Teaching Comparative

Seats of Power

The site of executive power in a regime usually has a name. That name is frequently synonymous with the government and/or regime. It's tempting to use characteristics of the seat of power to describe the characteristics of the regime or government - especially when those characteristics reinforce preconceived ideas about the regime. We have to be careful about giving into those temptations, but discussing the limits of those analogies with your students might be a valuable way to review regime characteristics.

The White House in Washington, D.C. is the seat of executive power in the U.S. It's much more than a residence for the U.S. president. Its East and West Wings as well as the Old Executive Office Building house offices of the presidential and White House staffs. The White House is a tourist attraction and, in spite of recent security modifications, it's a very public place. Its accessibility and visibility symbolize values most Americans honor.

Similarly, 10 Downing Street is the residence and central office of the British Prime Minister. The adjacent "houses" (11 and 12 Downing Street) contain a variety of government offices and meeting spaces. "Downing Street" and "No. 10" are often used to identify the government. Like the White House, Downing Street is protected from the public and from terrorism, but it's still a visible public place. In that way it represents values of the British political culture.

These centers of power differ considerably from those in other countries.

Take Moscow's Kremlin. Originally, it was a walled Medieval city on the banks of the Moscow River. After the 1917 revolution, the government and many of the top leaders moved into the Kremlin.

During the Cold War, Kremlinologists were Western experts in academia, journalism, and the intelligence services who tried to divine what was going on behind the opaque walls of the Kremlin from secondary evidence. As Putin's government looks less and less transparent and democratic, journalists are using "Kremlin" once again to describe the Russian government. Those Kremlin walls represented the lack of transparency in the Soviet regime and the separation of the government from the people. These days, the old meanings seem once again apt.

Similarly, Zhongnanhai, headquarters and residence for the leadership and government in China, is behind impenetrable walls. It's a huge area west of the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was originally built in the 10th and 11th centuries as a pleasure spot for the emperor. Later it was the center of municipal government. After the 1949 revolution Party leaders and ministries moved into Zhongnanhai.

While the Kremlin now welcomes limited tours for visitors, Zhnongnanhai is still off limits to the public. Even China Central Television only broadcasts from inside the government buildings in Zhongnanhai. You can, however, look at photographs of Zhongnanhai at Google Earth. Those aerial photographs don't do much to make Chinese policy making more transparent. The walls, like those of the Kremlin, symbolize a separation of the government and the people.

Los Pinos is the Mexican president's official residence. It's located in Chapultepec Park in the center of Mexico City. It's on city maps, but it's a secure area. I could only find one photograph of Los Pinos with a Google image search, and the caption on that photo was "The seldom-seen grounds of Los Pinos." This seat of power is more visible than the Kremlin and Zhongnanhai, but it's symbolically separated from the populace by elegance and affluence.

The Villa at Aso Rock is the residence of the Nigerian president. A blogger wrote, "For my unfamiliar readers, Aso Rock is a phrase used to describe the seat of power in Nigeria. It is derived from the name of an igneous rock, which shields the residential/official quarters of the president and his closest aides." The rock, I should add, is 400 meters high. Aso Rock shields more than the quarters of the leadership. There are government buildings and military barracks in The Villa's compound.

I couldn't find even one photograph of The Vila in search of Google and Yahoo! images. The Villa isn't mentioned on the official web site of the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. The Villa isn't on any maps I could read. (There was a city map online, but the words were too small to read. Have you been there to tell us where Aso Rock Villa is?) Maybe invisibility is as good as guarded walls. It certainly sets the government apart from the people and maybe total transparency is as good as opacity. What message might that communicate about policy making in Nigeria?

• Welcome to 10 Downing Street
  
• The Kremlin at Geographica
  
• The Kremlin at Geographica again
  
• The Moscow Kremlin (official site)
  
• Time Magazine on Zhonghai
  
• Zhongnanhai official site
  
• Zhongnanhai tourism site
  
• Wikipedia on Los Pinos
  
• Chippla's Weblog on Aso Rock

Labels: China, Mexico, Nigeria, pedagogy, Russia, UK

posted by Ken Wedding @ 3:08 PM