Pragmatism
Most comparative textbooks include a line, somewhere in a chapter about Mexico, that the success of the regime and the PRI is, in part, due to the pragmatic approach that government and party leaders have taken.
In other words, ideology and "perfect" solutions have taken a back seat to what works. The recent changes to the petroleum industry would be one example. This is another.
Mexico to integrate vigilantes into security forces
Mexican vigilante groups in western Michoacan state have agreed to join the official security forces after weeks of taking the law into their own hands.
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| Vigilante fighters in Michoacan |
The "self-defence" groups have recently taken over a number of towns in their attempt to drive the Knights Templar drug cartel from the area.
The government announced on Monday that the vigilantes would now be integrated into units called Rural Defence Corps…
The "self-defence" groups have accused the government of not doing enough to protect locals from the cartels, which extort local businessmen and farmers.
The vigilantes launched an offensive earlier this month, moving close to the stronghold of the Knights Templar cartel in the town of Apatzingan.
Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said the new units would be "temporary" and "under the control of the authorities to cooperate with the troops"…
One of the vigilante leaders, Estanislao Beltran, said his group was keen to speed up the process.
"We are going to dedicate ourselves to regularising our status, having a legal status," said Mr Beltran…
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Labels: concepts, Mexico, politics, pragmatism
Sharing austerity
The loyal opposition suggests that the Royal households have not shared in the general program of government austerity enough (and that they haven't managed their finances very well).
UK lawmakers tell queen to cut costs, boost income
Britain’s royal household needs to get a little more entrepreneurial, eye possible staff cuts and replace an ancient palace boiler, lawmakers say in a new report.
The report published Tuesday on the finances of Queen Elizabeth II has exposed crumbling palaces and depleted coffers, and discovered that a royal reserve fund for emergencies is down to its last million pounds ($1.6 million)…
The committee said the royal household needed more cash to address a serious maintenance backlog on crumbling palaces…
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Buckingham Palace (as seen by most tourists)
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‘‘The boiler in Buckingham Palace is 60 years old,’’ committee chair Margaret Hodge told the BBC. ‘‘The household must get a much firmer grip on how it plans to address its maintenance backlog.’’
In words that have become familiar to Britons during five years of austerity, Hodge urged the royals ‘‘to do more with less.’’
The report pointed out that the royal household’s staff has remained largely static at just over 430 people in the last seven years, a period that has seen deep cuts to public spending and thousands of civil service layoffs…
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Labels: economics, policy, politics, UK
Political science and current events
Social studies teachers have a mandate to interest students in a wider world. Featuring current events in classes is a primary way to encourage that interest.
Political science (like comparative politics) is different. Generalizations are not developed from individual events (news stories). Comparisons based on specific cases can be enlightening, but they're not the main course.
Besides, it's the end of January. Unless there's a revolution somewhere or the destruction of a nation state, events from this point on will not show up on the exam in May.
So, what should we make of news stories about relevant countries? Are they examples that support the generalizations we, scholars, and our textbook authors have made? Are they contradictions? Are they anomalies or signs of change? Mostly they are cases we can use to test what we know about the regimes and politics we're studying. Like the following examples:
China tries four more transparency activists
China has put four more rights activists on trial, a day after the leader of their transparency movement was handed a four-year jail term.
The activists - like others on trial last week - are accused of gathering crowds to disrupt public order.
Their leader, lawyer Xu Zhiyong, was sentenced to prison on the same charges on Sunday…
The four are part of Mr Xu's informal grassroots group, New Citizens Movement, which has campaigned for government officials to reveal their wealth to curb corruption…
[The arrests] are being seen as a sign that the leadership remains unwilling to tolerate any kind of organised opposition…
52 dead in northeast Nigeria attack by extremists
Security officials say suspected Islamic extremists used explosives to attack a village in Nigeria's northeast, killing 52 people and razing more than 300 homes.
A security official said Monday the attackers planted several explosives at a market around Kawuri village Sunday. A police official who evacuated wounded victims confirmed at least 52 people were killed. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not permitted to speak to reporters…
The security official blamed the Islamic terrorist network Boko Haram, which has killed thousands over four years in Nigeria's northeast…
Nigeria Rebels Claim Attack in Oil-Rich Delta
Rebels are claiming responsibility for an attack on a security patrol boat on a waterway in Nigeria's southern Bayelsa state.
A statement purporting to come from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said late Sunday the attack, though "insignificant," is a reminder of the rebel group's presence in the oil-rich delta. It said the Saturday night attacks in the Nembe-Bassanbiri waterways were carried out by new fighters.
The group threatened to reduce Nigerian oil production to zero by 2015.
Analysts believe the militant group has lost much of its operational capability. Top MEND fighters signed a 2009 deal in which many were paid by the government. Some now provide protection for the international oil companies they used to attack.
But some disgruntled MEND activists threaten continued sabotage.
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Labels: China, Nigeria, political culture, politics
Flexing political muscles
The newly organized political opposition in Nigeria is set to test the extent of its powers.
