Teaching Comparative

Unreality TV

2012-01-31T06:01:00.000-06:00

What are television journalists to do if the news they identify isn't the news they can report? Or, to paraphrase (update?) Orwell, if you don't have firm control of the past, perhaps you can control reporting of the present.

Russian TV veers back to familiar ground

As thousands of protesters pushed toward Bolotnaya Square, crews from mainstream Russian television fanned out. Satellite trucks were ranged curbside, their engines running.

For six days after the Duma elections last month, TV had ignored the street protests that were starting to shake the nation. Now the reporters and cameramen were ready. But still, not a peep.

Finally, at 3 p.m. on Dec. 10, say those who know, the word came down: You can put this on the air.

The news reports that followed were neutral, and factual, and it seemed that TV, a central instrument of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s hold on power, was at last giving way under the strain. But the dalliance with straight reporting was short-lived. In January, the leash was pulled up tight again.

Putin has an election to win — he’s running for president, and the vote is in March — and after weeks of ambivalence and uncertainty, the state-controlled TV has returned to its old and familiar ways…

The men who run television got their start in Soviet TV in the late 1980s, and they understood… that they had “to open the pipe” to some extent, or else protesters — and their own journalist employees — would be dangerously provoked.

There was a fever in the body politic, said Roman Badanin, the online editor-in-chief for Forbes here, and the coverage was like an aspirin.

But Putin expects to be elected, and since mid-January there’s been little aspirin. The main news programs now don’t ignore the opposition, as they did for a decade, but hammer away at it…

In Putin’s Russia, where few things are clear-cut, Kremlin strategists don’t, as a rule, dictate stories. They have “discussions” with media managers, said Maxim Kovalsky, who in December was fired as the editor of Kommersant Vlast magazine. The prevailing mode is self-censorship…

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Drug gangs as political parties

2012-01-30T07:57:00.000-06:00

If the drug cartels are political forces, perhaps as comparativists, we ought to watch them as we watch political parties.

Zetas are Mexico's 'largest drug gang', study says

The Zetas cartel has become the biggest drug gang in Mexico, overtaking its bitter rival, the Sinaloa cartel, a new report suggests.

The report by US security firm Stratfor says the Zetas now operate in more than half of all Mexican states.

Stratfor says the Zetas' brutal violence seems to have given the gang an advantage over the Sinaloa cartel, which prefers to bribe people…

According to the study, most smaller drug gangs have been subsumed by either the Zetas or the Sinaloa cartel, turning the two groups into the predominant criminal forces in Mexico.

The Zetas control much of eastern Mexico, while the Sinaloa cartel has its stronghold in the west of the country.

The authors also… say that the Zetas whose leadership is composed of ex-special operations soldiers, resort to extreme violence.

The Sinaloa cartel, although also ruthless, prefers to bribe and corrupt people, as well as providing intelligence on rivals to the authorities…

Mexico strikes Sinaloa cartel as Cabrera Sarabria shot

The Mexican security forces have arrested 11 alleged members of the country's most powerful drug gang, the Sinaloa cartel…

They were arrested during a helicopter raid on a ranch in the north-western state of Durango on Friday.

During the raid, elite troops killed the regional leader of the gang, Luis Alberto Cabrera Sarabia…

The Sinaloa cartel controls much of the flow of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines into the United States via air, land and sea, and is believed to have links in as many as 50 countries…

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Gridlock Mexican style

2012-01-30T07:53:00.000-06:00

The political environment in Mexico appears, in this Economist analysis, to create a more dysfunctional legislature than the one in the USA.

The siesta congress

AFTER a fortnight of Christmas fiestas, Mexicans groggily returned to work two weeks ago. Or rather, most of them did. For the 500 deputies and 128 senators of the national Congress, the holidays roll on until February. Mexico’s lawmakers sit for only 195 days a year, the fewest among Latin America’s bigger countries. (Their $11,200-a-month pay, however, is the highest after Brazil’s.) When they do stir themselves to vote, it is more often to block rivals’ bills than to pass reforms.

Gridlock in the palace of San Lázaro partly explains why Felipe Calderón’s presidency, which ends in December, now looks like a six-year damp squib. Mr Calderón has identified many of Mexico’s bottlenecks. But most of his big proposals have floundered in Congress…

Co-operation has been especially rocky since 2009, when the PAN attacked the PRI in mid-term elections. The mood soured further when the PAN formed a brief electoral alliance with its ideological opposites, the PRD, to push the PRI out of some governorships. With this deal, “the president cancelled the possibility of working according to agreement and consensus,” says Heliodoro Díaz, a PRI congressman.

Such rivalries exist in any democracy. Yet “in Latin America, [Mexico’s Congress] stands out as a bad performer,” says Víctor Lapuente, a political scientist at Gothenburg University in Sweden. Unsurprisingly, there has been more conflict since one-party rule ended in 1997…

Building coalitions is harder in Mexico, where congressmen are wedded to their parties and hard to buy off. No politician, from president to mayor, may stand for consecutive re-election. This quirk means that politicians depend on party bosses, not voters, for their next job, making it essential to toe the party line…

The July 1st elections will completely renew both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. Mr Peña’s boosters say that if the PRI wins all three—it already has most state governors—the deadlock will end at last…

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Party school (No, not that kind of party school)

2012-01-27T05:41:00.000-06:00

A perceptive 2-minute video report from al Jazeera on the Beijing Communist Party school for up and coming cadres. Not a lot of depth, but it does make that point that "defying stereotypes, it appears that one of the freest places in China is at the heart of the Communist Party…" How does that match your students' images of what a Communist Party school is like?

And a follow-up to the video, reporter Melissa Chan blogs about her experience at the Party school.

Inside a Chinese Communist Party school

China's ruling Communist Party's 80 million members attend special schools to learn party ideology at facilities that serve as a training ground for the next generation of Chinese leaders…

The schools offer a safe space for officials to throw out ideas, talk about sensitive issues, and try to come up with solutions to some of the country's problems.

Chinese lessons in leadership

There are 80 million members of the Communist Party and more than half of them work in the government in some way - whether directly in a ministry or in a state-owned corporation. Training them in management and administration requires what is probably the biggest human resources department in the world: the Communist Party School system, with some 2,000 satellite campuses.

The mission of these schools is not only to teach cadres the tools of governance, but also to reinforce ideology and the party line. Our visit was at one of the most important campuses: the Beijing Party School where 300 faculty members teach courses in nine different departments, ferrying through thousands of officials a year - some who turn up for short week-long modules, and others who move into the dormitories for three-month terms…

The Party School is an open forum, Professor Liu Changlong went on to explain, because it has to be. Officials can't afford to avoid problems that could directly threaten their governance. The Propaganda Department may present news to the public, selecting facts and fabrication for inclusion. But on the closed campus of the Party School, officials must consider the real issues of income inequality, protests, and what direction the country should be headed, both politically and economically.

In a separate class, cadres separated into small groups for discussions, this time about Marx's Communist Manifesto. Their task was to discuss some of the challenges facing the party today through Marx's writings…

It is a great opportunity for cadres from different ministries and departments to network, and the development of friendships from time spent on campus probably equal the utility of studying Marx. For some party officials, attendance is a prelude to promotion, depending on the ministry or department.

As we left campus, we had a surprise: we passed by an old stone grave, gated off and surrounded by old trees. It was the grave of Matteo Ricci, the 16th-century Jesuit missionary and one of the first Western scholars of Chinese language and customs. He would not have been surprised at the disciplined management style employed by China's Communist Party today...

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Exercising the muscles of the peers

2012-01-26T06:07:00.000-06:00

There are two issues to be alert for here. The most prominent is the argument about the tolerable level of public assistance. That's mostly a policy issue for Brits. The other topic, more for non-Brits to heed, is the role of Lords in shaping policy.

Lords is often overlooked as a player in policy making. It does offer a debating forum for considering policy alternatives, and, as in this case, a force to change policy.

Welfare reform: Lords bid for benefits cap concessions

Peers will press for changes to plans for a £26,000 cap on the benefits families can receive when the measure is debated in the House of Lords later.

Church of England bishops and some Liberal Democrats will push for child benefit to be excluded from the cap - so as not to penalise large families.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith says there are exemptions for some disabled people and those in work…

Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown has said he will vote against the plans, unless there are measures to cushion the impact on those affected…

The changes would affect England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland has its own social security legislation, but it is expected that what is approved at Westminster would be introduced there too.

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Back in the USSR

2012-01-25T05:57:00.000-06:00

Putin may be in charge, but there's another group hoping to regain power and glory.

Russia’s Communist Party finds itself at a familiar crossroads

Russia’s restless electorate bestowed a big bouquet of votes on the country’s Communists last month, putting the party of Lenin in position to either rally a new generation behind its red banners or stay reliably on the sidelines, repeating the old slogans and mourning the past.

The Communist Party took 19.19 percent of the vote to come in second in the Dec. 4 parliamentary election, an unexpected windfall for the party and a surprise to the rest of the country.

Though it has offices in small towns and cities around Russia, with portraits of Stalin on the wall and hammer-and-sickle flags in the corner, ready to unfurl, its message has remained unchanged as its members have aged over the past 20 years: The glorious achievements of the Soviet Union are being systematically destroyed and only it can save Russia from moral degradation…

Communist theory has always maintained that history is on its side, however…

The December election set off a paroxysm of anger among Russians who called it rigged, refusing to believe that Putin’s party had gotten even close to half the votes…

The Communists rely on a small but cohesive core of members, who number 154,244, according to the Ministry of Justice, compared with United Russia’s 2,073,722 members. Many party members are in their 50s or 60s and dwell psychologically in the Soviet Union, said Boris Makarenko, deputy director of the Center for Political Technologies. The protest voters make less than ideal fellow travelers, concentrated as they are in the big cities among the urban middle class. It will not be easy to profit from the windfall, he said…

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Election high

2012-01-24T05:51:00.000-06:00

Nick Miroff and William Booth, writing in the Washington Post suggest that drug gangs could destroy Mexican democracy.

Mexico’s 2012 vote is vulnerable to narco threat

With Mexico’s presidential vote and other key elections less than six months away, both the government and its watchdogs fear that the black hand of organized crime will manipulate the process to install puppet candidates as servants of the drug cartels…

Political analysts say that the drug lords could corrupt the presidential race even without having to meddle directly in those campaigns and that their attempts to boost local candidates or suppress votes could contaminate the process at every level.

Such threats appear to put Mexican democracy at a critical juncture, as the country struggles to escape from the decades-long shadow of corrupt, one-party rule…

Despite concerns that drug gangsters will bankroll some candidates while intimidating — or assassinating — others, a package of new laws targeting election-related crimes has stalled in Mexico's National Congress since April…

Mexico's 2012 vote is even more at risk from pernicious influences than the last presidential election in 2006, Vargas said, because the country's mafias have honed their methods of corruption, opting to finance campaigns rather than buy off officials after they are in power…

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Comparative political cultures

2012-01-23T08:01:00.000-06:00

Jeremy Weate, writing in Naija Blog offers a lesson in comparative political cultures (even though his title focuses on the Nigerian constitution).

The blog entry is followed by a thoughtful comment.

Decolonising the Nigerian Constitution

In the past two weeks, the Occupy Nigeria movement has developed far beyond a demand to return the price of fuel to N65 per litre, with calls for the government to reduce its own bloated costs and investigate the obviously rampant corruption in the oil sector. Already, the government has responded, with the Minister of Petroleum’s statement this evening to invite the EFCC to investigate fuel subsidy payments and for an independent auditor to follow-up on the KPMG report. Whether or not this belated action is sufficient to counter a cynical response, deeper issues still have been raised to the surface. Nigerians are beginning to ask fundamental questions about the kind of country they would like to live in. A new sense of what Nigerian citizenship might provide is floating up into the air.

I invite you to compare and contrast for a moment the role the US Constitution plays in the lives of Americans with that of the Nigerian Constitution in Nigeria… At this stage, I’m simply asking you to dwell on the impact and effects of both constitutions on everyday life, and nothing more.

As we know all too readily from US media and discourse, Americans are raised to understand their constitution and the definition of the rights of the citizen enshrined within the all-important Amendments. Laws in the US are grounded in the constitution and must be formulated in accord with how the rights of the citizen are set in balance against the tripartite powers of the state (the executive, the legislature and the judiciary) in the context of a secular federation. Above all, thanks to the constitution, the rights of the individual run deep in American discourse. No matter the myriad and profound historical errors of the United States (originating in the twin horrors of an erasure of indigenous peoples and African slave labour), Americans are justifiably proud of the constitutional and legal instruments that guide their lives…

In Nigeria, we often experience almost the diametric opposite to the statutory privileges of the US Constitution. Many Nigerians have little idea of the contents of their constitution and are not taught the document at school. Nigerians are therefore not educated to be citizens of their own country; they are not made aware of their rights or brought to understand the role government should play in their lives since they are used to performing the roles themselves i.e. providing security, education, health etc…

Nigerians are also scarcely aware what powers the state is given, and what rights Nigerian citizens have in response…

It is therefore little surprise that the 1999 Nigerian constitution is often ignored in the current institutional arrangements of the state… The practice of creating institutions which have no grounding in the constitution effectively licenses an ‘anything goes’ approach to governance, whereby the revenues from oil can be frittered away by quasi-legal quick-fixes without any accountability checks and balances. Billions of dollars can, and have disappeared in the process, with little to show for the money…

Given the collective passion of Nigerians in the past few weeks for a new consensus, the time has never been more ripe for a complete rethinking of the Nigerian constitutional DNA, finally wiping the slate clean the legacy of British colonial rule and its post-Independence military offshoot. The place of beginning should lie in the definition of the core powers of the State (the legislature, the executive and the judiciary) vis-à-vis the rights and obligations of the citizen… The simple truth is that under the current constitutional framework, the president has far too much power in Nigerian governance… There should be many more autonomous counterbalancing powers built into the system and institutions created whose remit is to provide checks and balances on Presidential prerogative…

There are many more aspects of the 1999 Constitution which need to be amended. However, my humble suggestion is this: not to attempt to renovate a house in which people have lived uncomfortably for so long. Why not start again, modelling a new Nigerian Constitution on a paradigm template (from the US, or from South Africa for example), which empowers citizens regardless of region, gender, sexuality or creed and reduces the overwhelming power of the “Commander in Chief”, recalibrating what it means to be a Nigerian citizen, facing the 3rd millennium in a changing world…

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Skeptic seems on the mark to me

2012-01-22T18:56:00.000-06:00

I haven't looked carefully at the "revolution" in textbooks promised by Apple last week, but I wasn't overwhelmed. A teacher from New Zealand is even less impressed.

iBooks Textbooks: Not Exactly Innovation in Education

Absent, so far, are any programming tools, even simple ones, that can allow any form of data-storing scripting, which is a shame, since programs such as FileMaker Pro, SuperCard, even HyperCard (of sainted memory) allow solutions to be created that allow a degree of decision-based scripting. Had Apple incorporated such elements into iBooks Author, a whole new level of interactivity and personalised learning could have been generated: “Steve, I see you’re spending a lot of time on simple harmonic motion, but you’re not doing very well on the end-of-topic quiz. Would you like some extra help with this topic?” But while the student can interact with the content, the content remains unable to interact with the student, and this seems to be an opportunity badly missed; I can only hope that scripting will feature strongly in a future version of iBooks Author.

As it stands, iBooks textbooks offers very little that hasn’t been on offer for nearly twenty years. Far from reinventing the textbook, Apple have simply taken an existing concept and applied it to a new medium, with, it appears, relatively little in the way of points of difference due to the particular nature of the iPad platform. And so, instead of static text and static images on a page, we are now presented with static text and some moving images on a page. This is a small step forward in terms of paper textbooks, but, in terms of the state of the art with regard to multimedia presentation, it is, absent scripting, possibly even a retrograde step…

Had iBooks 2 and iBooks Author been released back in 1996, when CD-ROMs were still a pretty neat idea, I would be writing a very different article. But today, when Apple are trying to claim that twenty-year-old ideas represent a “reinvention” of the textbook, I am less impressed. Schiller, see me after school. Grade: C-. Really must try harder.

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Can Labour find a successor to Cameron?

2012-01-20T11:06:00.000-06:00

Some people think that the reason Labour hasn't reached a position of really challenging the coalition government is because of the leader.

Many thanks to Rebecca Small who teaches at Oakton High School in Virginia for pointing out the Washington Post article.

In Britain, opposition party leader struggles to find voice

For the opposition Labor Party, this should be a shining moment. Under Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, unemployment is up, budget cuts are biting British wallets and the government’s veto of a new European Union economic treaty has left the country increasingly isolated from its neighbors.

And yet rather than Cameron, it is Labor’s chief, Ed Miliband, who is confronting a profound crisis of popularity. Only 16 months after he defeated his brother to win the crown of opposition leader, Miliband’s approval ratings have sunk to record lows. Suddenly, not only his rivals on the other side of the aisle but also influential power brokers within his own party are openly questioning his leadership.

Miliband confronted his critics this week, outlining a new direction for the Labor Party in an effort to revitalize his tenure and hold on long enough to challenge Cameron in elections still three years away…

Yet the problem, analysts say, is not Labor’s message, but the messenger. Miliband, fairly or not, is being pelted with criticism…

Miliband has seemed a round short in the intellectual blood sport of British politics, played out weekly on the floor of Parliament where Cameron and Miliband set their wits against each other in terse, often-biting oral combat.

“I think the simplest way of saying it is that most people don’t see him as a prime minister,” said Peter Kellner, president of YouGov, one of Britain’s largest polling firms. “It’s to do with his manner, his lack of experience, the fact that people don’t see a toughness of character in him. People on some level think being prime minister is a man’s job, and in Ed Miliband, they see a boy.”…

Miliband’s situation looks worse when compared with Cameron’s success. In many ways, the prime minister has defied the odds, maintaining a relatively buoyant approval rating despite his relentless and, according to the polls, largely unpopular crusade against government spending…

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Why such competition?

