is in complete control.

"A good career in the party still depends on following, or at least appearing to follow, the centre's orders. But local leaders calculate that as long as their areas achieve rapid economic growth with minimal unrest, then they have considerable leeway to do as they will. The party no longer really frets about the ideological purity of its leaders. And since the days of Mao each new generation of leaders in Beijing has been increasingly less able to command instant obedience across the country.

"To be sure, China is not heading towards a break-up, anarchy or the warlordism of the pre-communist era...

"The problem today is more a profusion of township, county and prefectural leaderships whose efforts to propel growth in their regions produce impressive statistics, but often at a heavy social, environmental or macroeconomic cost. In the last two years the government has been worrying that the economy might overheat and has been trying to curb investment in industries whose capacity has been growing too quickly. But local officials have often simply ignored these measures...

"Local leaders rarely incur heavy political penalties for failing to carry out the central government's economic directives. Officials in Beijing frequently order clampdowns on the makers of pirated goods. Offending factories are sometimes closed. But local officials who condone such operations as a way of boosting their local economies are seldom punished. Nor are officials who turn a blind eye to polluting industries, unless they cause big accidents or trigger unrest..."

posted by Ken Wedding @ 3:31 PM