Nigeria's APC opposition to block budget
Nigeria's main opposition party has called on its MPs to block all legislation including the 2014 budget.
This would remain the case until "the rule of law" was restored in oil-rich Rivers state and "Nigeria in general", the All Progressive Congress said.
The Rivers state governor fell out with President Goodluck Jonathan last year and defected to the APC.
Mr Jonathan's party has lost its majority in the lower chamber of parliament following other defections…
Nigeria is one of the world's biggest oil producers, with Rivers state supplying about 40% of all the country's oil, according to business information firm Ngex.
The row between Rivers state Governor Rotimi Amaechi and President Jonathan's supporters has paralysed politics in the state, with the police stopping the local state assembly from meeting in its building…
The APC's call to block legislation will also affect the confirmation of ministers and the security chiefs recently appointed by the president…
The PDP said the APC's directive was "as a clear and direct call for anarchy"…
Analysis by Aliyu Tanko
This is a prelude to next year's presidential election and a big blow to President Goodluck Jonathan, who seems to be losing virtually all of the political clout he inherited.
This new twist shows just how desperate Nigeria's two main political parties are to get control of a state that makes the highest contribution to the central government from its oil revenue.
Rivers state has been in a fix since its governor joined the opposition APC - and there have been allegations that the governing PDP is using the police as a tool of intimidation. The APC recently took control of the lower chamber of parliament and wants to use that strength to force the government to agree to its demands by removing the Rivers' police chief.
It is not clear how the issue will be settled as the PDP will use everything at its disposal to make sure Rivers state, the most populous state in the oil-rich Niger Delta, returns to the fold. What is clear is that it cannot be business as usual for the PDP which has won all elections since the end of military rule in 1999.
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Labels: economics, Nigeria, parties, politics
Don't even talk about it!
No wonder the Chinese government is worried about investigative journalists. They report things that are inconvenient for the Communist (with Chinese characteristics) Party. And those things might be true.
China Condemns Report on Elite's 'Hidden' Wealth, Censors Discussion
The Chinese government condemned on Wednesday a report on the wealth of the country's elite being hidden in overseas tax havens as illogical and having ulterior motives, as the government blocked websites and censored mention of the story online.
The report, the result of an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, was published in newspapers, including Britain's Guardian and Spain's El Pais…
Neither the State Council Information Office, which is the Cabinet's news office, nor the Communist Party's anti-corruption watchdog responded to requests for comment…
Public discussion of elite politics, and scandals surrounding top leaders and their family members, is taboo in China, with the stability obsessed ruling Communist Party fearing anything which could affect the public's faith in its rule.
The issue of the wealth of the elite is even more sensitive, even as President Xi embarks upon a crackdown on pervasive corruption.
China has arrested at least 20 activists who have campaigned for officials to publicly disclose their wealth, the most prominent of whom went on trial in Beijing on Wednesday under tight security.
China's princelings storing riches in Caribbean offshore haven
More than a dozen family members of China's top political and military leaders are making use of offshore companies based in the British Virgin Islands, leaked financial documents reveal.
The brother-in-law of China's current president, Xi Jinping, as well as the son and son-in-law of former premier Wen Jiabao are among the political relations making use of the offshore havens, financial records show…
The disclosure of China's use of secretive financial structures is the latest revelation from "Offshore Secrets", a two-year reporting effort led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which obtained more than 200 gigabytes of leaked financial data from two companies in the British Virgin Islands…
In all, the ICIJ data reveals more than 21,000 clients from mainland China and Hong Kong have made use of offshore havens in the Caribbean, adding to mounting scrutiny of the wealth and power amassed by family members of the country's inner circle…
Between $1tn and $4tn in untraced assets have left China since 2000, according to estimates…
China's political elite were not the only individuals taking advantage of the BVI's offshore anonymity. At least 16 of China's richest people, with a combined estimated net worth in excess of $45bn, were found to have connections with companies based in the jurisdiction…
See also:
Offshore assets of China's elite revealed in leaked records
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Labels: China, corruption, leadership, politics
Questions, anyone? Agreement? Disagreement?
It's another op-ed to provoke thinking.
Stephen L. Sass, the author, is professor emeritus of materials science and engineering at Cornell University. He's not a political scientist, anthropologist, or sociologist, but he has experience in China and in science and engineering. Do you find his argument persuasive? (You really ought to go to
The New York Times and read the whole piece.)
Can China Innovate Without Dissent?
Will China achieve technological dominance over the United States, surpassing us in scientific and engineering innovation?
A lot of people seem to think so…
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| China’s Yutu Moon Rover |
Concern that China — home of landmark innovations like printing and gunpowder — might reclaim its legacy as a land of invention is voiced at even the highest levels of the American government…
Americans shouldn’t be so worried. Yes, China has demonstrated skill in moving to higher-value manufacturing, and excelled at improving existing technologies, while producing them more cheaply. But it has not excelled in true innovation…
[A]s a scientist who has taught in China, I don’t believe that China will lead in innovation anytime soon — or at least not until it moves its institutional culture away from suppression of dissent and toward freedom of expression and encouragement of critical thought.