2012-01-19T08:49:00.000-06:00

Compared to the mayor of New York, the mayor of London is remarkably powerless. So, the question is why do the major parties make such a big deal of competition for the job? Or is it just the British media (all headquartered in London) that pays attention and publishes or broadcasts the contests?

Thanks to Rebecca Small who teaches at Oakton High School in Virginia for pointing out the Economist article.

Back into the fray

AT TIMES, it can seem as though London is stuck in 2008. The property market is still buoyant and, at the top end, still hotly contested by the global rich. Costly projects, such as the city-traversing Crossrail and the Olympic games, have not fallen victim to austerity. And, in May, voters will be asked to choose between the same two mayoral candidates who were on the ballot four years ago: Boris Johnson, the Conservative incumbent, and Ken Livingstone, his Labour predecessor.

Mr Johnson is the current favourite. An opinion poll last November gave him a lead of 48% to 40%…

There is a pervasive assumption, even in the Labour Party, that the mayoral race is a foregone conclusion. It is not. London leans left—as big, diverse cities tend to. Mr Livingstone, knowing that voters often punish governments between general elections, aims to paint his rival as just another Tory. And although the polls suggest that Londoners prefer Mr Johnson on policing, the economy and the Olympics, he trails on the vital issue of transport…

The mayoral election has implications for national politics. Victory for Mr Johnson would be another blow to Ed Miliband, whose performance as Labour Party leader is attracting criticism. Defeat for the incumbent would only be a passing nuisance for David Cameron, the Tory prime minister, but the effect on the future of his party could be profound. Mr Cameron predicts privately that he will be succeeded by either the mayor or George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer…

The challenges facing the next mayor are immense. There are new threats to the City from domestic and European regulation, as well as severe housing shortages and social problems of the kind exposed by the riots of last summer. But the prize is even greater: the chance to run Europe’s biggest city and preside over a high-profile sporting event in the summer…

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Suggestions for teaching materials

2012-01-17T18:42:00.000-06:00

Here's what I would be able to offer you as suggestions for teaching materials if the so-called "anti-internet-piracy" bills are passed in their current form.

No evidence would be required. No due process allowed. Mere assertions of ownership would lead to shutdowns of web sites and larger parts of the Internet. Mere assertions of ownership would lead to seizure of web sites, computers, and Internet servers.

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Iran Barbie ban

2012-01-17T08:50:00.000-06:00

Ah, the dangers of soft (or plastic) power.

Iran’s morality police crack down on sale of Barbie and Ken

Iran’s morality police are cracking down on the sale of Barbie dolls to protect the public from what they see as pernicious western culture eroding Islamic values, shopkeepers said on Monday…

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A declaration of referendum

2012-01-17T05:49:00.000-06:00

According to some Scottish politicians, devolution was just the first step. Now that the Scottish National Party has a majority in the Scottish Parliament, it's making plans for a referendum on independence. Cameron's government is negotiating. There's good information here about the extent of devolution now.

Thanks to Rebecca Small who teaches at Oakton High School in Virginia for pointing out the Washington Post article.

Will Britain break up? UK government to offer Scotland powers for binding independence vote

Breaking up is supposed to be hard to do — but Britain’s government confirmed Tuesday it would happily offer Scotland the powers it needs to sever centuries-old ties to England.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s government said it would sweep away legal hurdles to allow the Scots a vote on whether their country should become independent for the first time since the 18th Century Act of Union, which united Scotland with England to create Great Britain.

But in return, Cameron — who opposes any breakup of the United Kingdom… is urging Scotland to make its intentions clear “sooner rather than later.”…

Since Scotland voted in favor of a domestic legislative body in 1997, its parliament has had autonomy over education, health and justice and can make minor alterations to income tax. For now, London retains primacy on all matters relating to Britain as a whole — including defense, energy and foreign relations…

Recent opinion polls indicate rising support for independence, after surveys showed backing for the separation hovering at about 30 percent for several decades…

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Easing one set of tensions

2012-01-16T07:54:00.000-06:00

Nigeria is facing a number of serious political and economic crises. The government has moved to try to relieve one of them.

FG Offers N110, N120 Per Litre

ORGANISED Labour was last night considering the latest offer from President Goodluck Jonathan to scale down the price of petrol to between N110 and N120.

The President also directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to immediately commence a probe of the utilization of the more than N1.3 trillion subsidy fund.

President Jonathan in meetings with a select team of labour leaders was understood to have made the offer with a proviso that full deregulation of the sector would commence in April…

Protests Suspended As FG Cuts Petrol Price to N97

President Goodluck Jonathan, in a nationwide TV address Monday morning, announced a cut in petrol price from around N141 to N97 after prolonged street demonstrations over the deregulation policy.

Also, the labour unions told the media early Monday morning that they were suspending street protests because of the political dimension it had taken but insisted that the strike would go on.

In the broadcast, Jonathan said he had to review the pump price in response to the outcry over the hardship caused by the total subsidy removal and vowed to investigate the subsidy account with a view to punishing those who fraudulently bled the country and nearly destroyed the economy.

He also promised a detailed study of the forensic audit of the account of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) with a view to curbing corruption in the oil and gas sector of the economy so as to rid it of corruption…

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Why comparative?

2012-01-16T05:56:00.000-06:00

American beginners in comparative politics often start by trying to study non-American political systems in the same way they studied the USA. It doesn't always work.

Henry Farrell, professor at George Washington University points to an example of why both the "Americanist" and "Comparativist" perspectives are important.

Why Is Inequality Higher in America?

[A] Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan article… suggests that we need to look to comparative politics rather than Americanist political science in order to understand the sources of American inequality.

"… the preoccupation of many Americanists with America’s distinctive governmental institutions—Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court—obscures this inequality and what it means for the US political system. It thus seems to us that Americanists’ ability to analyze American politics would be enhanced by locating these problems in a larger, comparative context."

To bolster this broad argument, they argue that the unusually large number of veto players in the US political system is a major cause of inequality.

"A question thus arises, one both simple and surprisingly understudied by scholars of American politics: From a comparative perspective, does the United States have more “majority constraining” and “inequality inducing” political structures and veto players than other democracies? When we examine our set of 23 long-standing democracies in advanced economies, we ﬁnd that slightly more than half of these countries (12.5) actually have only one electorally generated veto player… There are 7.5 countries with two veto players, two countries (Switzerland and Australia) with three veto players, and only one country, the United States of America, with four electorally generated veto players… In addition to having the highest number of veto players, there are four more constitutionally embedded features of the US political system that, taken together, make that system even more majority constraining and, we believe, inequality inducing, than any other democracy in our set… "

As a comparativist by training, I find the idea that Americanists should think about the US more in a comparative perspective highly attractive. I also think that the veto player perspective is a very helpful lens onto the ways in which the US resembles or differs from other advanced industrialized democracies… Equally, comparativists need to pay more attention to the Americanists whose way of thinking about the world is less immediately congenial than that of those with comparativist training or sympathies if we are to move to the next stage of the debate that Linz and Stepan would (rightly) like to see taking place.

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Quiet to protest SOPA

2012-01-14T19:29:00.000-06:00

On January 18, Teaching Comparative will join Boing Boing, Reddit, and other sites around the Internet in opposing SOPA and PIPA, the pending US legislation that creates a punishing Internet censorship regime and exports it to the rest of the world. Teaching Comparative could never co-exist with a SOPA world.

There will be no blog entry on Wednesday.

If the proposed legislation passed in anything like its current form, I could never quote the contents of another site or even link to another website unless I was sure that no links to anything that infringes copyright appeared on that site. In order to link to a URL on any web site, I'd have to first confirm that no one had ever made an infringing link, anywhere on that site. That would require checking millions (even tens of millions) of pages. Even for an old guy like me with lots of time, that would be impossible. I'd be unable to tell you about potentially valuable teaching material.

If I failed to take those precautions, my finances could be frozen and depending on which version of the bill goes to the vote, my domains confiscated.

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This is not the entertainment you want

2012-01-13T06:01:00.000-06:00

Chinese President Hu warns his country about the phony attractions of the west and the government cuts popular programming on satellite television. Is this a reversion to the Maoist xenophobia?

China campaign cuts entertainment TV by two-thirds

Satellite broadcasters in China have cut entertainment TV by two-thirds following a government campaign, state news agency Xinhua has reported.

An order by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) to curb ''excessive entertainment'' came into effect on 1 January…

The news came as the president warned of the influence of Western culture.

In the piece published in a Communist Party magazine, President Hu Jintao also urged efforts to boost the country's own soft power, said Xinhua…

"Satellite channels have started to broadcast programmes that promote traditional virtues and socialist core values," SARFT said in a statement.

Talent shows and reality TV are among the biggest casualties of the cuts. The list of restricted programmes also included talk shows and emotional stories that were deemed to be of "low taste", said the Xinhua news report…

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Analysis of Russia

2012-01-12T05:37:00.000-06:00

Joshua Tucker, a political scientist at New York University, points us to an article by Stephen Holmes of the NYU School of Law, that suggests that common (and journalistic) analyses of Putin's Russia are on the wrong track.

Tucker wrote, "In this piece, Holmes is directly responding to a recent book by Luke Harding, the former Guardian correspondent in Russia, but he is also addressing a more general conception that Putin’s Russia has turned into a reprise of the late Soviet period: a relatively stable soft-authoritarian regime, where some individual freedoms are permitted but in general the state… remains firmly in control."

Holmes' analysis is in the London Review of Books and is well worth the time for teacher background material.

Fragments of a Defunct State

Putin’s clumsily announced but not unexpected decision to have himself re-elected to the presidency provides a clue about the way the system works, or rather doesn’t. If you take it that a credible succession formula is one of the key components of any political system, Putin’s stage-managed self-coronation makes it clear that Russia doesn’t have one. To leave the decision about one’s successor to the unpredictable outcome of a genuinely competitive election is acceptable only when incumbents don’t expect to lose too much if they lose. In established democracies, soft landings await electorally ousted politicians. In non-democratic systems, former rulers can sidestep unwelcome surprises if the succession process is managed by a core group within a ruling party, as in the Soviet Union after Stalin and in China today. But this alternative is not available in Russia. For one thing, the increasingly unpopular Yedinaya Rossiya is not an organised governing party but a ramshackle vote-rigging machine run by Putin loyalists and opportunists whom no one, least of all Putin, would trust to choose the country’s next ruler…

Putin’s remaining supporters constantly trumpet the ‘stability’ he has brought to Russia. But no system… can be stable if it depends on the well-being and survival of one man… The most striking illustration of the negligible role they play in Russian political life is not the rubber-stamp Duma but the presidency itself. Assigned nearly unchecked powers by the 1993 Yeltsin constitution, the office lost both its authority over foreign policy and the power to dismiss the prime minister when its shell was rented out for four years to Medvedev, whose inability to hold on to the job makes it clear that the presidency itself is not a source of power…

Escaping the draft, registering a company, buying an apartment, getting into school, passing an exam, being acquitted of criminal charges, trumped up or valid, receiving medical treatment may all require the bribery of public officials. The kickback plague is endemic, inflating by as much as 50 per cent the cost to the state of everything from weapons to highway construction. That the principal players in ‘the greatest corruption story in human history’, as the economist Anders Aslund puts it, include the fabled siloviki – the ‘heavies’: the army, the intelligence agencies etc – is the strongest sign of the absence of a hierarchy. In a hierarchy, local officials would answer to their Moscow superiors: but they don’t…

the historically unprecedented nature of the Putin system comes into focus only when we remember, as Harding himself urges us to, that ‘the Soviet-era KGB was subordinate to the political will of the Communist Party.’ When the CPSU collapsed, it left behind not only the FSB and its associated agencies but a constellation of other ‘orphans’, highly developed and now essentially autonomous fragments of a defunct state. In a desperate but ultimately successful endeavour to survive in an unforgiving environment, various former subsidiaries went in search of new sponsors. Soviet psychiatric facilities, for example, that were once used to torment dissidents, now receive cash-filled envelopes from younger Russians eager to dislodge elderly in-laws from desirable apartments…

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New Teaching Tools

2012-01-11T19:37:00.001-06:00

$44.95

Each of the 110 items is an individual document.
Student materials are MS Word documents published under a Creative Commons License, which allows you to modify, distribute, and even sell the student documents.

Commentaries, teaching suggestions, and rubrics are Adobe Reader (PDF) documents and are copyrighted.

Table of Contents
Title Page
Correlation Chart
Creative Commons License

Comparative Theory
1. Comparative Theory: Empirical and Normative
2. Comparative Theory: Systems Analysis
3. Comparative Theory: Rational Choice Analysis
4. Comparative Theory: Summary

Regimes
5. UK: Regime
6. Russia: Regime
7. China: Regime
8. Nigeria: Regime
9. Mexico: Regime
10. Iran: Regime
11. EU: Regime

Legislatures
12. UK: Legislature
13. Russia: Legislature
14. China: Legislature
15. Nigeria: Legislature
16. Mexico: Legislature
17. Iran: Legislature
18. EU: Legislature

Governments
19. UK: Government
20. Russia: Government
21. China: Government
22. Nigeria: Government
23. Mexico: Government
24. Iran: Government
25. EU: Government

Civil Societies and Political Cultures
26. UK: Civil Society and Political Culture
27. Russia: Civil Society and Political Culture
28. China: Civil Society and Political Culture
29. Nigeria: Civil Society and Political Culture
30. Mexico: Civil Society and Political Culture
31. Iran: Civil Society and Political Culture
32. EU: Civil Society and Political Culture

Basic Concepts
33. Basic Concepts: The European Union
34. Basic Concepts: Democratization 1
35. Basic Concepts: Democratization 2
36. Basic Concepts: Nations
37. Basic Concepts: Political Culture
38. Basic Concepts: Transparency
39. Basic Concepts: Rights and Liberties
40. Basic Concepts: Legitimacy
41. Basic Concepts: Political Economics
42. Basic Concepts: State Capacity
43. Basic Concepts: Federal and Unitary Systems 1
44. Basic Concepts: Federal and Unitary Systems 2
45. Basic Concepts: Participation
46. Basic Concepts: Recruitment
47. Basic Concepts: Socialization
48. Basic Concepts: Economic Development1
49. Basic Concepts: Economic Development2

FRQs
50. Answering FRQs
51. FRQs on Theory
52. FRQs on Regimes
53. FRQs on Legislatures
54. FRQs on Governments
55. FRQs on Civil Society and Political Culture

Each of these student materials is accompanied by a Commentary that includes rubrics and teaching ideas.

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Personalized issue-politics

2012-01-11T06:01:00.001-06:00

Without recognizable political parties, politics in Iran becomes personalized.

Establishment factions to face off in Iranian elections

Iran has begun gearing up for elections that will represent a showdown between two factions that just three years ago formed a united establishment against the opposition Green Movement.

In parliamentary elections March 2, supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will face off against an alliance of hard-line clerics, Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders and bazaar merchants who had been instrumental in keeping Ahmadinejad in power before they turned against him.

Both groups are striving for a majority in a parliament that can either obstruct or speed up initiatives by Ahmadinejad’s government… [C]lerics and commanders are accusing Ahmadinejad’s advisers of plotting to push them from power and to reduce the role of Islam in the country…

The two sides have lately been engaged in bitter, public disputes, calling each other “tumors,” “sorcerers” and “thieves.” Some of Ahmadinejad’s advisers have been arrested by the judiciary — which is linked to his opponents — and influential religious leaders have called for the death of the president’s closest aide.

While both factions claim ownership of the 1979 Islamic revolution and its ideals, Ahmadinejad supporters say they are a new generation that wants to root out corruption caused by the old. “People power” is an important theme in their public statements…

While discontent has seemingly grown among those who protested in 2009, Iran’s Green Movement has largely remained silent throughout the Arab uprisings of the past year. The movement’s cause has been overshadowed by the fighting within the Iranian establishment, and because its leaders are in jail, under house arrest or barred from competing in the elections, the movement’s backers have no one to support in March…

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Pre-Independence Nigeria

2012-01-10T05:58:00.000-06:00

A Nigerian who now lives in the US, wrote in his blog, Bombastic Element about a web site collecting film and video from the British Empire.

Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire holds detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies. Over 150 films are available for viewing online.

The film he particularly points to is Three Roads to Tomorrow, a 1958 film made by British Petroleum which illustrates the modernizations BP promoted and the hopes for Nigeria's future as an independent nation. It purports to tell the stories of 3 young men who go off to the university from each of the 3 major ethnic groups.

It's 22 minutes long and in 1950's Technicolor. There are glimpses of the modern, pre-independence Nigeria. There's little or no commentary to provide context about things like how widespread or widely available the modernity is. The three students were extraordinarily fortunate and rich Nigerians. The father of one was an emir and owned a 1955 Chevrolet and flew his son and his friends to the northern city where he ruled a small territory.

I'd like to recommend this because it does offer an interesting introduction to Nigeria. But the modernity that British Petroleum was anxious to show off is all that's in evidence. And the pacing of the story telling is much slower than what we expect in story telling or advertisements today.

Still, it might fit well with your plans for teaching about Nigeria.

Others available online at the Colonial Film site are:

Nigerian Independence Celebrations, 01/10/1960
Giant in the Sun: A study of Northern Nigeria as it prepares for self-government, 1959
Spotlight on the Colonies (a brief survey of progress made by the British Government in helping forty separate colonial territories to raise their standards and increase their wealth), 1950
Nigeria's First Women Police, 1956

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Imagine there's no public sector, but it's expensive

2012-01-09T12:26:00.000-06:00

Jeremy Wheate, writing in Naijablog offers a graphic image of living in urban Nigeria as a motive for striking against the end of fuel subsidies. In effect, he suggests that the fuel subsidy was one of the few ways that government spending directly benefited most people in a rentier state.