Almost all the paradigm-shifting innovations over the past few hundred years… have emerged in countries with relatively high levels of political and intellectual liberty. Why is this?
A first reason is cultural: Free societies encourage people to be skeptical and ask critical questions…
A second reason is institutional: Much of American innovation started with the bright ideas of a few individuals, working in an industrial, government or university laboratory, or perhaps a garage in Silicon Valley. While government support for R&D is essential, innovation is typically the product of a bottom-up approach…
A third reason is political. Free societies attract foreign talent…
The significance of China’s vast spending on R&D cannot be overstated, particularly at a time when the United States has made short-sighted cuts to the budgets of the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other agencies that finance research.
Perhaps I’m wrong that political freedom is critical for scientific innovation. As a scientist, I have to be skeptical of my own conclusions. But sometime in this still-new century, we will see the results of this unfolding experiment. At the moment, I’d still bet on America.
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Labels: China, economics, political culture
What is the United Kingdom?
If you're beginning your study of the UK (or if you're finishing it), it's important to know what you're talking about when you discuss the UK, Great Britain, Wales, England, etc.
Chris Wolak who teaches comparative politics at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, IL, offered a link at his Political Warrior blog to a C.G.P. Grey video that will help, although you might have to read some more or watch it more than once.
You don't have to do the homework unless you're in Mr. Wolak's class.
The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England
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Labels: concepts, nation, state, UK
A three-sided conflict
A drug cartel takes over a Mexican state. Local vigilantes, perhaps with the help of a rival drug cartel, appear to win some fights against the local drug lords. Then the Mexican army arrives to keep the peace. Who has power? Who has legitimacy? Who has authority?
Knights Templar 'leader' captured in Michoacan
Mexican security forces have arrested three members of the Knights Templar drug cartel in the violence-hit state of Michoacan, officials say…
Hundreds of troops have recently been deployed to restore order after groups of vigilantes clashed with the gang.
The vigilantes accuse the government of not doing enough to protect locals from extortion and violence.
Many members of the so-called self-defence groups are refusing to heed the government's call to disarm…
Large areas of the western state have been under the control of the Knights Templar cartel. However, earlier this month, vigilante groups began occupying much of the gang's key footholds.
The Knights Templar, who claim to protect the local population from attacks from rival gangs, have accused the self-defence groups of siding with the New Generation drug cartel based in neighbouring Jalisco state…
The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto has repeatedly denied that it has lost its grip on Michoacan despite several troop surges in the state in the year since he came to office.
Michoacan: Mexico's failed state?
Michoacan, the Mexican state where troops were first deployed in 2007 to tackle the drug gangs, is in danger of spiralling out of control.
Vigilante groups armed with high-powered weapons of questionable origin have pushed out a powerful drug cartel, the Knights Templar, from some of their key footholds in a region called Tierra Caliente.
"This is a failed state," says Comandante Cinco, a self-defence leader in the village of Paracuaro.
He says the community militias emerged because people were tired of paying extortion money to the drug cartels while local police did nothing to protect them.
Worse still, many officers were in the pay of the cartel…
The entire village has turned out in the main square to hear the self-defence forces explain their plan for the future now that the cartel have been run out of town.
Some townsfolk are fearful of simply replacing one group of unknown armed men with another. Other people are holding up placards thanking the self-defence forces for taking on the Knights Templar…
Meanwhile the church now has entered the fray. The Bishop of Apatzingan, Miguel Patino, has also previously described the state as failed. Now he has published an open letter criticising the government's response to the crisis.
"The problem we have is that often we can't find any guarantee of security among our local authorities because they are compromised by the enemies of peace," the bishop told the BBC in the cathedral in Apatzingan.
"That's a serious problem because who can we turn to?"
For most citizens caught in the stand-off, the question of whether or not the state has failed is perhaps academic. Certainly, they see it as failing…
[A 2-minute video report from BBC reporter Will Grant accompanies this article.]
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Labels: authority, concepts, legitimacy, Mexico, politics, power
Slavophiles winning in Russia
Historically, culturally, and politically, there have been two trends in Russia: those who promoted Russian genius and exceptionalism (Slavophiles) and those who saw Russia's future in Westernization (the Zapadniki). The "Greats," Catherine and Peter promoted Westernization. Lenin would also belong in that category. The last Tsar and now Putin fit into the Slavophile category.
How Vladimir Putin helped resurrect the Russian Orthodox Church
[T]he Russian Orthodox Church outlasted the official atheism of the Soviet Union and now, after almost a century in the wilderness, has regained most of the power and prestige it enjoyed under the Romanovs.
Many in the church credit that to a man they believe may also be inspired from above: President Vladimir Putin…
Mr. Putin oversaw the resurrection of the Russian Orthodox Church, including the reconstruction of some 23,000 churches that had been destroyed or fallen into disuse…
To the delight of the church leadership, Mr. Putin’s policies have also taken a sharply conservative turn since his return to the Kremlin last year for a third term as President. Once viewed as a liberal, Mr. Putin has in the past 12 months embraced the church’s positions on such sensitive issues as abortion and gay rights.
“There are no conflicts between the church and the state,” smiles Father Alexey Kulberg, an outspoken priest in Yekaterinburg…
On the surface, it seems an odd match. Mr. Putin, after all, was a long-time member of the KGB, the organization that spearheaded the Soviet Union’s repression of “counter-revolutionary” entities such as the church.
But Mr. Putin is that rare KGB agent who was baptized, in secret, as a child. Meanwhile, the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, has been publicly accused of working for the KGB during the Soviet era…
Mr. Putin has made a proud show of his own faith, and the church has rewarded him with robust support in times of need. As street protests swelled in 2012 against Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency, Patriarch Kirill declared on television that “liberalism will lead to legal collapse and then the apocalypse.” Mr. Putin’s rule was a “miracle,” the patriarch said on another occasion…
Mr. Putin increasingly speaks of Russia as a civilization distinct from the West. It’s a view shared by the church, which blames “Western influence” for the spread of liberal ideas, like gay rights, in Russia…
“The church and the state are moving toward separating Russia from the West,” said Anna Gizulinna, a 52-year-old transgendered university lecturer who says she has faced increasing persecution at work since the passing of the anti-propaganda law. “They see the West as a danger and say they’re fighting to save Russian souls.”…
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| Romanovs |
Father Alexey hopes that’s true. Sitting in his office under a portrait of the murdered Romanovs (the Russian Orthodox Church now considers Nicholas II a martyred saint), he says he’d like to see the country return to the “theocratic values” of tsarist times. He believes Mr. Putin might be the man to guide Russia there…
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Labels: political culture, politics, Russia
Some things change, others don't
There might be an appearance of change (high ranking officials being prosecuted for corruption), but the Communist Party's monopoly on authority is a constant.
Chinese Activists Test New Leader and Are Crushed
The 20 or so activists gathered at an isolated guesthouse on the outskirts of the capital…
That day, in May 2012, they began work on a plan to expand the New Citizens Movement, an ambitious campaign for transparency and fairness that would… provide the first major test to help gauge the new leadership’s tolerance for grass-roots political activism.
They were heartened when China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, came to power that November, vowing to stamp out corruption, promote judicial fairness and respect the Constitution, goals tantalizingly close to their own.
Now, 14 months later, their ideals have collided with a harsh reality…
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| Xu Zhiyong |
About 20 people associated with the group have been detained. Three members have been tried and await judgment. And the rights lawyer who organized the guesthouse meeting, Xu Zhiyong, was indicted last month for “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order” and faces almost certain conviction…
The crushing of the New Citizens Movement is just one stark example of the new leadership’s refusal to countenance any stirrings of opposition…
The Communist Party has partly endorsed some of the changes demanded by rights advocates, like ending re-education through labor, a form of imprisonment without trial. But behind the scenes… the gatherings fed leaders’ fears that the growing clamor for reform could crystallize into a threat to the party’s authority.
During secretive meetings last spring, security and propaganda officials concluded that they had to take a tough line, Mr. Chen said. In April, the leadership approved an internal directive identifying seven ideological threats, including rights defense activists and civil society advocates…
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Labels: China, Communist Party, dissent, politics
Iran's Onion?
I have to wonder whether
The Washington Post's Max Fisher has been taken in by an "April Fool" conspiracy of Iranian journalists or that he's right that "A worldview that sees the U.S. as an evil hegemonic force so irrationally driven toward global domination that it must be run by space aliens is not a worldview that is predisposed toward negotiation or accommodation."
Then again, I'll bet we could find some Americans who would uncomfortably admit to agreeing with these Iranians.
Iranian news agency says the U.S. is secretly run by Nazi space aliens. Really.
Iran's semi-official news outlets have something of a reputation for taking conspiracy theorism to the next level…
On Sunday, the hard-line semi-official Fars News dropped one of its biggest bombshells yet: The United States government has been secretly run by a "shadow government" of space aliens since 1945. Yes, space aliens. The alien government is based out of Nevada and had previously run Nazi Germany…
[A]fter losing the war, the aliens apparently installed themselves as the secret force behind the United States government. President Obama is said to be a tool of the aliens… Their present aim is to install a global surveillance system that will, somehow, allow them to finally impose a one-world government and enslave humanity…
Yes, this story is highly entertaining, as are many of the bizarre conspiracy theories proposed by official or semi-official news agencies in authoritarian states. But there's also a more serious undercurrent here. A worldview that sees the U.S. as an evil hegemonic force so irrationally driven toward global domination that it must be run by space aliens is not a worldview that is predisposed toward negotiation or accommodation. It's one that justified, or perhaps even necessitates, total resistance and a refusal to compromise. To be clear, this does not appear to be the present view of the Iranian president; the ongoing and highly public friction between Rouhani's moderate-minded camp and Fars is proof enough of that. But the fact that there are people anywhere within the Iranian system sympathetic enough to this viewpoint to let through an article like this is a reminder of how some hard-liners see the world.
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Labels: Iran, political culture
Exercising authority in Abuja
When the top military leaders in a country are sacked, it would be normal to see that as a sign of crisis. Not true in Nigeria?