The Fuel Subsidy Removal Protests for Dummies

On the first day of the indefinite general strike organised by a coalition between two of the largest unions in Nigeria… some external observers have expressed surprise at the intensity of resistance…

The lived reality of citizens of the Nigerian state is that it provides little or no security, no infrastructure, no education and no employment opportunities (apart from mostly McJobs in the civil service). Everywhere in Nigeria, the basic elements of civilised existence have to be taken care of house-by-house, compound-by-compound. You must sink your own borehole for water, buy, install and fuel a generator for power, hire security guards to keep the wolves from the door, pay school fees to ensure your kids get a half-decent education because the public school system is in perpetual meltdown.

The breakdown of a standard tax and political representation based social contract between citizens and the state in Nigeria is almost entirely a result of the past few decades of the so-called ‘resource curse’. Earning billions of dollars each year from crude exports, the Nigerian government has no need to rely on tax from individuals or local companies; tax and royalty payments from the international oil companies (as well as historically, loans from international financial institutions) have been sufficient to fund the annual budget at all levels of government. For the past few decades, cheap fuel has therefore been the only form of social contract between ordinary Nigerians and the state and the principle lever to control inflation during times of rising oil prices. With most Nigerians subsisting on US$2 or less, subsidised fuel has also been a survival mechanism, making life only just bearable…

[I]f savings are urgently required from the annual government budget, most Nigerians would argue that the first place to cut costs is that of the price of running government itself. As the Governor of the Central Bank pointed out last year, the National Assembly consumes 25% of the Federal overheads budget…

As it is, most Nigerians are poor, and will simply not be able to survive with any comfort on US$2 a day and a doubling of living costs. That the government of Nigeria didn’t foresee the massive level of resistance happening today is quite bewildering. It shows a complete disconnect and disregard for Nigerians. However, where there is greatest danger, there is greatest hope. Nigerians have never been so united in years – in the newly unofficially renamed Liberation Square, Christians guarded the space as their Muslim co-protestors prayed. In return, last Sunday, Muslims guarded Churches as others prayed inside. What we are witnessing with Occupy Nigeria is a generational shift, as young, social-media enabled activists gradually take over the baton from unionist stalwarts…

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Strike against structural reform

2012-01-09T05:37:00.002-06:00

In the face of judicial disapproval and executive threats, unions in Nigeria called a general strike to protest the end of fuel subsidies.

Nigerians Strike, Protest Over Fuel Subsidy Cut

Thousands of Nigerians took to the streets across Africa's top oil producing nation on Monday, launching an indefinite nationwide strike to protest against the axing of fuel subsidies.

Shops, banks and petrol stations were shut and the highways into the main commercial city of Lagos, usually clogged with rush-hour traffic, were empty.

Production of Nigeria's average two million barrels of crude oil a day carried on as normal despite the strike, sources at two international oil companies and the state firm told Reuters…

Jonathan has said he will not back down and the strikes will test his resolve. Strikes have forced previous governments into u-turns on fuel subsidy cuts…

Economists say the subsidy filled the fuel tanks of the rich and middle classes at the expense of a poor majority living on less than $2 per day, fed corruption and siphoned off billions of dollars of public funds to a cartel of fuel importers…

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Would be legislators in Iran

2012-01-09T05:28:00.001-06:00

There are major obstacles for anyone who wants to be a candidate for the Iranian Majlis. This report from al Arabiya describes them.

Nearly 5,4000 would-be MPs sign up for Iran poll

A total 5,395 people, including 428 women, have registered as would-be candidates for Iran’s parliamentary elections scheduled for March 2, the interior ministry said on Saturday in a final tally.

Iran’s Guardian Council, a panel of conservative clerics and jurists, is to vet each of those registered to see if they meet the criteria to fill one of the 290 seats in parliament.

Each candidate must be an Iranian citizen aged 30 to 75 who will uphold the constitution, which notably stipulates that absolute authority is invested in the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He or she must also have a university master's degree or equivalent…

There are also some 60 reformers, but the main reformist parties -- some of which are banned -- will not be participating in the elections.

Nevertheless, some candidates from the reformist camp have registered, according to Iranian media.

The March poll will be the first since the disputed 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose declared victory triggered claims of fraud and widespread protests that were brutally put down.

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Look at my words, not my actions

2012-01-06T07:08:00.000-06:00

Maybe thinking of Russian politics as a magician's performance would help. Or you could think of the promises of reform as Potemkin promises.

Political Promotions in Russia Appear to Belie President’s Promise of Reform

President Dmitri A. Medvedev has responded to the street protests in Moscow with proposals for political reform, but his recent personnel appointments seem to tell a different story: top posts went to former officers in the K.G.B. and long-serving loyalists of his political mentor, Vladimir V. Putin…

The highest position went to Sergei B. Ivanov, a former colleague of Mr. Putin’s from the Leningrad office of the K.G.B….

In another change, Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitri O. Rogozin, who is known as irascible and an outspoken nationalist and who once hung a poster of Stalin in his office in Brussels, was appointed a deputy prime minister overseeing the military-industrial complex.

Finally, the Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff, Vladislav Y. Surkov… moved to a deputy prime minister’s position in the cabinet. He was replaced by Mr. Putin’s former chief of staff in the prime minister’s office, Vyacheslav Volodin, a loyalist who helped form a pro-Putin national political movement this year called the People’s Front…

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Who is happy?

2012-01-05T07:21:00.000-06:00

Critics of the upcoming Iranian elections seem to come from everywhere. Does that mean that only those politicians not complaining are confident of victory? How can they be confident?

Opposition leader calls upcoming Iran election bogus

An Iranian opposition leader who has been under house arrest since February has accused the Islamic establishment of intending to hold a “rubber-stamp” parliamentary election in March, his website Sahamnews…

Candidates began registering... for the March 2 vote, which will be the first litmus test of the clerical leadership's public standing since a disputed 2009 presidential vote that precipitated months of unrest…

Candidate registration will last one week and then entrants will be screened for their political and Islamic qualifications by the hard-line Guardian Council electoral watchdog.

The Council has stopped hundreds of reformist candidates in the past from participating in elections…

Leading reformist politicians said pro-reform groups would not submit a separate list of candidates because the basic needs of a “free and fair” vote have not been fulfilled.

Authorities are concerned that a low turnout would question the establishment’s legitimacy, and so hard-line conservative rulers have urged voters to participate in the March elections.

Parliamentary Elections in Iran: Who and How will Participate

Parliamentary election campaign in Iran is traditionally launched with the start of the Election Organization's activity, formed under the Interior Ministry, and ends with the start of activity of the newly elected parliament. This process continues within a year.

Elections in Iran are held under the control of the Guardian Council…

[C]andidates must be Iranian citizens, confess Islam and believe in the Islamic Republic and show their faith in action.

They must be true to Iran's Constitution and the country's Supreme Leader. In addition, they should be authoritative leaders in their circles (those with shadowy past are not allowed), should be physically healthy (not to be blind, deaf and dumb) and have a Master's degree. A candidate must be at least 30 and no older than 75 years…

The parliamentary elections in Iran (the Iranian Islamic Consultative Council - Majlis) are held every four years. The parliamentary elections of the VIII convocation were held on March 14, 2008. At the moment, there are 290 MPs.

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Moscow winter?

2012-01-04T06:42:00.000-06:00

Following the example of the Arab Spring, will there be a Moscow Winter?

Young and Connected, ‘Office Plankton’ Protesters Surprise Russia

A mystery has been unfolding [in Moscow] over the past month, and office plankton [young professionals] are in the middle of it. A critical mass of young Russians decided this month that they had the power to alter the course of political events. They organized outside the channels of mainstream politics and took the country’s leadership by surprise, as other crowds have done this year in Israel, India, Spain and the United States.

No one can say how strong this burst of citizen activism will prove to be — whether it can recreate the crowd of 50,000 that gathered Dec. 10 in Moscow, let alone serve as the foundation of a permanent political force. But an impulse was released after December’s parliamentary elections, which were widely discredited as fraudulent. It has rippled out through Russia’s emerging middle class — wired, sophisticated urbanites like Mr. Terekhov’s employees — many of whom have decided, quite suddenly, that a political system they have long tolerated is intolerable…

A signal change has occurred already: Russia’s opposition movement is the realm of the young. Planning meetings, once held in the musty domain of perestroika-era dissidents, are now convened at Moscow’s most fashionable addresses, like the rehabilitated Red October chocolate factory. In a city obsessed with style, protest has become stylish...

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Protests over higher fuel prices begin

2012-01-03T07:26:00.000-06:00

Unions and other civil society groups have begun protesting the removal of fuel subsidies by Nigeria's government. Will the government be able to resist the popular pressure to restore the subsidy? Will civil society be able to achieve its demands?

Nigerians protest at removal of fuel subsidy

Thousands of Nigerians are taking part in protests around the country following the removal of a fuel subsidy, which has doubled petrol prices and transport fares.

Trade unionists have marched in the biggest city, Lagos. They are to meet on Wednesday to decide on strike plans…

Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer, but imports refined petrol.

Years of mismanagement and corruption mean it does not have the capacity to refine oil into into petrol and other fuels.

Analysts say many Nigerians regard cheap fuel as the only benefit they get from the nation's oil wealth.

Several previous governments have tried to remove the subsidy but have backed down in the face of widespread public protests and reduced it instead…

Prices have increased from 65 naira ($0.40; £0.26) per litre to at least 140 naira in filling stations and from 100 naira to at least 200 on the black market, where many Nigerians buy their fuel.

There are reports that petrol prices have tripled in some remote areas, while commuters have complained that motorcycle and minibus taxi fares have already doubled or tripled.

Many Nigerians expect the prices of other goods to rise as well.

The government has said it will spend the money saved by removing the subsidy on improving the country's erratic electricity supply, as well as health and education.

However, analysts say that many Nigerians have little faith that the money will be well spent and fear it will instead be stolen by corrupt officials…

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Two paths diverged. Or did they merge?

2012-01-03T06:36:00.000-06:00

An illustration of a couple of the "parties" within the Communist Party in China.

Remember These two candidates for the Politburo Standing Committee:

Bo Xilai = a "princeling" who inherited his position; client of VP (soon to be president and party general secretary) Xi Jinping; critic of economic reforms - advocate of reducing income inequalities;
Wang Yang = working class "hero;" client of Hu Jintao; an economic reformer; compromised with Wukan village protesters.

Watch to see who gets appointed to the standing committee in 2012.

Guangdong protests could impact China’s leadership shuffle

An uprising over land seizures in a fishing hamlet in southern Guangdong province has been defused, but Chinese analysts and others are watching to see whether the unrest could have a wider impact, perhaps on the future of a provincial chief who had been seen as a rising star in the Communist Party.

Wang Yang, the provincial party chief since 2007… is considered a top candidate for one of the seven slots opening in 2012 on the all-powerful nine-member Politburo Standing Committee…

Bo Xilai, a rival to Wang who is the party chief in Chongqing, has been critical of the liberal approach.

For months, Wang and Bo have been engaged in a rare public debate over whose methods and models were best for China…

For his part, Bo has championed an approach that emphasizes efforts to reverse income inequality. “Some people in China have indeed become rich first, so we must seek the realization of common prosperity,” Bo was quoted as saying in July. A week later, Wang said in Guangdong that “division of the cake is not a priority right now. The priority is to make the cake bigger.”…

Also, although Wang has experimented with allowing a relatively open media and reforms, Bo has shifted to a “new left” stance, encouraging a “Red Culture” campaign that includes the singing of Communist “red songs” and operas, launching a “Red Twitter” microblogging site to promote Mao-era slogans, and ordering Chongqing’s television stations to broadcast patriotically themed programs. Wang replied by saying people’s’ everyday problems could not be solved through political campaigns...

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Another test

2012-01-02T09:02:00.000-06:00

As if the threat of terrorism wasn't enough, there's another threat to the capacity of the state in Nigeria. Economists, economic development experts, and some politicians have long argued for an end to fuel subsidies in Nigeria. President Jonathan's government has done that. Can it survive the ensuing unhappiness and protest? The political fight will also test the capacity of the unions.

New Year Shocker! Fuel Now to Sell At N141 Per Litre

A litre of petrol jumped by 116% yesterday to N141 after the Federal Government sanctioned the removal of the controversial subsidy on the price of petrol.

The removal of the subsidy was conveyed by the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, PPPRA in a statement issued on New Year day.

The hike immediately provoked strong criticisms from labour, civil society groups and opposition political parties…

No More Petrol Subsidy From Today - PPPRA

The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) today announced the full withdrawal of subsidies from Petrol (Premium Motor Spirit).

According to a statement signed by the agency's executive secretary, Reginald Stanley, the removal takes effect from today, January 1, 2012.

It said in part that the agency "...wishes to inform all stakeholders of the commencement of formal removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), in accordance with the powers conferred on the agency by the law establishing it, in compliance with Section 7 of PPPRA Act, 2004.

"By this announcement, the downstream sub-sector of the petroleum industry is hereby deregulated for PMS. Service providers in the sector are now to procure products and sell same in accordance with the indicative benchmark price to be published fortnightly and posted on the PPPRA website…

UK news agency REUTERS on Thursday claimed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was behind the push by governments across West Africa to remove petrol subsidies. Ghana officially ended hers on Thursday December 29, 2011. Other countries which the report said were under similar pressure are Cameroon, Guinea and Chad…

Labour Threatens Mass Protests

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have declared a showdown with the Federal Government through mass protests and strikes until the price of petrol is reversed to N65 per litre.

The leadership of the labour movements in a joint statement issued yesterday directed their state councils to take steps to resist any price above N65 per litre of PMS, and await a date for the commencement of general strikes and mass protests across the country…

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Government action against terror

2012-01-01T11:06:00.000-06:00

The Nigerian government has essentially declared war on the terrorist group Boko Haram. This is a test of the government's capacity and may be a test of civilian government.

The BBC report includes a link to a video of President Jonathan declaring the state of emergency.

Boko Haram attacks prompt Nigeria state of emergency

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has declared a state of emergency in parts of the country following attacks from the Islamist group Boko Haram.

The measure is in force is areas of the Yobe and Borno states in the north-east, Plateau state in central Nigeria and Niger state in the west.

International borders in the affected areas have been temporarily closed…

Mr Jonathan vowed to "crush" Boko Haram, which killed dozens in attacks across the country on Christmas Day.

Announcing the state of emergency in a live televised address, Mr Jonathan said: "The temporary closure of our borders in the affected areas is only an interim measure designed to address the current security challenges."…

The president added that his chief of defence staff had been instructed to take other "appropriate" measures, including setting up a special counter-terrorism force…

Boko Haram, which originated in Maiduguri, wants to impose strict Sharia law across Nigeria…

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HIATUS

2011-12-22T05:29:00.001-06:00

hi·a·tus /haɪˈeɪtəs/ Pronunciation[hahy-ey-tuhs]
–noun, plural -tus·es, -tus.

a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.
any gap or opening.
an indefinite period of time when most schools in the US are not in session and during which the primary contributor to this blog takes a break from posting while joining family in observance of the solstice, religious holidays, and the beginning of the new year.

[Origin: 1555–65; < L hiātus opening, gap, equiv. to hiā(re) to gape, open + -tus suffix of v. action]

Source: hiatus. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved July 15, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hiatus

Remember, if you're looking for examples posted here, the 2400+ entries here are indexed at delicious.com/CompGovPol. There are 77 categories and you can search within categories to find something appropriate to your needs.

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Hotbed of unhappiness

2011-12-22T05:20:00.000-06:00

Leningrad/St. Petersburg was a center of political dissent 20+ years ago. One of the exports was a guy named Putin. It seems that St. Petersburg is not so enamored with its "favorite son" anymore.

Putin’s hometown turns against him

No city is more closely associated with Vladimir Putin’s rule than St. Petersburg. The Russian Prime Minister grew up in what was then Leningrad, and attended KGB school here. During his 12 years in power, Mr. Putin’s governments have poured billions into restoring the palaces, canals and bridges of this graceful former capital of the Russian empire.

But being showered with favouritism is no longer enough. The city that Mr. Putin says he “loves” is now a centre of the growing opposition to his rule.

According to the official – and hotly disputed – results of the country’s Dec. 4 parliamentary election, Mr. Putin’s United Russia party took 35 per cent of the vote in St. Petersburg, one the lowest levels of support in the country. It represented a rebuke for Mr. Putin, who took nearly three-quarters of the vote here when he last ran for president in 2004…

President Dmitry Medvedev is a St. Petersburg native too, as are most of Mr. Putin’s inner circle of advisers and cabinet ministers. Russians elsewhere grumble about the powerful “St. Petersburg clan” and this city’s disproportionate political and economic influence over the rest of the country.

But Sergei Shelin, one of the city’s best-known journalists, said St. Petersburgers no longer see Mr. Putin as one of their own. “Ten years ago, it mattered that Putin was from St. Petersburg. But the St. Petersburg clan and St. Petersburg, the city, are different things. People don’t see themselves as part of this clan. … If Putin actually gets the real information through all his filters, it must personally bother him that his hometown doesn’t love him any more.”

Part of the reason St. Petersburg – Russia’s most open and Westernized city – has turned on Mr. Putin is that he has proven to be anything but the reformer many had hoped he was. Before he was unexpectedly anointed Boris Yeltsin’s successor, Mr. Putin served a deputy to the liberal governor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak. Many here expected Mr. Putin would follow Mr. Sobchak’s liberal course once he got to the Kremlin.