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan sacks military chiefs
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has sacked his military high command, his spokesman Reuben Abati has said.
Mr Abati said Air Marshal Alex Badeh replaces Admiral Ola Ibrahim as the
new chief of defence staff, the most senior post in the military...
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| Air Marshal Alex Badeh |
No reason was given but the dismissals come amid growing concern about the military's failure to end the Islamist-led insurgency in northern Nigeria…
Mr Abati said the new appointments would come into effect immediately.
The president had briefed the leadership of the National Assembly on the changes "and will, in keeping with the provisions of the law, request the National Assembly to formally confirm the appointments when it reconvenes", he added…
BBC Nigeria analyst Naziru Mikailu says Mr Jonathan's decision does not come as a complete surprise because there is a tradition in Nigeria of sacking military chiefs.
It seems Mr Jonathan wants to show he is in charge, at a time when his leadership is being increasingly questioned within the governing People's Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the 2015 elections, our correspondent adds…
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Quick lesson on comparative constitutions
I know the headline suggests a comparison of democracies, but the real topic is a comparison of constitutions. The comparison might offer a quick and easy way to introduce the concept of constitution/basic law/rule of law, etc.
Mixed Results for Mideast Democracy
A constitution is supposed to be a set of governing principles around which citizens can unite and peacefully build a democratic state. Tunisia is providing a constructive path to this goal. Egypt is not. Sadly, Egypt is on the verge of enacting a Constitution that would effectively legitimize last year’s coup and further enable the kind of authoritarian system that the 2011 revolution was intended to displace...
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Rural desperation
It's a profile of one village in rural Iran. Maybe it's the only one
The Economist reporter reached. Some context would be helpful. Is it typical? an outlier? persecuted?
That's one of the differences between journalism and academics. A singular dramatic story can make a headline and a story — in print, on television, or on a blog. But in academic consideration, there has to be more context and generalization. What evidence does the reporter offer to substantiate the claims made in the article? What other information would you like to have in order to evaluate the importance of this example?
Rural decline in Iran: Nothing idyllic
In a village orchard on the fringe of the Lut desert in south-eastern Iran, Shah Banu Esma Ilani… plucks pistachios from a huge tree and puts them in a pouch in her tunic. A qanat, a trench that occasionally brings water from aquifers beneath mountains hundreds of miles away, cuts across her land but is bone-dry. Her little village is nearly empty of people. In the past two decades, three-quarters of them have left for work hundreds of kilometres away in Tehran… or Isfahan…
It is a tale that can be told in many villages in Iran’s vast semi-arid swathes. Poor administration and global warming have imperilled many of them. The qanat network, created three millennia ago to irrigate ancient Persia, has long been neglected. Ground and river water is often diverted to industrial farms…
Most ordinary Iranians, in big cities and remote villages alike, look to Mr Rohani’s government to clinch a deal with the West over Iran’s disputed nuclear programme which has led to the economic sanctions now biting so hard, especially against the poor. “We should have nuclear power,” says Shah Banu. “But we also want to live as we did before.”
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Labels: demographics, economics, Iran, politics
Trivia question
Dr. Nick Hayes, a professor of history who holds the university chair in critical thinking at Saint John's University in Collegeville, MN, wrote in
MINNPost, about cleavages in Russia. Just as trivia, could your students come up with other examples from recent Russian government and politics?
Putin playing Olympic games with centuries-old ethnic conflicts
Putin’s “Potemkin Village” in Sochi…
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Defining the political spectrum in the UK
Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister of the government coalition, seemed to be describing the center-right to center-left spectrum of British politics.
Lib Dems must stay in government after 2015, says Clegg
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| Clegg |
Nick Clegg has warned that the formation of a single-party government after the next election is one of the "biggest risks" to the UK's economy.
The deputy prime minister argued that Labour had not "learnt the lessons" of the 2008 crash, and the Conservatives did not focus enough on "fairness"…
In a wide-ranging interview… "We are working with the Conservatives effectively and we will do until May 2015 to repair the damage inflicted on the economy in 2008.
"Then you've got to build a fairer society and where I think the Conservatives don't have the same instincts in favour of fairness that we do. We are the only party in politics to marry the two."…
Mr Clegg… said: "You can't say, as the Conservatives seem to be saying at the moment, that we are all in it together and the very wealthy won't make an extra sacrifice...
"The Conservatives seem to be saying the working-age poor will be asked to make sacrifices to fill the gap in our finances."
He added: "If you have to balance the books, you mustn't balance the books on the backs of the working-age poor...
"Yes, you need to finish the job of clearing the decks for the next generation... but you've got to finish the job fairly, asking the people with the broadest shoulders to make the biggest contribution."…
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Labels: parties, politics, UK
Mapping the world
Maps are great teaching tools. Even better, they are great resources to use when creating teaching tools.
The Washington Post recently published two collections of maps. The global maps show relative happiness, legal systems, public opinion, and 77 other "things." Go ahead and build your own teaching tools. Or have your students build some.