Instead, Mr. Putin has taken Russia several strides back toward its Soviet past, with both the media and the officially registered opposition parties being brought under tight Kremlin control.

Last week, Mr. Sobchak’s daughter, Ksenia, joined the opposition protests in Moscow. “I can no longer just silently watch what is happening in my country,” the 30-year-old socialite, who has known Mr. Putin since she was a young girl, wrote on her Twitter account. “The point of no return has been passed.”

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Compliments from the IMF

2011-12-21T05:43:00.000-06:00

The International Monetary Fund is most often cited as telling poor countries what they have to do in order to qualify for fiscal help. Nigeria's President Jonathan got compliments instead. I'll be interested in hearing what the IMF head says about Nigeria a few years from now. (In over 40 years of studying Nigeria, I've gone through more "optimistic-pessimistic cycles" than I can count.)

Lagarde praises Nigeria's economic efforts

IMF head Christine Lagarde, who is visiting Africa, has praised Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's efforts to transform his country's economy…

Ms Largarde is visiting Africa for the first time as head of the IMF…

"My mission is to come and listen and appreciate and understand exactly what economy programme will be implemented in Nigeria, and the initiative and leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan," Ms Lagarde said.

"I was extremely impressed with... the energy and pace at which he wants to transform the economy, create jobs and focus on agriculture."

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Bookkeeping in Nigeria

2011-12-21T05:39:00.000-06:00

A rentier state is one which receives most of its revenue by selling products in the global market. It means that the government doesn't have to tax citizens much and often feels little responsibility to spend its income for the good of the general public.

An article in Vanguard (Lagos) offers some details on November's income and its distribution in Nigeria.

(As of December 16, US$1.00 = 161.8 Naira; 1 Naira = US$0.0062.)

FG, States, LGs Share N612 Billion

The three tiers of government, yesterday, shared a total of N612.077 billion as their allocations from the federally collected revenue for the month of November, which would be used for their December expenditure…

Detailed analysis of distribution showed that the Federal Government took a total of N194.666 billion made up of N194.132 billion from the Statutory Allocation, representing its 52.68 per cent under the existing sharing formula and another N7.534 billion , representing 15 per cent under the VAT revenue sub- head.

The states and local governments shared the balance based on their allocated revenue formula of 26.72 per cent and 20.60 per cent respectively.

The nine oil producing states got an additional N42.048 billion, representing 13 per cent of the oil revenue generated under the month of November. Similarly, the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, received N4.1 billion, representing 4 per cent of revenue it generated to cover cost of collection. The Nigerian Customs Service also receive the sum of N2.763 billion, representing 7 per cent of its revenue to cover duties' collection cost.

Other blog entries about rentier states:

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The north-south divide in the UK

2011-12-20T08:23:00.000-06:00

The example raised by the Institute for Public Policy Research North is a prime example of the cleavage between the southern UK and the north (including, of course, Scotland).

Rationale or rationalization, there are reasons why so much public money is spent in the south (Conservative Party territory). But northern (Labour Party territory) interests hint that the real reasons are political.

Transport spending 'skewed towards London'

The government spends more money on transport projects for Londoners than on those for the rest of the country combined, a think tank says.

The Institute for Public Policy Research North says £2,700 is spent per person in London compared with £5 per head in the north-east of England…

The government says its investment strategy is to maximise economic benefits for the country as a whole.

Ed Cox, Director of IPPR North, said: "Skewed spending benefiting London and the south-east is nothing new but these new figures are truly shocking and will strike most people as deeply unfair."

The BBC's Transport Correspondent Richard Lister says the report claims the infrastructure strategy is "entrenching the North-South divide"…

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Election returns from the UK

2011-12-20T08:20:00.000-06:00

But the "Bus-Pass Elvis Party" won 93 votes!

Miliband hails Labour win in Feltham and Heston

Labour leader Ed Miliband says his party's victory in the Feltham and Heston by-election is "a verdict on the government's failed economic plan".

Winning candidate Seema Malhotra secured victory in the west London seat with an increased majority of 6,203 over the Tories, a swing of 8.6%…

The by-election was prompted by the death last month of Labour MP Alan Keen…

Ms Malhotra grew up in Feltham, and went to school in Heston. She was an adviser to Harriet Harman during her stint as Leader of the Opposition in 2010…

The full results were:

Seema Malhotra, Labour - 12,639 (54.42%, +10.79%)
Mark Bowen, Conservative - 6,436 (27.71%, -6.32%)
Roger Crouch, Liberal Democrats - 1,364 (5.87%, -7.87%)
Andrew Charalambous, UKIP - 1,276 (5.49%, +3.45%)
David Furness, BNP - 540 (2.33%, -1.21%)
Daniel Goldsmith, Green - 426 (1.83%, +0.74%)
Roger Cooper, English Democrats - 322 (1.39%)
George Hallam, London People Before Profit - 128 (0.55%)
David Bishop, Bus-Pass Elvis Party - 93 (0.40%)

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Say again?

2011-12-19T05:45:00.000-06:00

It seemed like a typical press release from the Chinese government, but I read it anyway. When I finished I had to ask, "What was he talking about?"

Senior Chinese leader urges efforts to improve social management

Senior Chinese leader Zhou Yongkang has reiterated that more efforts should be made to promote social management in line with the socialist market-oriented economic system...

Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, addresses a seminar on social management innovation attended by leaders from nine northern provinces and autonomous regions in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 2, 2011.

While Zhou praised the efforts of local authorities to enhance social management, he said the current social management mechanism is not keeping pace with social and economic development, a failure particularly damaging to the market-oriented economy.

He urged delegates to innovate in social management by taking overall consideration and conducting systematic study of China's economic development, improving the well-being of the people and social stability.

He also reiterated the importance of improving social management by promoting practices nationwide derived from good community-level experience, adding that the community-level organs are make-or-break.

The job of improving social management should go deep in community-level organs, with increasing allocation of manpower and material resources, said Zhou.

It turns out that a later revision of the press release offered some hints about what "social management" is.

Senior Chinese leader calls for improved social management of prisoners, drug addicts, HIV carriers

Senior leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Zhou Yongkang has called for improved services and social management for prisoners, drug addicts, mental patients and HIV carriers.

Services for and management of these members of society are critical to social stability and harmony, said Zhou, who is a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

Despite notable progress, blind spots, management loopholes and potential safety hazards remain, Zhou said at a conference Monday.

Zhou advocates an approach that combines both education and assistance in an effort to ensure these people observe law and discipline, and to "live in harmony with society."

Zhou also underlined the importance of showing due respect to these groups and protecting their legitimate interests…

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Communists as landlords

2011-12-16T05:51:00.000-06:00

The conjunction of brazen theft by public officials, determined villagers, and proximity to foreign reporters has made one village in China famous. There are regular reports of protests and resistance from hundreds of villages, but most of them are beyond the reach of reporters like Andrew Jacobs.

What's the ruling party to do when it is cast in the role it assigned to landlords 80 years ago?

Chinese Village Locked in Rebellion Against Authorities

A long-running dispute between farmers and local officials in southern China exploded into open rebellion this week after villagers chased away government leaders, set up roadblocks and began arming themselves with homemade weapons, residents said.

The conflict in Wukan, a coastal settlement near the country’s booming industrial heartland in Guangdong Province, escalated on Monday after residents learned that one of the representatives they had selected to negotiate with the local Communist Party had died in police custody…

Spasms of social unrest in China have become increasingly common, a reflection of the widening income gap and deepening unhappiness with official corruption and an unresponsive justice system.

But the clashes in Wukan, which first erupted in September, appear to be unusual for their longevity — and for the brazenness of the participants…

The unrest began in September, when thousands of people took to the streets to protest the seizure of agricultural land they said was illegally taken by government officials. The land was sold to developers, they said, but the farmers ended up with little or no compensation. After two days of protests, during which police vehicles were destroyed and government buildings ransacked, riot police moved in with what residents described as excessive brutality.

With order restored, local officials vowed to investigate the villager’s land-grab claims. Two village party officials were fired and the authorities made an offer that is rare in China’s top-down political system: county party officials would negotiate with a group of village representatives chosen by popular consensus.

A butcher named Xue Jinbo was among the 13 people chosen…

Last Friday, the authorities responded by sending in a group of plain-clothes policemen who grabbed five of the representatives, including Mr. Xue.

Two days later, he was dead…

Although government censors blocked news of the latest unrest, the state-run Xinhua news agency weighed in on the “rumors” about Mr. Xue’s death, saying he had died of cardiac arrest a day after confessing to his role in the riots of in September…

The top party official in Shanwei, Zheng Yanxiong, said Mr. Xue’s death would nonetheless be investigated, but he warned residents against using their suspicions to fuel unrest.

“The government will strive to settle all related problems and hopes the village will not be instigated into staging further riots,” Mr. Zheng said.

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Real candidate or not?

2011-12-15T08:05:00.000-06:00

Once again, the question has been raised about Prokhorov's political activity. Is he more than a candidate that will help United Russia?

Prokhorov’s entry into Russian race could complicate Putin’s plans

In a move that may further shake the Putin government’s firm political grip, tycoon and NBA franchise owner Mikhail Prokhorov announced he will run for the presidency.

Though other opposition leaders quickly alleged that Monday’s surprise decision is a Kremlin ploy to split the vote, the mining magnate and owner of the New Jersey Nets could be a galvanizing figure to the thousands of Russians protesting alleged election fraud and widespread corruption…

The last time Mr. Prokhorov tried his hand at Russian politics, he lasted just four months before he was forced out, seemingly a victim of his own growing popularity. The 46-year-old tycoon was outspoken in his disgust at the time, blaming a “puppet master” inside the Kremlin for his ouster as the head of a pro-business party in September.

Now, depending on whom you believe, he is either challenging the puppet masters directly, or willfully joining the show…

Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and a key leader of the street protests, told the Interfax news agency that he believes Mr. Prokhorov’s candidacy is a Kremlin project aimed at defusing public anger over the parliamentary elections by creating the impression that the coming presidential vote will be a competitive one.

Former chess champion Garry Kasparov, a long-time critic of Mr. Putin, was more direct. “Prokhorov is a puppet,” he said in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail. “The Kremlin is desperate to create a distraction and this is another effort to create the illusion of choice to mollify the Russian middle class, to get them out of the streets.”…

Challenging the Kremlin comes with enormous risks, even for the ultra-rich. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man until he became outspoken in his criticism of Mr. Putin. He has been in prison since 2003, convicted on tax evasion and embezzlement charges that were widely seen as politically motivated.

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Thanks, but no thanks

2011-12-14T06:04:00.000-06:00

Why would the beneficiaries of Russia's economy protest its politics? That doesn't happen in other countries, does it?

Boosted by Putin, Russia’s Middle Class Turns on Him

Here is the rub for Vladimir V. Putin: The people who stood outside the Kremlin on Saturday, chanting epithets directed at him, are the ones who have prospered greatly during his 12 years in power.

They were well traveled and well mannered; they wore hipster glasses. They were wonky (some held aloft graphs showing statistical deviations that they said proved election fraud). In short, they were young urban professionals, a group that benefited handsomely from Moscow’s skyrocketing real estate market and the trickle-down effect of the nation’s oil wealth…

It is a paradox, but one that has been documented by social scientists: the residents of Moscow and other large cities tend to express greater frustration with Prime Minister Putin as his government has helped make them wealthier. One explanation is the high level of public corruption here, which threatens new personal wealth. A second is a phenomenon seen in Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, that economic growth can inadvertently undermine autocratic rule by creating an urban professional class that clamors for new political rights…

It must be frustrating for Mr. Putin that those now protesting have enjoyed growing wealth while he has been the country’s predominant figure, first as president and now as prime minister. From 2000, the year he assumed the presidency, until 2008, wages, adjusted for inflation, grew at an average of nearly 15 percent a year. But while salaries are still rising, they are increasing much more slowly today — at an average of 1.3 percent per year since the onset of the global economic crisis in 2008, according to data compiled by Citibank.

And as they become wealthier, residents of cities are prone to venting their frustration with the political system…

If there was a single catalyst to the recent events, it was probably Mr. Putin’s unilateral announcement in September that he would run again for the presidency, in effect swapping places with Mr. Medvedev. Some Russians now snidely refer to this as “rokirovka” — the Russian word for castling in chess, the move in which a rook and the king are moved at the same time, to shelter the king…

In addition to the New York Times report, Dr. Thomas Remington, Goodrich C. White Professor of Political Science at Emory University, wrote in The Monkey Cage blog about the Russian middle class.

If you assign this to students, be sure to point out the irony and sarcasm in parts of Remington's commentary.

Russia: Middle Class Rising

Press reports in both Russia and the US of the large-scale protests against election fraud in Moscow and other large cities are characterizing this movement as the political mobilization of the Russian “middle class.”…

Kremlin [insider] Vladislav Surkov understands this point well. Earlier this year he attempted to breathe life into the crumbling Right Cause party by recruiting oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov to head it. But Prokhorov’s refusal to limit his electoral ambitions to the small share of the vote Surkov was willing to concede to him wrecked the project. A few days ago, after the fiasco of the Duma election—the poor official results for United Russia, the widespread and well-documented use of ballot-stuffing, manipulation of absentee voting certificates, and after-hours revisions of local vote tallies—Surkov again pointed out that Russia needs a political party for the “disgruntled urban communities” that believe in quaint ideas of political rights and fair elections…

But are we seeing the rise of the middle class?… Big cities contain clusters of educated, internet-savvy, self-aware, and politically engaged citizens. As if testing the classic Verba-Schlozman-Brady model of political participation, they have the grievances to motivate their involvement in civic protest (“because they want to”), they have the ability to communicate (“because they can”), and they summon one another to turn out for rallies and collective acts of protest (“because someone asked them”).

There is a proto-middle class in Russia, but it is divided straight down the middle between those in the private sector and those in the budget [public] sector. The recent election protests are not the revolt of the middle class, but a result of the gradual establishment of a real civil society with growing self-confidence and an awareness of its rights that is taking on board the opportunities for mobilization granted by the new communications technologies.

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An uphill struggle

2011-12-13T05:38:00.000-06:00

To get an idea of what reforms the coalition government says it's trying to carry out, here's The Economist on welfare reform in the UK.

The unemployed are suffering, but things aren't easy for the government that is trying to find an affordable solution.

Nice work if you can find it

The government has set about a thorough reform of benefits. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, wants to replace six housing and work benefits with a single universal credit…

But the Work Programme, launched in June, is the big idea for getting more people off handouts. It has commissioned 18 main providers to deliver 40 contracts across Britain at a cost of up to £5 billion. Seven-year contracts to remove the uncertainty of changeable government schemes are coupled with incentives to get people into long-term jobs and keep them there.

EOS, [one of the contractors]… has attempted to replicate workplaces. Local firms can set up shop in its employment centres to try out employees. From a gallery above the shop floor, prospective bosses can look down on those going about their tasks and select the most diligent workers. Trade skills like plumbing and basic construction are taught, while in classrooms, jobseekers—known as “clients”—learn how to use the internet and personal networks to sniff out local jobs…

Besides delightful things like a gym, a café and free computer facilities lurks the threat of benefits forfeited. EOS quickly sends out reminders to those referred by jobcentres who fail to turn up. After that, they are notified that welfare payments can be withdrawn. No figures are yet available for how often this has happened, though Chris Grayling, the minister responsible for the measures, insists that the threat is “already changing behaviour”…

Some believe that the payment-by-results system itself is failing. Ian Mulheirn of the Social Market Foundation, a pro-reform think-tank, says the scheme is in danger of financial collapse because many contractors are missing their targets: “The only question is when ministers will face up to it.” He estimates that even the most efficient schemes can move only 10% more people to jobs who would not have found work by themselves…

As the jobless figures continue to rise, some unfashionable ideas are returning. Graeme Cook, an analyst with the Institute for Public Policy Research, a centre-left think-tank, believes that the coalition should provide state-sponsored jobs to ensure that young and long-term jobseekers don’t stay in the cold for too long. Although the coalition formally resists this New Labour-era idea, the chancellor recently agreed to provide some wage subsidies for companies employing people who have struggled to find work—and to channel £300m into apprenticeship schemes…

The coalition’s impatience with what David Cameron, the prime minister, calls “sick-note culture” is laudable. So is its determination to make state handouts a last resort rather than a way of life—a goal that eluded the previous government, which nonetheless threw a lot more money at the problem. Opinion polls show strong support for an overhaul of welfare. But over-hyping the impact of a single programme when the stubborn central problem is slow economic growth does not seem wise…

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Look over here

2011-12-12T08:33:00.000-06:00

Mikhail Prokhorov has been flirting with politics for quite awhile. Some of the flirting has been done with the cooperation of Putin and Medvedev. Now, he seems to be taking on the leadership directly. Or has he been recruited as Potemkin Village candidate?

Billionaire to Oppose Putin in Russian Presidential Election

Amid a crescendo of complaints from Russians fed up with the country’s tightly controlled political system, two prominent figures — a billionaire industrialist and the recently ousted finance minister — sought to fill a void in the opposition leadership on Monday.

Mikhail D. Prokhorov announced his plan to contest the Russian presidency on Monday in Moscow.

The billionaire, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, who owns shares in a major gold mining company and an array of other ventures in Russia as well as the New Jersey Nets basketball franchise in the United States, said he will run for president, challenging Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

“I made a decision, probably the most serious decision in my life: I am going to the presidential election,” Mr. Prohkorov said at a news conference. He has barely appeared in public since mid-September, when he was dramatically removed as the head of a pro-business party, Just Cause, after clashing with Kremlin political strategists.