40 maps that explain the world
This shows the world's most diverse countries, its most homogenous and, if you look closely, a whole lot more.
40 more maps that explain the world
Yes, the United States has worse income inequality than Nigeria. That's according to a metric called the Palma Ratio that measures economic inequality. Read more here about how the metric works and the fascinating results of using it to compare the world's countries.
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Labels: concepts, maps
Good question; interesting answers
The Monkey Cage was a blog started by a friend and his colleagues who wanted to give a public voice to analysis by political scientists. The blog has been adopted by
The Washington Post.
This post is by Diego Von Vacano, a professor of political theory at Texas A&M.
Is democracy a Western idea?
In the last few months, events in Turkey, Egypt, Brazil and North Korea have strained many people’s faith in democracy. Corruption scandals surrounding Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan; the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; mass street protests in Brazil over expensive World Cup soccer stadia; and the apparent consolidation of the ruthless dictatorship of Kim Jong Un make us ask whether democracy, and especially liberal democracy, is simply a Western value that cannot take root in other cultures.
Democracy is about free institutions and elections. At the same time, it entails values and normative claims, which are the focus of political theory. A nascent field within this area of political science, called comparative political theory, aims to see what (if anything) we can learn about politics from intellectual traditions outside the West. New research in this field… discussed whether central democratic values — such as equality, freedom, representation and religious toleration — have a strong enough presence in the history of political ideas of these regions to provide for the autochthonous growth of democracy. What do their findings tell us?
In Middle Eastern and specifically Islamic thought, there is ground for optimism, despite the deep tensions that exist in a tradition where one particular religion plays a cardinal role in public life…
Andrew March explored the tensions between accounts of divine and popular sovereignty in Islamic thought. In some senses, divine and popular sovereignty co-exist but remain distinct. Popular sovereignty is authorized concretely and discretely by God’s law, or steps in where God’s sovereignty appears silent and inert…
In the field of Chinese political thought, Confucian ideas play a central role. Here, the findings of Sor-Hoon Tan and Leigh Jenco paint a complicated image. Tan argued that among the reasons that many people believe Confucianism is incompatible with democracy is the view that Confucianism supports social hierarchy and rejects the value of equality that is central to theories of democracy…
For Peter Rutland, the failure of democracy in Russia can be attributed to many causes, including the lack of experience with democratic institutions, the economic collapse of the 1990s (which discredited the new political system) and the oil curse…
Maintaining that flexibility and responsiveness also demands that a democratic government be aware of the unpredictable preferences of individuals in the community and respond to them rather than purge those behavior as is often the case in many African states like Egypt, Libya, Somalia and DRC. For Lawrence Hamilton, African freedom can only be possible if basic needs are met and actual political representation exists…
The consolidation of democratic rule in Latin America has inaugurated a lively debate about the nature and potentials of democracy. For Enrique Peruzzotti, two contrasting views dominate the debate: a liberal/republican understanding of representative government and the advocates of populism as radical democracy…
The prospects for democracy, at home and abroad, seem mixed. The conference showed us that many of the problems of democratization in the developing world are also with us in the U.S. It also presented the reality that, for the Middle East, Islam plays a largely hegemonic role in the public sphere, which may contradict some key elements of a liberal kind of democracy…
Democracy seems to be an idea that is found not just inside the “West” (a contested term in itself), but its road to success is littered with obstacles.
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But don't neglect loyalty to The Party
President Xi had strong words for Communist Party cadres. The trick for them was understanding what the most important messages were. What is this thing called rule of law? How is it related to absolute loyalty to the Communist Party? What is the ultimate goal of government?
Xi stresses vitality and order in rule of law
President Xi Jinping has called for a greater role for the Communist Party of China (CPC) in guiding the country's political and legal affairs, urging a balance between "vitality and order."…
"The Party should lead legislation, ensure law enforcement and set an example in abiding by the law," Xi said, adding that political and legal work should be conducted with an aim to safeguard Party policies and the authority of the law…
"People's demands for their lawful interests must be properly handled; policies with a crucial impact on protecting people's interests must be improved; The position of the law in solving conflicts should be strengthened," said Xi…
Officials in the political and legal system should take public concerns seriously, protect the people's life and property, and crack down on serious criminal offences to ensure that the people live and work in peace and contentment, Xi said.
All officials in the legal and political system should enforce laws impartially, promote transparency in their work, and be open to public supervision in order to eliminate judicial corruption, Xi noted, adding that any violations will be punished harshly.
"Officials at all levels are forbidden to overstep the limitations of laws, to abuse their power, or to bend the law for personal gain," Xi said.
He urged the establishment of systems to record, report and hold officials responsible for any interference in the judicial process.
Xi said that all political and legal workers should maintain absolute loyalty to the Party and resolutely curb malpractice…
Xi reiterated that judicial reform is one of the most important parts of political restructuring, and accelerating the establishment of an impartial and authoritative socialist judicial system will promote social justice…
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More journalists see party change in Nigeria
More journalists are reporting on the apparent creation of a political party in Nigeria to compete with the ruling party.