“You may remember, the Kremlin removed me and my allies from Just Cause, and we were not allowed to do what we wanted,” he said. “It is not in my nature to stop halfway. So for the last two and a half months we sat and worked, very calmly and quietly, and we created all the infrastructure to collect two million signatures,” which are needed to get on the ballot…

For Mr. Prokhorov, whose business interests include a stake in the Atlantic Yards development in downtown Brooklyn, his leap into presidential politics could be risky. He is the first wealthy businessman to pursue a political goal in Russia against the governing authorities since the 2003 arrest of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former chairman of the Yukos Oil Company, who was jailed after he began financing an opposition party. He remains in prison.

The Kremlin is clearly considering blessing a liberal party, after the backlash that has emerged in recent days.

In an interview that was posted Tuesday on the Web site of Ekho Moskvy radio station, Kremlin strategist Vladislav Y. Surkov said he supported the creation of “a mass liberal party or, more precisely, a party for the annoyed urban communities,” and that in order for Russia’s political system to survive, it needed to open up to “new players.”

Previous blog posts about Mr. Prokhorov
From September 2011 Theater or conspiracy
From August 2011 Creating opposition
and More on leadership politics in Russia
From May 2011 Directed democracy
From April 2009 Reduced competition

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No, look over there

2011-12-12T05:56:00.000-06:00

It seems to be a political axiom: if things aren't going well domestically, get people to focus on international issues.

Putin's doing it. Can you find examples of other politicians doing it?

Putin Contends Clinton Incited Unrest Over Vote

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin accused Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday of inciting unrest in Russia, as he grappled with the prospect of large-scale political protest for the first time in his more than decade-long rule.

In a rare personal accusation, Mr. Putin said Mrs. Clinton had sent “a signal” to “some actors in our country” after Sunday’s parliamentary elections, which were condemned as fraudulent by both international and Russian observers…

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More expert analysis on Russia

2011-12-09T12:30:00.000-06:00

Dr. Joshua Tucker quotes Dr. Graeme Robertson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Robertson is "an expert on protest in Russia."

The Beginning of the End of the Putin Regime as We have Known It

Most people, myself included… were surprised by the results of the Russian Duma elections last Sunday. But the protests that have followed, in Moscow, St. Petersburg and across the country, should be less surprising. Far from being spontaneous or unexpected, this week’s protests are the result of years of campaigning and organizing by the anti-system opposition…

[T]he Russian state’s counter-mobilization capacity is extremely strong. Nashi, Mestnie, Moldaya Gvardia and other pro-government youth groups have been organizing large events in key locations in Moscow. On Tuesday, some 17 000 young people participated in a pro-government meeting in front of giant pictures of outgoing President, Dmitrii Medvedev (an unlikely subject for a personality cult if ever there was one!)…

The final key element in this story is the Russian political elite, which to date remains strongly behind the Putin/Medvedev project…

In this regard, the current situation in Russia is completely different from events in Serbia, Ukraine or Georgia. There is no credible political alternative to the current administration and defections from the ruling party are highly unlikely…

So it is unlikely (not impossible – but don’t bet on it) that this week’s protests will prevent the new Duma taking its seats, or Vladimir Putin returning to the presidency. Nevertheless, the events of this week are significant. The opposition that was born in the pensioners’ protests in 2005 has come of age, and protest in the streets is signaling the beginning of the end of the Putin regime as we have known it.

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Academic thoughts on the Russian election results

2011-12-09T05:58:00.000-06:00

Joshua Tucker, political science professor at New York University, offers some thoughts on the recent Russian elections and quotes Vladimir Gelman of the European University of Saint Petersburg on why "voters are not fools."

Tucker describes the Russian system as a "competitive authoritarian regime." To my understanding, he means pretty much the same thing that Fareed Zakaria described in Foreign Affairs (Nov/Dec 1997) as an "illiberal democracy." Zakaria's label has been used frequently in comparative politics and in AP materials.

Voters are Not Fools: A Response to the 2011 Russian Parliamentary Elections

By now, we all know the score in terms of Russian elections. An election is called, the state employs its “administrative resources” to ensure huge advantages for the ruling party or candidate, a little bit of fraud is added in when necessary… and, voila! The ruling regime returns to power with a crushing victory… and absolute control of the parliament and the presidential apparatus…

However something interesting happened over the weekend. The competitive authoritarian regime par excellence, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, went to the polls in a parliamentary election and lost votes from the previous election. And seats. Quite a lot of them actually. Yes, the ruling United Russia party will still have a majority in parliament, but it will be a much smaller majority than its previous majority…

What exactly does this mean??? Things like this are not supposed to happen. We are pleased to welcome with a first response to the election Vladimir Gelman of the European University of Saint Petersburg: "The famous American political scientist V.O.Key in his 1966 book, “The Responsible Electorate”, posted a well-known maxim: “Voters are not fools”. Since then, it has been oft-cited in descriptions and explanations of voting behavior in electoral democracies. December 4, 2011, proved this wisdom for the case of voting behavior under electoral authoritarian regimes. It is especially true in Russia, where voters experienced more than a decade of relatively open electoral competition and have not forgot it as yet despite numerous efforts put forth by the Kremlin. Even though the party of power, United Russia (also known by its nickname as “the party of swindlers and thieves”), was able to get a majority of seats in the State Duma (238 out of 450 seats), still its officially reported electoral results were below 50%, and in some big cities even well below 30-35%. Yet, it was far from what political scientists call as “stunning” elections when authoritarian regimes collapsed because of unexpected opening of ballot boxes (similarly to what happens in the Soviet 1989 elections to the Congress of People’s Deputies). However, even under conditions as uneven as the playing field of Russia’s electoral authoritarianism act of voting might become a weapon of the weak citizens against the strong state, if citizens employ efficient strategies of their political resistance…"

[Gelman's whole article (in Russian)]

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Democracy in a war zone

2011-12-08T06:11:00.002-06:00

It's been implied all along, but Mexico's president has said out loud that narco-gangs threaten the country's democratic regime.

Mexico's Calderon says drug gangs threatening democracy

Organised crime poses an "open threat" to democracy in Mexico, President Felipe Calderon has warned.

Mr Calderon said attempts by drug gangs to manipulate elections was a "new and worrying fact".

Speaking as his sixth and final year in office began, Mr Calderon also defended his decision to use troops to tackle the cartels.

Mr Calderon's speech comes as political campaigns are intensifying ahead of next July's presidential poll…

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The fiction of elections

2011-12-07T05:35:00.000-06:00

Sharon LaFraniere, writing in the New York Times, describes more examples of the success of the Chinese Communist Party in keeping independent candidates out of office.

Alarmed by Independent Candidates, Chinese Authorities Crack Down

Periodic elections to neighborhood People’s Congresses are as close to participatory democracy as this nation comes. Of the many grass-roots candidates running here this year, Qiao Mu, an energetic 41-year-old journalism professor in the capital, seemed one of the better bets.

Qiao Mu, a professor who ran for office in Beijing, holding a T-Shirt that says, “I won't be able to speak for you if there's no vote.”

He was well known and liked on the campus of the Beijing Foreign Studies University, his election district. He ran an innovative campaign, making full use of social networks and other Internet tools. He amassed a cadre of enthusiastic student campaigners, and he aimed for practical improvements in campus life: a faster Internet connection and permission for students to study in the spare classrooms instead of the crowded cafeteria.

He lost anyway. A university vice president — a largely unknown personage whose campaign amounted to some posters — collected three times as many votes.

Mr. Qiao said authorities did all they could to stymie him, keeping his name off the ballot, threatening his student volunteers, even forcibly collecting the red bookmarks he had printed with the slogan: “I am the master of my ballot.”

“The harassment started from the very beginning,” he said in an interview in his university office, still cluttered with campaign paraphernalia he never got to distribute. “It is a shame, because I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. “All we did was follow China’s Constitution and election law.”

His experience demonstrates an underlying political doctrine of today’s China: while Chinese leaders speak in favor of political reform, local authorities routinely deny voters the chance to freely choose a political representative.

Such official machinations have become more obvious and more intense this year — a telling indicator of the government’s paranoia over a greatly increased pool of independent candidates, even given the near powerlessness of the congresses…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

A Sarah Palin moment in Mexico?

2011-12-06T08:26:00.000-06:00

Does a president need to be an intellectual? Need he be literate? Does he need to mindful of what he reads?

Mexican poll contender Pena Nieto falters at book event

Mexico's leading presidential contender Enrique Pena Nieto gave new ammunition to his critics this weekend.

Asked to name three books that had had an impact on him, he floundered before saying that, as an adolescent, he had been influenced by the Bible.

Political opponents have often accused Mr Pena Nieto - a handsome and telegenic politician married to a television actress - of being "hollow"…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Warn the protesters

2011-12-06T08:03:00.000-06:00

Putin and his henchmen may think that arresting protest leaders will help them improve their poll results for the presidential election. What do you think?

Jailing Opposition Leaders, Russia Moves to Quell Election Protests

On the morning after thousands of people protested parliamentary elections that international observers said were marred by irregularities, two prominent opposition figures who appeared at the demonstration remained under arrest…

One of the men, Ilya Yashin, a leader of the Solidarity movement, was found guilty by a judge of organizing an unauthorized rally and disobeying police orders, and was given a sentence of 15 days in prison… The other man, the anticorruption blogger Alexei Navalny, was expected to face similar charges…

Meanwhile, in a show of strength intended to counter the opposition voices, more than 10,000 supporters of the government, including members of a the pro-Kremlin youth movement, Nashi, attended a celebratory rally in the capital on Tuesday. The group gathered near Red Square before a stage with portraits of Mr. Putin and President Dmitri A. Medvedev. Supporters of United Russia have said the results in Sunday’s election represented a “clean victory.”…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Implications for political culture

2011-12-06T05:55:00.000-06:00

Andrew J. Orzel who teaches in Alexandria, VA, posted a link to this Pew Research Center poll on the College Board discussion list. The poll results might be a way of opening discussion about comparative government and politics. There are many bits of data and implications for politics and policies. It would be preferable to have greater diversity in the countries considered, but this task is huge already.

There is a good section on the polling methodology and it's possible to download a PDF version of the full report.

The American-Western European Values Gap

As has long been the case, American values differ from those of Western Europeans in many important ways. Most notably, Americans are more individualistic and are less supportive of a strong safety net than are the publics of Britain, France, Germany and Spain. Americans are also considerably more religious than Western Europeans…

These differences between Americans and Western Europeans echo findings from previous surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center. However, the current polling shows the American public is coming closer to Europeans in not seeing their culture as superior to that of other nations…

These are among the findings from a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, conducted in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Spain from March 21 to April 14 as part of the broader 23-nation poll in spring 2011…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Preliminary results from Russia

2011-12-05T19:21:00.000-06:00

The BBC reported these results Monday evening.

Russia election: Hundreds rally against Putin in Moscow

Several thousand people have taken to the streets of Moscow shouting "Down with Putin" as international observers in Russia's parliamentary elections speak of flagrant violations…

United Russia won the election, but with a sharp drop in its support, ahead of Mr Putin's bid to return to the presidency next March.

Electoral officials said the party had just under 50%, down from 64% in 2007…

Electoral Commission head Vladimir Churov said United Russia should have a slim majority, with 238 seats out of 450.

This would mean the party losing its current two-thirds majority which had allowed it to change the constitution unchallenged.

Mr Churov said the Communist Party was in second place with 19.2% of the vote, giving it 92 seats.

A Just Russia was in third place with 13.2% and 64 seats, and the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) had 11.7% and 56, he added…

United Russia's slim Duma majority
The Duma has 450 seats. Parties not making the Duma's 5% threshold: Yabloko, 3.3%, Patriots of Russia 0.97%, Right Cause 0.59%
Source: Electoral Commission. Results are based on 96% of the vote. Turnout was 60%.

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Growth for votes

2011-12-05T05:56:00.000-06:00

The Chinese rulers must be looking at this Russian example and worrying even more about maintaining economic growth.

This article from last week predicted the dismal results for United Russia in yesterday's election.

In Quiet Part of Russia, Putin’s Party Loses Steam

It was a grim-faced crowd that gathered last week at the Palace of Culture in this village, making its way past decrepit housing blocks, broken streetlights and a statue of Lenin.

The governor had driven in from the regional capital, and detachments of pretty girls in blue smocks were handing out flags for United Russia, the party that serves as an extension of the Kremlin’s power.

Workers for United Russia, the country's main political party, helped prepare Arsenyevo for a visit by Gov. Vladimir S. Gruzdev, a rising political star.

But the villagers were not in a holiday mood. They wanted to complain…

United Russia can no longer count on voters in places like Tula, an industrial region about 120 miles south of Moscow where many residents say that their quality of life has stopped rising… With competition all but eliminated, Russia’s political system depends heavily on its leaders’ popularity to provide legitimacy. As winter settles in, that no longer feels assured…

An array of pay raises and public projects have been announced in recent weeks. Vladimir S. Gruzdev, a rising political star who was installed as governor in August, holds marathon town hall meetings reminiscent of reality television, dressing down local apparatchiks like a populist Donald Trump. Arsenyevo has only 4,900 residents, but they got three and a half hours with Mr. Gruzdev this month. They then scattered into the dark, some impressed, some skeptical…

In an interview afterward, Mr. Gruzdev said these were routine outings by a new governor, and unrelated to the elections. He acknowledged, however, that his popularity was helping the party…

In any case, he says, the authorities have little to fear from the parliamentary elections.

The real hazard will come months from now, when all the posters have been taken down and an already bitter electorate faces stark economic realities, Alexei V. Makarkin, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow said. The campaign season has uncovered “something happening in our society, a very important process,” he argued, as Russians — people accustomed to 7 percent growth rates — reassess Mr. Putin and United Russia through an increasingly critical lens.

“People have the expectation that at least things won’t be worse,” he said. “And it will probably be worse.”

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Initial returns from Russia

2011-12-04T21:20:00.000-06:00

It appears that United Russia might lose its two-thirds majority in the Duma. What limits will that put on the presumed new presidency of Vladimir Putin?

Putin's United Russia party suffers poll setback

Early returns from Russia's parliamentary polls point to a sharp drop in support for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party.

With 75% of ballots counted, the Central Election Commission said United Russia had 50% of the vote, down from 64% in 2007…

If the result is confirmed, United Russia could lose its current two-thirds majority which allowed it to change the constitution unchallenged…

The election commission said the Communist Party was in second place with 19.3% of the vote.

A Just Russia was in third place with 13% and the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) had 11.8%, the election commission said…

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg, in Moscow, says if confirmed, the result will be a significant embarrassment to Mr Putin, three months before he is scheduled to run again for the Russian presidency…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Corruption is so 20th century

2011-12-03T08:20:00.000-06:00

When in power, the PRI had a reputation for corruption. Out of power, the party leaders have struggled to shed that stigma. That probably explains why the new party head resigned under pressure pretty quickly.

Loan scandal topples head of Mexico's PRI party

Humberto Moreira, president of Mexico's former ruling party, quit his post Friday amid a swelling financial scandal that threatened to throw off the party's bid to retake power in next year's elections.

Moreira has been hammered for months by charges that in his previous job as governor of the northern state of Coahuila, he left it saddled with $3 billion in debts, at least partly due to loans allegedly sought using falsified documents…

Humberto Moreira announced his resignation before a televised gathering of the PRI's political council, saying he would not allow a "war in the media" to hurt his party.

The debt controversy was becoming a drag on the PRI even as early polls show it poised to retake power in Mexico 12 years after being unseated. The scandal threatened to remind voters of the sort of graft that characterized the PRI's 70-year reign just when it is seeking to promote a fresh, cleaned-up image…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Technocrats and democracy

2011-12-02T05:46:00.000-06:00

The new governments in Greece and Italy have been described by journalists as led by technocrats.

The concept of technocrat is not well described in most textbooks. Often, the concept only comes up in discussions about the rivalries between the political dinosaurios who ran the old version of the PRI and the technocrats who want to take power in the party.

So, what's a technocrat? If having technocrats in charge in Greece and Italy is a good idea now, are there disadvantages? Are there similar disadvantages for Mexico as the new PRI is poised to return to power? And why does no one talk about the technocrats who run most of the modern parts of Iran's economy (like the nuclear industry and the military)? Are there technocrats in other countries? Who are they? How do they affect governance and politics?

The Economist published an article about Greece and Italy, but it sheds light indirectly on the countries your students are studying. It might be worth their attention.

Technocrats, Minds like machines: Government by experts sounds tempting, especially in a crisis. It can work. But brief stints have the best chances

EVEN before Plato conceived the philosopher-king, people yearned for clever, dispassionate and principled government. When the usual run of rulers proves cowardly, indecisive or discredited, turning to the wisdom and expertise of a technocrat, as both Italy and Greece have done in recent days, is particularly tempting.

Part of the attraction of the term “technocrat”, however, is that the label is so stretchy. Does it mean just any expert in government, or one from outside politics? How many technocrats, and in which positions, justify a government’s “technocratic” label? Does such an administration operate within the political system, or supplant it? For how long? Can a technocrat evolve into a politician and vice versa? The answers are imprecise and shift over time…

When political power is not publicly contested at all, electability is irrelevant and expertise can give the ambitious an edge. In China all but one of the nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee are engineers. This marks a shift… And it may be temporary. Li Keqiang, likely to take over from Wen Jiabao as prime minister in 2013, has degrees in law and economics….

It is not only one-party states that like technocracy. Military officers justifying a coup may use technocratic parlance when they highlight their independence of lobbies and their focus on the national interest…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

British politics, a case study

2011-12-01T07:44:00.002-06:00

Here's an example of how British politics works. Your students could follow the words and actions of the major players for the next several weeks or months.

Britons Strike Over Extended Austerity Measures

Hundreds of thousands of public employees walked off their jobs in schools, hospitals, airports, courtrooms, libraries, museums and government offices on Wednesday, as British workers became the latest in Europe to demonstrate mass fury at government austerity measures.

The one-day strike was the biggest here since the 1970s… This time, the immediate issue was Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposal to require public employees to work for more years and pay more toward their pensions each month.

But the strikers’ anger goes far deep.. Many strikers said that the policy of decreasing welfare benefits and tax credits while also making huge cuts across the board in all government departments had left them struggling at a time of rapidly rising prices…

The strike came just after more bad news from the government. The chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced Tuesday that because of a swiftly worsening economic outlook that had thrown off his deficit-reduction timetable, public employees’ wages would be frozen for two more years, on top of an existing two-year freeze. He also said that new budget cuts meant that the public sector would lose hundreds of thousands more jobs than he had previously said, and warned that if Europe slid into recession again, Britain would probably follow…

There were angry scenes in Parliament on Wednesday, as the prime minister clashed with Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour opposition, over the causes and effects of the strike. Mr. Miliband, whose party receives large financial contributions from the unions, did not explicitly endorse the walkout. But, in a reference to Mr. Osborne, Mr. Miliband said that he sympathized with the grievances of workers who earn in a year “what the chancellor pays for his annual skiing holiday.”…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

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Teaching Comparative (a thought)

2011-12-01T05:56:00.002-06:00

Teaching comparative government and politics is a complex process. Once in a while I have in insight into that process. Here's one of them.

I often had to remind my students that comparative politics was a political science course and not a history course. Nearly all of my students were veterans of history courses where they had learned well how to do historical analysis.

Some of them wanted to continue to do that kind of analysis in this political science course. They were usually disappointed in the results. I had to remind them that in comparative government and politics, analysis involved less history and more politics.

Thus, when answering a question like, "How did the UK end up with a coalition government in 2010?" the analysis should not begin with an explanation of what happened at Runnymede in 1215. At most, a political science analysis might begin with Margaret Thatcher's "revolution." More likely, an explanation should begin with economic woes, the war in Iraq, and public disillusionment with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. However, a credible answer might begin with the performance of Nick Clegg in the first-ever televised candidates' debate during the most recent election.

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Words from the future president

2011-12-01T05:46:00.000-06:00

The Chinese news agency Xinhua begins to introduce China's next president by highlighting a recent speech where he said all the right things.

Xi Jinping stresses training of "new brooms"

Senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Xi Jinping on Wednesday stressed the training of newly inaugurated officials during this year's local leadership reshuffling.

Xi Jinping (C), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and also president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, talks with some students of the school at a symposium in Beijing, China, Nov. 23, 2011.

As officials at local levels were reorganized this year, a number of new leaders took office. It's imperative to build their leadership capacity as well as to make them excellent Party members, Xi… said…

Xi also stressed that personal integrity is the most important criterion for selecting officials, and those who always hold on to their principles and never shy away from duties are preferred.

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Whose corruption?

2011-11-30T06:01:00.000-06:00

President Jonathan has appointed a new head of the anti-corruption agency. The position has long been the center of contention depending upon whose corruption has been exposed. So, how much legitimacy does the agency and the director (and the president) still have?

Nigeria president fires anti-corruption czar

Nigeria's president unexpectedly fired the head of the oil-rich and graft-prone nation's lead anti-corruption agency Wednesday, removing an official who has been criticized and portrayed as being controlled by the country's political elite.

Farida Waziri still had at least another year in her tenure as chairwoman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission before the sudden decision by President Goodluck Jonathan, agency spokesman Femi Babafemi said. Babafemi confirmed Waziri had been fired, but said he didn't know the president's reasons for pushing Waziri out…

The anti-graft agency came into existence only a few years after Nigeria became a democracy in 1999 following a series of military rulers and failed civilian governments. Its first chief, Nuhu Ribadu, claimed at one point that Africa's most populous nation likely lost more than $380 billion to graft between 1960 and 1999, the country's post-independence period that saw a string of military dictatorships and failed civilian governments.

Theft may also be rising as crude oil prices have spiked in recent years, sending more unaccounted-for cash into one of the top suppliers to the U.S.

The administration of late President Umaru Yar'Adua forced Ribadu from the agency in 2008. Waziri, who took over the commission, has been criticized by U.S. diplomats in leaked cables for being unprepared and for apparently being controlled by politicians. Others have leveled corruption allegations against her and operatives of the commission, though none have been proven.

The commission under Waziri has charged several prominent bankers over the fraud that caused the near-collapse of the country's banks in 2009. It also recently arrested and charged former House Speaker Dimeji Bankole over corruption allegations -- the first major strike against the nation's political elite in many months.

Still, prosecutions by the agency have not risen since 2007, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report…

The president appointed agency deputy Ibrahim Lamurde as the commission's acting chairman, Babafemi said. Lamurde served as a trusted official under Ribadu, but later was sidelined following his departure.

The return of Lamurde could signal a more robust and aggressive pursuit of corruption in Nigeria. However, the agency under Ribadu trampled on suspects' rights while avoiding targeting the allies of then-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Human Rights Watch has said.

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Looking to learn?

2011-11-29T11:31:00.000-06:00

Henry Farrell, one of the main contributors to The Monkey Cage blog, announced that "Scott Page at University of Michigan is offering a free graded course on ‘thinking with models.’" The topic is relevant to the study of comparative politics.

Model Thinking, taught by Scott E Page; Class starts mid-to-late January 2012

We live in a complex world with diverse people, firms, and governments whose behaviors aggregate to produce novel, unexpected phenomena. We see political uprisings, market crashes, and a never ending array of social trends. How do we make sense of it?

Models. Evidence shows that people who think with models consistently outperform those who don't. And, moreover people who think with lots of models outperform people who use only one…

I present a starter kit of models: I start with models of tipping points. I move on to cover models explain the wisdom of crowds, models that show why some countries are rich and some are poor, and models that help unpack the strategic decisions of firm and politicians.

The models cover in this class provide a foundation for future social science classes, whether they be in economics, political science, business, or sociology. Mastering this material will give you a huge leg up in advanced courses. They also help you in life.

Here's how the course will work.

For each model, I present a short, easily digestible overview lecture. Then, I'll dig deeper. I'll go into the technical details of the model. Those technical lectures won't require calculus but be prepared for some algebra. For all the lectures, I'll offer some questions and we'll have quizzes and even a final exam. If you decide to do the deep dive, and take all the quizzes and the exam, you'll receive a certificate of completion. If you just decide to follow along for the introductory lectures to gain some exposure that's fine too.

It's all free.

And it's all here to help make you a better thinker!

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Implications for political culture

2011-11-29T11:07:00.000-06:00

Andrew J. Orzel who teaches in Alexandria, VA, posted, on the College Board discussion list (thank you, Andrew), a link to this Pew Research Center poll. The poll results might be a way of opening discussion about comparative government and politics. There are many bits of data and implications for politics and policies. It would have been preferable to have some Eastern European, Asian, African, and Latin American countries considered, but this task is huge already.

There is a good section on the polling methodology and it's possible to download a PDF version of the full report.

The American-Western European Values Gap

As has long been the case, American values differ from those of Western Europeans in many important ways. Most notably, Americans are more individualistic and are less supportive of a strong safety net than are the publics of Britain, France, Germany and Spain. Americans are also considerably more religious than Western Europeans…

These differences between Americans and Western Europeans echo findings from previous surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center. However, the current polling shows the American public is coming closer to Europeans in not seeing their culture as superior to that of other nations…

These are among the findings from a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, conducted in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Spain from March 21 to April 14 as part of the broader 23-nation poll in spring 2011…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

The inability of the government to act

2011-11-29T05:50:00.000-06:00

When part of the government ignores rule made by other parts of the government, how does the system work? Maybe it doesn't.

Laws to rein in Russia’s pretrial detention system are ignored

Over the last 18 months, President Dmitry Medvedev has signed two laws meant to rein in Russia’s notorious pretrial detention system, an institution often used to extract bribes and enforce widespread corruption. He is trying to make the country more governable and conducive to business.

Medvedev sought to discourage police, prosecutors and judges from throwing businesspeopleinto jail on false charges, often in return for bribes from competitors bent on destroying a rival.

But the system quickly proved itself more powerful than the president. The laws were ignored. Yet another of Medvedev’s promised reforms would go unkept, and Russians would remain fearful of their courts and police.

The failed attempt to strengthen the rule of law illustrates an odd paradox: Even as the government has grown more authoritarian, it has become less capable of exerting its will over the vast bureaucracy beneath when that bureaucracy has other interests.

“Of course, they can say whatever they want,” said Yana Yakovleva, who leads Business Solidarity, an organization that fights for the rights of Russian businesspeople. “But there is not a single agency not poisoned with corruption here, and they will listen to what they’re told only if it’s profitable or when their fear is stronger than the desire for money.”

When a compliant judge denies bail, detention gets a businessman out of the way while his company is stolen. It’s a powerful tool for corrupt officials to extract a bribe: Pay up or go to jail…

In April 2010, Medvedev signed a law prescribing bail or release on personal recognizance for economic crimes and, in January, signed another law stipulating that seriously ill detainees need not await trial in jail.

Yelena Panfilova, who monitors corruption as director of Transparency International in Moscow, said this month that corruption has grown more entrenched in Russia over the last decade: If businesspeople once gave bribes voluntarily, perhaps to get a permit faster, now payoffs have become required. Those who refuse to pay often find themselves in jail, despite the new laws…

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

The Mexican presidential campaign begins

2011-11-28T08:35:00.000-06:00

Putin is not the only politician who is beginning an election campaign.

Pena Nieto confirms Mexico 2012 presidential bid

The early frontrunner for next year's presidential election in Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, has formally registered his candidacy.

Mr Pena Nieto is standing for the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed for 71 years before losing power in 2000…

Mr Nieto, 45, is often described as Mexico's most handsome politician.

In September he stepped down as governor of the state of Mexico, the country's most populous state, where he gained a strong support by delivering public works…

After registering his candidacy in Mexico City, he told supporters that the PRI could deliver positive change.

"Today in Mexico there is fear, but better times are coming," he said.

"A wind of hope and change is blowing: the PRI will restore the greatness of Mexico because we believe in solutions, not illusions."…

The election campaign is likely to be dominated by debate over how to combat drug-related violence, which has killed more than 40,000 Mexicans since Mr Calderon became president in December 2006.

Mr Nieto has called Mr Calderon's decision to use the army against drugs cartels "rushed and poorly planned," but he has not said if he would take the troops off the streets.

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).

Putin needs rebranding

2011-11-28T08:12:00.000-06:00

One analyst suggests that the Putin political brand is getting old, just like those politicians Putin cited as models for his long term leadership earlier this month.

In Russia, Evidence of Misstep by Putin

Two months after Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin revealed his intention to reclaim the Russian presidency, he returned on Sunday to the same podium, facing the same sea of rippling flags, to accept his party’s nomination…

It is now clear that instead of restoring public confidence in the political system, the announcement that Mr. Putin and President Dmitri A. Medvedev would switch jobs annoyed many Russians. Mr. Putin’s approval rating briefly dipped to 61 percent this month, high by international standards but lower than at any point in a decade.

Meanwhile, the governing party, United Russia, has had to scale back its expectations for next Sunday’s parliamentary elections, when it is likely to lose the two-thirds majority it has held since 2007…

Fiona Hill, a Brookings Institution scholar who is studying the role of public opinion in Russian politics [said] “But something has changed. The biggest problem is that people have gotten fed up with them. If you look at long-serving leaders like Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, you see that their ratings tank in the latter half of the decade. It’s like the seven-year itch of politics.”…

Ms. Hill, who is studying fluctuations in poll numbers, said… The current dynamic, she said, is reminiscent of the late years of Lady Thatcher or Helmut Kohl, who also enjoyed great popularity early on…

“By the end, the brand is shot; you can’t rebrand it,” she said. Russian authorities, she said, “seem too confident that they can pull it off.”…

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Elected British mayors

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

The idea of devolution is not limited to the outer nations.

The mayors show

Next year 11 British cities will have the chance to replace the existing local-government structure, in which leaders are chosen from the ranks of councillors, with directly elected mayors. The coalition government sees this as a way of devolving power and strengthening localism…

Elected mayors are still a political novelty. Londoners embraced a mayoralty in 2000…

London’s mayor controls transport policy (hence the capital’s congestion charge), oversees the capital’s policing through the Metropolitan Police Authority and sets a council-tax “precept”—a small addition to the property taxes levied by boroughs. His regional counterparts probably won’t get anything like that degree of freedom. David Cameron, the prime minister, has backed away from earlier plans for powerful “executive mayors”. A consultation on powers, which will conclude in January, hints vaguely that mayors will be “ambassadors and champions” for their area…

So it is by no means certain that Britain’s cities will vote for mayors next year… In some solidly Labour cities, the reform is derided as a “Tory” gimmick. Councillors in towns like Coventry are already campaigning against a change.

There are reasonable doubts about how effective mayors can be without clear new powers. Sam Sims of the Institute for Government, a think-tank, notes that people are more likely to vote for mayors if they know local government will be reshaped as a result…

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in·ter·mit·tent

2011-11-23T09:06:00.000-06:00

Pronunciation: \-ˈmi-tənt\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin intermittent-, intermittens, present participle of intermittere
Date: 1601
: coming and going at intervals : not continuous ; also : occasional
— in·ter·mit·tent·ly adverb
Source: Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Intermittent
Retrieved 2 December 2010

The US version of harvest festival, Thanksgiving, happens tomorrow. It celebrates a mythical event in the early days of European immigration to the "new" world and serves as a harvest festival. Most of us will be busy, schools will be closed, more than 10% of us will travel to be with family, and, if we can afford it, we'll share a traditional meal.

Harvest festivals are not unique to the US. Canada celebrates on the 2nd Monday in October (harvest comes a bit earlier in Canada than in the US). Nearly all farming cultures celebrated harvests. In many countries, those celebrations have evolved into holidays for non-agricultural socieiies.

In the UK, Harvest Home is observed at the time of the full moon nearest the autumn equinox (late September or early October).

Peasant communities in Russia celebrated harvest time, and farmers still do.

The Chinese Moon Festival also takes place near the autumn equinox. Its origins can be traced back nearly 3,000 years.

The Yoruba in Nigeria recognize Ikore as a harvest festival.

Mehrgan or the Persian Festival of Autumn has been celebrated since pre-Islamic times. Because of the complex cultural history, modern observations have been on October 2nd.

Celebrate in your own way. The blog will resume next week.

If you find a bit of information that might be useful for teaching comparative politics, post it at Sharing Comparative or send me a note with the information.

Remember, nearly all the approximately 2,500 entries here are indexed at the delicio.us index. There are 78 categories and you can use more than one category at a time to find something appropriate to your needs.

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President on offense and defense

2011-11-23T05:36:00.000-06:00

The political battle among the power elite in Iran continues.

Ahmadinejad goes on the offensive against clerical opponents

For months, Iran’s clerical establishment and Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders have been trying to curb the powers of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In recent weeks, the president has fought back, using combative speeches and threats to reveal his opponents’ corruption in order to hold on to his job.

The tactics appear to be working, according to parliament members and analysts.

Once thought to be a political has-been, Ahmadinejad has defied expectations…

After a falling out in the spring with the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ahmadinejad’s position had appeared untenable…

Even before the public dispute began, tensions between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei had been brewing for more than a year. Ahmadinejad’s government had refused to enforce what hard-line clerics consider the proper etiquette for women wearing the veil, promoted Iran’s pre-Islamic history and flirted with talks with the United States — all of which defied the supreme leader or his allies.

Ahmadinejad’s opponents now accuse the president and his close advisers of being a “deviant current” plotting to take power from the Shiite clerics who have led Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

But Ahmadinejad has struck back with equal ferocity. Allegations of corruption against senior leaders of Iran’s system were long considered taboo but have now become a recurring theme of the president’s speeches. Such allegations are popular with ordinary Iranians, many of whom have long accused top clerics of accumulating wealth through their influential positions…

About the same time as the speech, documents were leaked to the press linking a key Ahmadinejad opponent in parliament to a major embezzlement case. Meanwhile, the president won a key vote in parliament that he had been widely expected to lose…

Analysts say the president’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric is forcing the clerical and security establishment to make a decision on Ahmadinejad’s political future.

“It is clear there will be no compromise possible with Ahmadinejad,” said Abbas Abdi, a political analyst who opposes the government’s policies and some decisions by Iran’s clerical leaders. “If anybody wants to put him aside, it will come at great political costs.”

Iran arrests President Ahmadinejad's press adviser: report

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's media adviser was arrested on Monday in his office by the judiciary, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported, without giving a reason for his arrest…

Iranian authorities shut down reformist Etemad newspaper on Sunday after it published a scathing attack by Javanfekr on the president's rival conservatives…

Iran's conservatives accuse Ahmadinejad of being in the thrall of a "deviant current" of advisers seeking to undermine the authority of the clergy in the Islamic Republic's system of government.

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Electing a European president

2011-11-22T05:31:00.000-06:00

Textbooks and critics talk about the "democratic deficit" in the EU. Even though people elect members of the European Parliament, the EU is far from a democratic institution. Now comes the proposal to elect the EU president. Will that help diminish the deficiency?

Mixed Reviews for German Call to Elect EU Prez

The European Union is often derided for being run by faceless bureaucrats. Germany's ruling party thinks it has a solution: a direct vote to pick the face that runs the union…

"We want the European Union to get a face," the Christian Democratic Union said in a resolution. "Therefore the President of the European Commission should in the future be directly elected by all of the Union's citizens."

The CDU is the leading party in Germany's ruling coalition, and Germany is one of the EU's most powerful countries. Still, its vocal backing for direct elections doesn't necessarily mean they will happen: That would involve a treaty change and the consent of all 27 EU countries.

But its an idea that if embraced could help overcome one of the most persistent criticisms of the EU.