Nigeria's Jonathan under fire ahead of 2015 poll
Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan is facing an uphill battle if he seeks re-election next year, after a series of unprecedented setbacks that have raised doubts about his political survival.
The perceived damage to the 56-year-old's stock has led to questions about whether he can bounce back and whether his People's Democratic Party (PDP) could be heading for its first national electoral defeat.
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| Jonathan |
Last month, Nigeria's former head of state Olusegun Obasanjo accused Jonathan in a critical, 18-page open letter of failing to tackle widespread corruption and piracy as well as kidnapping and rampant oil theft…
"I think he [Jonathan] is a very weakened president at the moment," said political analyst Clement Nwankwo, director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, in the capital Abuja.
"He's been a failure and he really has to do a lot to win back popular support," Nwankwo told Agence France-Presse…
He is also widely seen as having failed to address major concerns about graft, inadequate development and poor infrastructure, and to end the bloody Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria.
The president vaunted his government's achievements of sustained economic growth and job creation in his New Year's message while the PDP denied it was irretrievably damaged.
The recent defections were an example of democracy in action, said national publicity secretary Olisah Metuh, even as the APC hailed the apparent shift in the balance of power as a new dawn for Africa's most populous nation…
[T]he problems may have reached a point that recovery was impossible, forcing Jonathan to make way for another candidate.
Thomas said the longer the president failed to tackle the issue, the more damage it would do to the PDP…
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Voting fraud in China
What? How can there be voting fraud in a system where there are practically no elections? Read on.
China poll fraud: top official Tong Mingqian sacked
A senior Chinese official has been sacked in relation to a major electoral fraud scandal, the Communist Party's discipline watchdog said.
Tong Mingqian, a Hunan official, was negligent and failed to handle the cases of bribery, the watchdog said.
More than 500 lawmakers in Hunan resigned last week after it emerged they had accepted bribes to elect provincial parliament members…
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| Tong Mingqian |
Tong Mingqian was party chief of Hengyang City in Hunan when the provincial elections took place…
Investigations had revealed that 56 members of the Hunan People's Congress, the provincial parliament that rubber-stamps decisions, bribed lawmakers in Hengyang to elect them to their posts, state media reported earlier.
Municipal officials have the power to appoint representatives to the local People's Congress…
Xi Jinping has warned that corruption could topple the Communist Party, and launched an anti-corruption campaign he said would target both "tigers and flies" - high and low-ranking officials in the government.
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Seeking signs of political conflict in Iran
Another sign of the struggle for power over policy making in Iran reached the Western media at the end of 2013.
In Iran, hard-liners strike back
Conservatives in Iran are enjoying their first major return to the spotlight since the surprise victory of Hassan Rouhani in the June presidential election, highlighting lingering divisions within the Islamic republic’s political establishment.
The conservatives used a event Monday to stage rallies around the country that criticized Rouhani’s outreach to the West and portrayed him as aligned with a 2009 protest movement that authorities here refer broadly as the “sedition.’’
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| President Rouhani |
In parliament, conservatives who dominate that body are seeking to scuttle the interim nuclear deal that Tehran struck with world powers in November…
In some ways, the moves serve as little more than political theatrics designed to remind Rouhani that he faces domestic opposition. But the vocal support being expressed for a more confrontational Iranian foreign policy suggests that conservatives feel emboldened to reaffirm an ideology increasingly at odds with the policy of international engagement favored by Rouhani and his administration…
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Business lobbies for workers
In the USA, it's seems inevitable that calls for a higher minimum wage come from labor interests and resistance to the idea comes from business interests.
So, what should we make of the UK's biggest business lobby advocating higher wages? Or, is this just journalists emphasizing the unusual part of a conventional message?
CBI: Firms must pay workers more as economy improves
The head of the UK's main business lobby group has said too many people are "stuck" in minimum wage jobs, despite an upturn in the UK economy.
John Cridland, director general of the CBI, said businesses should deliver "better pay and more opportunities" for their employees.
He told the BBC: "If we get productivity going, we are creating more wealth, and we can share it."
Recovery should be sustainable before wages increased, he said…
In his annual new year's message, Mr Cridland said despite economic growth, there were "still far too many people stuck in minimum wage jobs without routes to progression, and that's a serious challenge that businesses and the government must address."
Mr Cridland said businesses must support employees in "every part of the country" to progress in their careers and help young people get their first jobs…
Meanwhile...
Ed Miliband in new year cost of living pledge
Labour has a "credible and affordable" plan to help families struggling with the cost of living, Ed Miliband has insisted in his new year message.
The opposition leader said the issue of living standards would again be his focus in 2014, accusing ministers of wanting to "change the conversation"…
Labour says the UK is still in middle of the "biggest cost-of-living crisis in a generation" and, with prices rising faster than wages for most people, the majority continue to feel worse off…
While he was not promising people "easy answers", Mr Miliband said Labour's plan to freeze energy bills for 20 months from June 2015, expand free childcare and crack down on payday lenders would "tip the balance towards hope" for many families struggling in the current climate.