The common perception is that EU citizens feel disconnected from the union's headquarters in Brussels, that few of them can name their members of the European Parliament, and that many feel that EU regulations issue forth from anonymous bureaucrats who've never dwelt among the people they're regulating…

The proposal turns out already to have won some support from none other than European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso himself, who declared in a YouTube interview in October that he would be "delighted" if the commission president were to be elected directly one day.

Electing Barroso involved a cumbersome process that for many symbolizes the EU's bureaucratic red tape and lack of direct democratic participation. The president is nominated by the 27 EU heads of government, then questioned by the European Parliament, which must approve the candidacy by a two-thirds majority.

The president is responsible for assigning posts to the various commissioners who have been nominated by national governments. He or she also determines the commission's agenda and supervises the legislative proposals it produces, which must then go to heads of government and to the parliament…

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Guess what's illegal

2011-11-21T05:38:00.000-06:00

It sounds like the Chinese government is looking for more than thousands of online censors to keep track of "illegal publications." Do you want to guess what "illegal" means in this context?

China to go high tech in online crackdown of illegal publications

China will use advanced technologies to crack down on illegal publications and "harmful information" posted online, according to an cooperative agreement signed on Tuesday between the authorities and the country's top sciences academy.

According to the agreement signed between the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publication (NOAPIP) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on Tuesday, the two sides will make joint efforts in research and development of core Internet technologies in cracking down on illegal and pornographic publications.

Those core technologies include related monitoring and administering methods, discovering and recognizing of online publications, and evidence collecting of "illegal promulgation" on the Internet, according to the agreement…

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Interrelated European debts

2011-11-20T14:25:00.002-06:00

If you have time to consider the European debt crisis, here's dramatic interactive tool. Melody Dickison sent me a link to a great graphic I'd missed. It shows the amount of debt the European countries (and the US) owe each other. Unfortunately, China is not included because, "no comprehensive figures are available."

There is a link to a good set of frequently asked questions.

Eurozone debt web: Who owes what to whom?

The circle below shows the gross external, or foreign, debt of some of the main players in the eurozone as well as other big world economies. The arrows show how much money is owed by each country to banks in other nations. The arrows point from the debtor to the creditor and are proportional to the money owed as of the end of June 2011. The colours attributed to countries are a rough guide to how much trouble each economy is in.

Click on a country name to see who they owe…

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Political shift in Europe

2011-11-19T07:15:00.000-06:00

In some ways we know how the UK fits into this shift, but does Putin's United Russia fit into this pattern?

(Americans, please don't get confused by the long-standing tradition of European politicians, journalists, and academics. They refer to leftish politics as red and rightish politics as blue. Somehow, those colors got reversed by journalists reporting in the U.S.A. I think its a sign of how ahistorical Americans are and how thoroughly Cold War politics changed the American political vocabulary.)

Blue tide of conservatism washing away last of Europe's leftists

On Sunday night, after Spain’s national-election votes have been counted, the last major patch of red will probably disappear from the European map. For the first time in modern history every major capital in the continent, from Lisbon to Helsinki, will be home to a conservative government…

The blue-tide reversal has been extraordinary. A decade ago, in the midst of an economic boom, Europe was a near-solid wall of social-democratic red, with only Ireland, Spain and a handful of Eastern European states held by conservatives…

Still, not since the early 1990s, when a wide bloc of centre-right parties helped create the euro, has conservatism been the dominant European idea…

Indeed, this time Europe’s conservatives seem to be divided by a common ideology: Frictions between Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s David Cameron have all but paralyzed economic recovery. This has left some pining for the deep co-operation that existed a few years ago between leftists in Britain and Germany and conservatives in France and Spain…

When the European crisis began three years ago, there was an influential school of thought which held that it would produce a natural rush to the political left…

But it hasn’t worked out that way. While there have been huge protests against the centre-left governments of Greece and Spain from even further to the left, and successful “occupy” protests in several capitals, the voters have been overwhelmingly sending their protest votes rightward…

[I]t may be possible that the left-wing parties drove themselves out of office by beating the right at its own game.

After all, these were not the tax-and-spend leftists of earlier decades. The big socialist and social-democratic governments of the 2000s were dominated by parties of fiscal restraint…

And, in a final reversal of fate, it will likely be Europe’s true-blue conservative parties who, like it or not, will end up raising taxes, increasing government spending and building even bigger government – because they’ll have little choice if they want to resolve the crisis. In the process, they might reverse a decade of lower taxes and smaller government delivered by leftists…

[I]mportantly, the conservative parties now in office will bear the brunt of the austerity and bailout programs, which will be unpopular with voters: Unless they can stay in office until the next wave of economic growth, they could be punished in the future for their currently popular policies. If the trends of the past 20 years are any guide, it could mark the beginning of a shift back to an all-red map.

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Maybe the ad on the boxing shorts worked

2011-11-18T05:27:00.000-06:00

Even the president's sister couldn't overcome the momentum of the resurgent PRI.

Mexico election signals return of Vallejo's PRI

The party that held power in Mexico for seven decades appears to have won a key state election before the country's presidential race by transforming itself into the party of change.

Monday's official vote count shows that the Institutional Revolutionary party, or PRI, surged to victory by winning back hundreds of thousands of votes from the leftist party that pushed it out of the governorship 10 years ago in a pattern that, according to polls, may be spreading across the country.

The PRI's Fausto Vallejo Figueroa won by 35% to 33% over his closest competitor, Luisa Maria Calderón, who is the sister of President Felipe Calderón. Finishing a distant third, with 29%, was the party that has dominated the state in recent years, the Democratic Revolution party, or PRD…

[W]ith local turnout higher than that seen in the last presidential election, there was more evidence that angry voters rather than armed men or threatening messages were behind the PRI's win.

"It was a referendum on the PRD during the last 10 to 12 years. Violence has increased and economic issues that have led to migration have not changed," said Shannon O'Neil, an expert on Mexican politics at the Council on Foreign Relations…

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What shows in Vegas...

2011-11-17T07:58:00.000-06:00

An ad in the ring. Was it legal?

Boxer Juan Manuel Marquez's 'political' shorts stir row in Mexico

A row has erupted in Mexico after boxer Juan Manuel Marquez wore shorts bearing a political party's logo for Saturday's Las Vegas fight against Manny Pacquiao.

Marquez (left), with PRI's logo on his leg, narrowly lost on points to Pacquiao

The Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) said that by wearing the logo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) he had violated a ban on campaigning ahead of elections…

When he stepped into the ring with the Philippines' Pacquiao for the world title fight in Las Vegas, Marquez was wearing black shorts emblazoned with the PRI logo…

The PRD… said many of those at the match at the MGM Grand arena in Las Vegas were Mexican and that millions of Mexicans were watching the fight on television…

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Finding people who aren't there

2011-11-17T05:51:00.000-06:00

Why is it that nobody collects the garbage in Lagos or fills the potholes in Kano?

How can there not be a driver for the city bus in Abuja?

More than half the Nigerians who are not farmers work for one level of the government or another.

Oh, that's right, some of them haven't learned to walk yet.

Newborn 'ghost worker' puts corruption under spotlight in Nigeria

A newborn baby in Nigeria was added to a government payroll, earning about $150 (£93) a month for two or three years, highlighting the widespread corruption starving the oil-rich country of funds, authorities said.

The baby was one of many so-called "ghost workers" found to be getting salaries without performing a job, said Garba Gajam, attorney general of Zamfara state in Nigeria's impoverished north-west.

The employee was listed as being a month old in government records, but Gajam said the child's father actually started collecting the salary before the baby was born. Records also show that the baby has a diploma…

"There is no state in Nigeria that doesn't have ghost workers," says Thompson Ayodele, director of Initiative for Public Policy Analysis in Lagos. "In this case, at least the baby is alive, what about the thousands of ghost workers who don't even exist?"

Ghost workers collect salaries and eventually qualify for pensions as well. The money is paid into the accounts of the people who created the identities…

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Report card on Jonathan

2011-11-16T20:23:00.000-06:00

The latest Economist contains a good analysis of Jonathan's presidency. A good conclusion to a study of Nigeria.

Groping forward: One and a half cheers for the economy. None for security

PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN recently invited a group of businessmen to a cattle ranch for a retreat to discuss how to generate faster economic growth. At one point he handed the assembled notables unmarked brown envelopes. Raised eyebrows rippled around the room. The president often castigates corruption. Yet he motioned for the tycoons to open the envelopes. Inside they found not cash but blank pieces of paper, on which he asked them each to write the names of three rent-seeking officials hurting their businesses, promising to investigate.

It is the sort of story Nigerians like to hear about their president, following his re-election in April…

All the same, the high expectations that came with the president’s re-election may not be met. His signature policy, a plan to liberalise the electricity industry, has plainly fallen behind schedule. The start of privatisation has slipped from this year to next. Most Nigerians have no more than a few hours of mains supply a day—the economy’s single biggest bottleneck. Africa’s most populous nation gets as much grid power as a mid-size European city.

If power reform fails, the country’s hopes of becoming a G-20 economy in the next decade will remain fanciful, despite its vast size, plentiful resources and undoubted entrepreneurial spirit. Warning lights are flashing. The unemployment rate in the formal economy has reached a new high of 21%. Inflation has spiked…

A proposed phasing out of fuel subsidies is making people tense. The plan is sound in theory. The government spends billions of dollars every year on refined fuel it buys on international markets and retails for only 60 cents a litre at home. Smugglers take some of it to neighbouring countries for resale at full value. Better to spend money on roads and power stations, says the government. Yet poor Nigerians fear that corrupt officials will pocket the savings…

Public security has sharply worsened. Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group, was once a nuisance confined to the far north-east. It has now extended its reach across the country…

During his election campaign the president talked of improving relations between the country’s Muslim north and Christian south. Instead the gulf is deepening…

Still, many Nigerians remain optimistic. They are used to bad news, and there is still a bit of the good sort. Millions are being lifted out of poverty every year, though at a slower rate than in some other booming African countries. The president has also had some foreign-policy successes…

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Let's wait and see about this

2011-11-16T05:54:00.000-06:00

Putin seemed to be spontaneous about his hopes for changes to the regime and the government. Was he just playing to a critical audience? Will anyone in Russia outside of the equestrian club hear this?

Putin: we have lost Russia's trust

Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, admitted that his government had lost of the trust of its people and pledged to introduce what he called "direct democracy" to refresh it, when he is returned for a third presidential term next March.

Challenged during a meeting with foreign academics and journalists to admit that power in Russia was too centralised, that 80% of President Dmitry Medvedev's decrees were ignored or not fully implemented by the regions, and that no one trusted the power structure he had created, Putin astonished everyone by agreeing. He said: "I tell you, I agree. I don't object to anything you have said."

He said when he first became president 11 years ago the country was in so much chaos it was on the verge of civil war. He established a system of "manual control" over the regions, abolishing elections and appointing governors himself.

… Putin said it was time to devolve certain powers and taxation back to the regions: "I have every intention to do that, but we have to act carefully. We have certain ideas about how to expand direct democracy, but it would be premature to announce them now. The British say it took 400 years for a lawn to be made, but we have not got that time."

Putin was speaking after a survey conducted by the Kremlin about the unpopularity of regional governors was leaked to Gazeta.ru. It showed that a large number of governors, many of whom were heading Putin's United Russia party's regional lists – had poll ratings below 20%…

While this is not expected to change the fact that United Russia will get the majority in the forthcoming parliamentary elections in December - because United Russia is a party of bureaucrats and is infamous for strongarming teachers, students and millions of public sector workers to vote for them - it is a clear indication to Mr Putin that he has to act…

Putin scorned criticism that March's presidential election would be a fix after his decision to swap places with Medvedev. He said Gordon Brown had taken over from Tony Blair without any election and no one had said that had deprived the British people of a vote.

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Party and government are the same?

2011-11-15T06:01:00.000-06:00

Where have I heard the idea that a political party and a government are one and the same? Oh, yes, China. Now Putin and United Russia may be taking lessons from the Chinese.

Russians pull out political dirty tricks ahead of elections

Even the not-so-casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that with the elections less than a month away, Bruce Willis was one of the front-runners in the campaign for Russia’s equivalent of Congress.

Hardly. The tough-guy American actor has been occupying prime billboard space for months, but he’s the attention-getting face of Trust Bank’s advertising campaign…

Over the past week or so, a civic-minded series of posters has sprouted up along avenues and in subway stations in the white, blue and red national colors, urging voters to go to the polls on Dec. 4 for the State Duma elections. Now even more of those posters are up, looking very much the same, except they have the logo of the ruling United Russia party at the top, with a vote-for-us check mark…

After the federal election commission disbursed the equivalent of $230 million to local commissions to prepare for the elections, he said, the city of Moscow awarded its advertising contract to a favored firm…

“The company is also in charge of advertising materials for United Russia,” Andrei Buzin, who monitors elections for an American-style, and even American-financed, civic watchdog called Golos (Vote) said…

So the city paid for the first round of ads, he said, and United Russia paid for the second, adding its logo to the poster. It’s a gross violation of the election law, he said, and attempts have been made to stop it. And yes, it’s only one step of many toward elections widely expected to be unfair…

“This is only natural, because United Russia is not a party in the classical meaning of the word. United Russia is a branch of the administration,” Buzin said. In other words, why not use the same advertising if the ruling party and the country are one?…

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It's good to be the king or the head of the Politburo

2011-11-14T05:55:00.000-06:00

Occupy Tiananmen was done in 1989 with awful results. Maybe occupy Zhongnanhai? (If the commoners could even get in.) But, once again, some people are more equal than others -- even in the Peoples Republic.

The Privileges of China’s Elite Include Purified Air

Membership in the upper ranks of the Chinese Communist Party has always had a few undeniable advantages. There are the state-supplied luxury sedans, special schools for the young ones and even organic produce grown on well-guarded, government-run farms. When they fall ill, senior leaders can check into 301 Military Hospital, long considered the capital’s premier medical institution.

But even in their most addled moments of envy, ordinary Beijingers could take some comfort in the knowledge that the soupy air they breathe on especially polluted days also finds its way into the lungs of the privileged and pampered.

Such assumptions, it seems, are not entirely accurate.

As it turns out, the homes and offices of many top leaders are filtered by high-end devices, at least according to a Chinese company, the Broad Group, which has been promoting its air-purifying machines in advertisements that highlight their ubiquity in places where many officials work and live.

The company’s vice president, Zhang Zhong, said there were more than 200 purifiers scattered throughout Great Hall of the People, the office of China’s president, Hu Jintao, and Zhongnanhai, the walled compound for senior leaders and their families. “Creating clean, healthy air for our national leaders is a blessing to the people,” boasts the company’s promotional material, which includes endorsements from a variety of government and corporate leaders, among them Long Yongtu, a top economic official who insists on bringing the device along for car rides and hotel stays. “Breathing clean air is a basic human need,” he says in a testimonial.

In some countries, the gushing endorsement of a well-placed official would be considered a public relations coup. But in China, where resentment of the high and mighty is on the rise, news of the company’s advertising campaign is stirring a maelstrom of criticism…

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Drug cartel politics

2011-11-13T10:34:00.000-06:00

It's not politics as usual. Is it a threat to politics as usual? to the government? to the regime?

Mexican democracy tested by drug lords in politics

Three major political parties are campaigning in the Mexican president's home state, but it's the groups that aren't on Sunday's ballot that have everyone worried: the drug cartels.

In hilly, rural Michoacan, a state known for its avocados, marijuana and meth, the mobsters are putting Mexico's halting democracy to a test, using violence and bribes to influence elections for governor, the legislature and all 113 mayors.

While many other Mexican states have been penetrated by narco-politics, nowhere is that influence as overt as in Michoacan, where the electoral season so far has featured the kidnapping of nine pollsters, the gunning down of a mayor, and the withdrawal of at least a dozen candidates frightened off the campaign trail by organized crime.

"Organized crime is getting involved in discouraging candidates, to force (elections) with only one candidate," said Fausto Vallejo, gubernatorial candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. "And that is happening not only to the PRI, but in all the three political parties."

The stakes in Sunday's vote are heightened by the fact that President Felipe Calderon is from Michoacan, and made his home state the launch pad for his war against the drug cartels five years ago. His sister, Luisa Maria "Cocoa" Calderon, is running for governor and pledges to deepen her brother's offensive…

Federal efforts to arrest narco-politicians here in the past have been an embarrassing failure. In 2009, prosecutors ordered the arrest of 12 Michoacan mayors and 23 other state and local officials on allegations that they had protected the La Familia cartel. But by April, every one of them had been acquitted…

The remote mountain town of Arteaga is the hometown of Servando Gomez, alias "La Tuta," founder of the Knights Templar cartel, a pseudo-religious drug gang known as a major trafficker of methamphetamine. But residents here know Gomez as a former grade-school teacher and a humble man who is said to have helped people pay their medical bills.

Vallejo, the PRI candidate, says Michoacan cartels try to win over residents by casting themselves "in the social angle, like Robin Hood."

"Sometimes they will punish a guy who beats his wife," Vallejo said. "They'll tell they money lender, even 'you're charging too much, it's not fair what you're charging. And you, lime grower, pay your workers better.'"

In places like Apatzingan the cartel is so strong it has rallied hundreds of supporters to demand the withdrawal of federal police, ostensibly for abusing townspeople with unjustified shootings and searches. Some marchers painted "Templars 100 percent" on their clothing…

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In town hideaway

2011-11-12T08:32:00.000-06:00

According to the Washington Post's Thomas Erdbank, young people in Tehran can find some havens from constant supervision by the morality policy without going to the ski resorts.

Tehran’s coffee shops provide a retreat

Hidden in a corner of the atrium of the tiny Feresteh shopping center, right behind Tehran’s only Victoria’s Secret and a traditional pastry seller, the high-end Lime coffee shop is only for those who know where to find it.