"People do not want the Earth. They would prefer some very specific promises, specific things about what a government will do," he added.
"All of this is adding up to a programme for how we can change things. It is clearly costed, credible and real."…
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Socialism with a Chinese characteristic: materialism
China is neither a pre-materialistic nor a
post-materialistic culture. Perhaps Adam Smith was more perceptive about human nature than Karl Marx. And if Mao Zedong was right about saying that there were
"two mutually opposed schools of philosophy — idealism and materialism," then China can't be classified as idealistic either.
Chinese Respondents Top Materialism Poll
A global poll of attitudes toward wealth has found what many domestic critics allege already: Chinese today are just too materialistic.
The survey was conducted by the French market research company Ipsos in September and polled more than 16,000 adults in 20 countries.
Chinese respondents topped the list in measuring success by their possessions, coming in more than double the global average, according to the results published last week. Seventy-one percent of Chinese respondents agreed with the statement “I measure my success by the things I own"…
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| Chinese bling |
Chinese were also the most likely to agree with the statement “I feel under a lot of pressure to be successful and make money.” Sixty-eight percent of Chinese surveyed agreed with this statement…
Although large parts of the country remain poor, China now has a flourishing middle class and there are few major cities that do not boast a luxury shopping district or two. According to the research firm Euromonitor International, in 2012 China overtook France to become the world’s third-largest market for luxury goods…
The poll results should, however, be carefully weighed. Ipsos said that results from China “are not reflective of the general population” because the country’s Internet penetration rate is less than 60 percent. However… the participants in the survey are deemed to be “primary engaged citizens” with education, income and connectivity levels comparable to those in more developed countries, the company said…
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Political limits of change
While the agreements about nuclear development in Iran appear to be changes in long-standing policies, the political forces arrayed against change are powerful.
This analysis was written for
Al Jazeera America by Scott Field, a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and Dariush Zahedi, the director of the Berkeley Program on Entrepreneurship and Development in the Middle East at the University of California, Berkeley.
Khamenei's dilemma
The Nov. 24 landmark agreement on Iran’s nuclear program has been portrayed as an Iranian victory. Much of the media commentary thus far has focused on how it could clear a path for the eventual resumption of normalized ties between the Islamic Republic and the United States…
But behind this euphoria, sober realities of Iranian politics, which may hinder a genuine U.S.-Iranian rapprochement, pose a dilemma for Khamenei…
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| Khamenei |
First, given Tehran’s bitter experiences with previous attempts at reconciliation, Khamenei has a deep and abiding distrust of the United States…
The second factor is the conflict of interest from the ideological dispositions of Khamenei’s allies in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the sanctions’ impact on their material benefits. The IRGC controls the majority of key smuggling routes, and decades of sanctions have led to the entrenchment of their interests in the black-market economy… However, the issue is also ideological. The upper echelons of the guards were handpicked by Khamenei on the basis of their ideological opposition to and deep suspicion of the United States. Therefore, if serious advances are made toward normalization of relations between the two countries, significant push-back from some within their ranks is expected…
The third factor is a growing fear among government elites that the removal of sanctions and a momentum toward international integration may empower the Iranian middle class at their expense… Despite near unanimous consensus on the need to curb, if not eliminate, the powers of Iran’s unelected supervisory Council of Guardians, the middle class lacks the strength and resilience to sustain a successful challenge, as demonstrated by the quelling of the 2008 Green movement protests…
The regime has another, even more ominous wild card to worry about. The traditionally loyal working class has been severely affected by the economic decline during Ahmadinejad’s eight years in office and the crippling sanctions. There are fears that resentment among the working class could find synergy with the grievances of the middle class. This could lead to a nightmarish scenario of a truly broad-based revolt against the regime…
Finally, Khamenei is acutely aware that the current regime’s power base — loyalists within the working class — is deeply rooted in anti-U.S. sentiment. While the conscripted rank-and-file members of the IRGC may back a popular public call for reform, the same cannot be said of the Basij, Iran’s volunteer militia force. Khamenei has indoctrinated the regime’s ardent and passionate supporters, who are essential to its survival, to view themselves as the embodiment of pure Muhammadan Islam engaged in a cosmic struggle against the “great Satan.” To maintain their loyalty, Khamenei has to keep them energized…
We should not be surprised, then, if Khamenei and his allies rein in Rouhani sharply, should further progress be made toward U.S.-Iran rapprochement beyond a minimally acceptable accord designed to transform the interim P5+1 agreement into a genuine deal resolving the nuclear dispute and resulting in the gradual lifting of sanctions. The real issue at stake is… whether the exigencies of Iranian domestic politics can be finessed in such a way that they do not derail the negotiations — or, should negotiations prove successful, in such a way that they result in a broader normalization of ties with the U.S. While Khamenei may agree to a deal to resolve the nuclear dispute, he will have a much harder time consenting to a broader normalization of ties with the U.S….
Ultimately, Khamenei’s real dilemma might just be the mobilization of an empowered middle class (with possible working-class support) and its potential demand for social and political reforms, including Khamenei’s relegation to the position of ceremonial figure.
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