The music of pop singer Ricky Martin filled the air as customers ordered $4 shots of espresso and connected to the shop’s wireless Internet with their cellphones. Girls with long hair spilling out from under their obligatory Islamic head scarves giggled shyly as they held hands with their boyfriends…

[C]offee shops are mushrooming in Iran’s cities, providing small retreats from busy streets and prying eyes.

Tehran’s coffee shops numbered just a handful 10 years ago. But now hundreds dot the city, with a new one popping up every few days it seems, even in places such as car washes and movie theaters. They are among the very few semi-public places where young people meet and artists and intellectuals debate.

But reality is never far away. On a recent evening, just outside the shopping center where Lime opened its doors in 2009, officers with Iran’s morality police — a unit that controls the streets to “promote virtue and prevent vice” — were stopping cars filled with boys and girls…

In Cafe Alme, near the campus of Tehran University, young couples gave a nod to the broad-shouldered owner, Abbas, before walking up a small staircase leading to a secluded area. Six months ago the morality police sealed off the section to “prevent flirting,” said Abbas, 30, who did not want his family name given. “I reopened it, because I need customers,” he said.

As Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” played in the background, Abbas poured a latte. “If young people want to be outside of their parents’ houses, coffee shops are often the only place they can afford to go to,” he said…

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Imams on skis

2011-11-12T08:20:00.000-06:00

Once again, the conservative clergy are finding things for the Basiji to do. This time they are being ordered to the slopes.

Iran to women: No skiing unless with a male guardian

The first snow of the season fell in Tehran this week, but female ski bums planning to carve fresh lines at one of the three resorts in the Alborz mountain range will be able to hit the slopes only if they are accompanied by a male guardian.

A police circular, reported Thursday on the pro-government Etedaal Web site, states that women and girls are no longer allowed to ski in the absence of a husband, father or brother…

Iran’s ski resorts became something of a haven from the Islamic dress code — and from laws against boys and girls mixing. Young people would mix and meet on the mountains, while some women would ski without their head scarves…

Monitoring the miles-long slopes proved difficult for the morality police. Unfamiliar with skiing, officers were often unable to pursue the affluent young of northern Tehran, with their greater experience on the slopes. It is unclear whether the police will do any better trying to check the relationships of those heading out to the popular resorts now…

Iranian skiers talk about life on the slopes

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Human Development Index

2011-11-11T09:00:00.000-06:00

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published its annual Human Development Index on Wednesday, painting a grim picture of the prospects for millions of people in some of the world's poorest nations.

The Human Development Index ranks countries based on development issues, progress and policies, the UNDP report explains. This year's study focuses on the connection between development, equity and environmental sustainability. The UNDP argues that global development will be unable to continue unless the world takes bold measures to battle inequality and environmental threats. Deforestation, soil erosion and rising food prices have disproportionally hit poor populations across the world, widening the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries.

Human Development Index (HDI)

The first Human Development Report introduced a new way of measuring development by combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into a composite human development index, the HDI…

The full report.

Sample rankings:
UK 28th
Mexico 57th
Russia 66th
Iran 88th
China 101st
Nigeria 156th

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How can we have fun if parties are banned?

2011-11-10T05:55:00.000-06:00

Is this really news? Reformists exiled, jailed, or executed. Are there any members of reformist parties?

Iran bans three reformist parties from participating in upcoming polls

Iran’s election office has banned three reformist parties from taking part in the upcoming legislative polls…

The Islamic Participation Front, Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organization and Freedom Movement of Iran allegedly do not have the licenses required to run for parliament…

An Iranian court had banned the Islamic Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organizationafter they protested the controversial results of the 2009 presidential elections.

Before the court had issued its ruling against the parties, many of their leaders had been detained or imprisoned…

Moussa Sharifi, a writer and political analyst of Iranian affairs, said that Iran does not have a political spectrum with diverse political parties. He said that prominent opposition parties have been banned since 1980s, such as the leftist Tudeh Party of Iran, the nationalist National Front and the People's Mujahedin of Iran.

Sharifi, added that the regime in Tehran reportedly executed 120,000 political dissidents…

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Like blackspots on a lung x-ray?

2011-11-09T05:43:00.000-06:00

In the US, there is a great deal of concern about the achievement gap between racial and socio-economic groups. The UK has a similar problem and the political and social results are similar. What's a government to do?

It would be interesting to compare the map below with one of where the worst of last summer's riots took place. It would also be interesting to compare this map with voting results from the last election.

Youth dropout blackspots revealed in a new report

Blackspots for youth disengagement where high levels of youngsters are not in education, work or training (Neet) have been revealed in a new report.

In Grimsby, Doncaster, Warrington and Wigan, nearly a quarter of 16 to 24-year-olds are Neet.

In a further nine cities in England and Wales, dropout rates for youngsters are about one in five.

The Work Foundation report blames a tough jobs market and cuts to youth services and education…

Places with the highest Neet rates tend to be in the north of England. These include Blackpool, Rochdale and Oldham, where about 20% of 16- to 24-year-olds are Neet. Birmingham in the Midlands and Swansea in Wales also has Neet rates this high…

Cities in the south of England have the lowest Neet rates. In Oxford, Plymouth and Cambridge, fewer than 10% of 16- to 24-year-olds are Neet. But Aberdeen and York also have rates this low.

In London, very high Neet rates greater than 20% persist in Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Westminster…

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Is it election day for you?

2011-11-08T05:14:00.002-06:00

If this is an election day for you, please remember to vote.

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Writers and unorthodox believers, look out

2011-11-08T05:12:00.000-06:00

Law enforcement in Russia often seems to aim at opinion outliers rather than criminals (by Western standards).

Russian Terror Law Has Unlikely Targets

Over the last week, a well-known writer and a Jehovah’s Witness in Siberia have become two more Russians to fall foul of a murky and much-criticized law purported to fight terrorism but being turned against a broad and seemingly random array of people.

Grigory Chkhartishvili, better known as Boris Akunin, the writer of best-selling historical mysteries, revealed in his blog that a federal investigative body subordinate to the Kremlin had summoned his publisher for questioning about possible extremist statements in his latest book…

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation said it had been alerted that Mr. Chkhartishvili’s novel might be in violation of a law pushed through by the Kremlin in 2002, purportedly to fight terrorism, and amended in 2006…

The Investigative Committee quickly concluded it had found no offending passages…

On Thursday, a court in the Gorno-Altaisk region of Siberia found Aleksandr Kalistratov, a Jehovah’s Witness, guilty on charges of disseminating extremist materials…

Religious literature distributed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses is on a list of extremist literature compiled by Russia’s Ministry of Justice…

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Ah, bribery

2011-11-07T05:41:00.000-06:00

Transparency International is at it again. Explaining the economic and political costs of bribery.

Russian and Chinese companies 'most likely to bribe'

Companies from Russia and China are most likely to pay bribes when doing business abroad, a survey suggests.

The two scored worst out of 28 countries in a poll of 3,000 business executives conducted by anti-corruption group Transparency International (TI).

The Netherlands and Switzerland came top, while the UK ranked eighth, just ahead of the US and France…

The report called for more international action to outlaw companies from paying bribes in foreign countries.

"G20 governments must tackle foreign bribery as a matter of urgency," said Huguette Labelle, chair of TI, who said that more resources must be dedicated to investigations and prosecutions.

Russia, which came bottom of the league, was seen by TI as a particularly challenging case.

"Unfortunately... there are no islands of integrity in Russian public and business life," said TI Russian director, Elena Panfilova…

Bribe-paying was seen as much more common by businessmen from countries whose governments were also considered to have the least integrity, according to a separate "corruption perceptions" survey carried out by TI last year.

The sector most affected by bribery was public procurement - where companies compete to win contracts from governments for everything from waste collection to road building…

TI said that paying bribes to win major infrastructure and housing projects "effectively cheats taxpayers out of their money" and can undermine safety standards…

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Rally politics

2011-11-05T08:45:00.002-05:00

Limited and controlled rallies might be the most active kind of politics in Russia.

Moscow nationalist rally hears attack on Putin party

An annual rally of radical nationalists in Moscow has cheered a fierce condemnation of the ruling party by a leading anti-corruption campaigner.

Alexei Navalny, one of Russia's most popular bloggers, told a crowd of some 7,000 that United Russia was "the party of crooks and thieves"…

[The rally] was held on Russia's National Unity Day, a public holiday introduced in 2005 to replace the Soviet celebration of the 1917 Russian Revolution.

The gathering was sanctioned by the authorities but confined to a district on the outskirts of the Russian capital, Lyublino…

Speaking to Reuters, he said the Russian March was a chance to "discuss problems which really exist in the society but which are taboo and are never discussed in the parliament, on television or anywhere else".

"We have problems with illegal migration, we have the problem of the Caucasus, we have a problem of ethnic crimes...," he said…

A smaller "anti-fascist" rally was also in Moscow in protest at the "Russian March".

Large rallies by United Russia and the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth movement were also held in the capital to mark the holiday.

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More terrorism in Nigeria

2011-11-05T07:27:00.000-05:00

Boko Haram strikes again. Does the Nigerian state have the capacity to effectively respond?

Militants Stage Wave of Attacks in Northeast Nigeria

Militants staged a series of attacks in northeast Nigeria on Friday, including bombing a military base and a theological college, police and military officials said.

It was not clear how many people were killed or wounded, and no group claimed responsibility. But suspicion immediately fell on a radical Muslim sect, Boko Haram…

The attacks on Friday appeared to be the boldest and most coordinated ever carried out…

Red Cross: 63 Dead in Northeast Nigeria Attacks

At least 63 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings carried out in northeast Nigeria overnight, a Red Cross official said Saturday…

The attacks centered around Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, Nigerian Red Cross official Ibrahim Bulama said…

Gunmen… went through the town, blowing up a First Bank PLC branch and attacking at least three police stations and some churches, leaving them in rubble, he said. Gunfire continued through the night and gunmen raided the village of Potiskum near the capital as well, witnesses said, leaving at least two people dead there…

The attacks around Damaturu came after four separate bombings struck Maiduguri, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east…

The bombings come ahead of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son. Police elsewhere in the country had warned of violence ahead of the celebration in Nigeria…

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Human Development Index

2011-11-04T15:37:00.000-05:00

The first Human Development Report introduced a new way of measuring development by combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into a composite human development index, the HDI…

The full report.

Sample rankings:
UK 28th
Mexico 57th
Russia 66th
Iran 88th
China 101st
Nigeria 156th

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Picking role models

2011-11-04T06:51:00.000-05:00

Evidently, Putin doesn't like the comparisons of him to Brezhnev that Western commentators have been making. He has his own choices for role models, according to a Reuters analysis published in The New York Times.

Analysis: Putin Invokes History's Lions for Return to Kremlin

Vladimir Putin has an answer for Russians worried that his return to the presidency next year will usher in an era of stagnation: study the careers of Franklin D. Roosevelt or Charles de Gaulle…

The former KGB spy's history lessons… give a sense of how he views himself and could provide clues about what his next presidency will hold…

After praising Roosevelt, Putin went on to list other long-serving leaders including Helmut Kohl, who was German chancellor for 16 years. He also said he liked de Gaulle, France's president from 1959 to 1969…

Like Putin, Roosevelt, De Gaulle and Kohl rose to power in tumultuous times but used iron will and considerable popularity to gain almost complete dominance.

Styled by his ruling party as Russia's "national leader", Putin says his biggest achievement is to have saved Russia from collapse after the chaos and humiliation that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991…

Heroes of their time to supporters, Roosevelt, De Gaulle and Kohl forged fiercely independent foreign policies but, like Putin, were criticized for accruing too much power.

Opponents say Russia's stability is a mirage because Putin's decision to stay in power makes a brittle and atrophied political system too dependent on one man.

By focusing on Western leaders, Putin is also underscoring to Russian voters his own image as the stout defender of the country's interests in the face of what is often portrayed as Western hypocrisy…

Even at face value, there may be other parallels.

De Gaulle put down dissent in Syria, Lebanon and Algeria. Under Putin, Russia has been accused of human rights abuses in Chechnya and other republics of the rebellious North Caucasus.

Kohl was criticized for turning a blind eye to party corruption. Putin's ruling United Russia party has been branded "a party of swindlers and thieves" by opponents…

Putin also admires Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore…

"The analogy with Brezhnev is being made... all such analogies are lame and senseless because we live in a different country, a different world," said President Dmitry Medvedev, who was swept into the Kremlin in 2008 to get round a constitutional ban on his mentor Putin serving a third successive term…

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It's not just Weibo

2011-11-03T06:30:00.000-05:00

The ruling elite is unhappy about something(s). It might be political, cultural, or economic. No one knows for sure. But after the announcement a couple weeks ago that Weibo, the microblogs, would be subject to stricter censorship, other media are now the targets.

China Reins in Liberalization of Culture

Political censorship in this authoritarian state has long been heavy-handed. But for years, the Communist Party has tolerated a creeping liberalization in popular culture, tacitly allowing everything from popular knockoffs of “American Idol”-style talent shows to freewheeling microblogs that let media groups prosper and let people blow off steam.

Now, the party appears to be saying “enough.”

Whether spooked by popular uprisings worldwide, a coming leadership transition at home or their own citizens’ increasingly provocative tastes, Communist leaders are proposing new limits on media and Internet freedoms that include some of the most restrictive measures in years.

The most striking instance occurred Tuesday, when the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television ordered 34 major satellite television stations to limit themselves to no more than two 90-minute entertainment shows each per week, and collectively 10 nationwide. They are also being ordered to broadcast two hours of state-approved news every evening and to disregard audience ratings in their programming decisions. The ministry said the measures, to go into effect on Jan. 1, were aimed at rooting out “excessive entertainment and vulgar tendencies.”...

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Antique economics

2011-11-02T06:13:00.000-05:00

In these times of globalization and the World Trade Organization, we, in the West, don't hear much about import substitution. After all, the policy got such a bad name after the 17th century when it was called mercantilism. Of course, when the newly independent USA followed Hamilton's version of mercantilism, it seemed more palatable to Americans than the British version had been.

After the Second World War, many African, Asian, and Latin American countries followed some version of import substitution to build up their economies. The simplistic logic seemed unassailable. Protect infant domestic industries with tax and trade policies, keep investment, consumer spending, and jobs within the national borders. However, when protected industries began inefficiently producing shoddy merchandise at high prices, many people began to question that simplistic logic.

In the '70s, the "Asian tigers" began implementing a new version of import substitution that focused on producing for export. This forced protected industries to compete on global markets and worked so well that China adopted its own version.

Former economics teacher Bisi Daniels, writing in This Day, offers his thoughts on import substitution for Nigeria.

The Case for Import Substitution in Nigeria

I was one of the many Nigerians who rejoiced over the Federal Government’s decision to commit itself to an import substitution programme and to do everything to promote local industry.

As a believer in Domestic Direct Investment, I am also excited by government’s reasoning that patronizing locally-made goods is a way to “reward those who demonstrated the confidence to invest in the Nigerian economy.”…

I must also say upfront that the history of Import-substituting Industrialization (called ISI) calls for a cautious approach. Not everything must be produced locally…

ISI [import substitution industrialization] is a government strategy that replaces some agricultural or industrial imports to encourage local production for local consumption, and in some carefully planned cases, for exports. Import substitutes are traditionally meant to generate employment, reduce foreign exchange demand, stimulate innovation, and promote self-reliance in some critical sectors.

With increasing globalization and the breaking of international trade walls, ISI sounds like an old school model, but there is a robust case for its suitability in Nigeria, at least for now…

ISI was most successful in countries with large populations and income levels which allowed for the consumption of locally produced products…

Ultimately, when the popularity of ISI waned in the late 20th century, it was on account of its disadvantages and the dramatic growth effects of economic liberalization and reforms.

The disadvantages includes the fact that industries under ISI become complacent under the protection they enjoy and end up as inefficient and obsolete, producing poor quality goods. Inefficiency and low output reduce cost effectiveness. Above all, there is a build-up of unnecessary bureaucracy that breeds corruption. Nigeria has had more than a good share of this wastefulness…

A successful ISI in Nigeria will require the creation of a fertile environment for industry to thrive at minimal cost. And of course, we should be considerate of industries with clear linkages with the country’s agricultural and petroleum wealth for immediate impact...

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Eliminate the troublesome

2011-11-01T06:04:00.000-05:00

If there was any doubt about political infighting in Iran, the Supreme Leader's recent proposals to eliminate the presidency and give him more power should make those doubts vanish. So much for Khomeini's vaunted Islamic republic.

Iran’s supreme leader floats proposal to abolish presidency

A proposal by Iran’s supreme leader to radically alter the country’s constitution and abolish the presidency is drawing praise from his supporters but criticism from influential politicians.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was appointed supreme leader for life in 1989 by Shiite Muslim clerics, said in a speech last week that, if deemed appropriate, Iran could do without a president…

Former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said publicly Tuesday that the proposal strongly undermines the ideal of an Islamic republic, in which the people elect their leaders…

Under the proposal, Iran would be ruled by Khamenei working in tandem with parliament, which would continue to be directly elected and would appoint one of its members to serve as prime minister…

If implemented, the change would widen Khamenei’s powers. Supporters said it would allow him manage the nation without the current debilitating political squabbles and that nothing would really change, since voters would still elect the parliament…

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OWS in a comparative context

2011-10-31T10:51:00.000-05:00

Peter Whitehouse, who teaches at The Bolles School in Jacksonville, FL, suggests this blog post by Kusha Sefat, a Doctoral Student in Sociology at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge, as a discussion starter for considering the Occupy Wall Street protests in a comparative context. Sefat has suggestions for the OWS protestors based on his observations about the green protests in Iran. Your students can evaluate them and see if they can come up with suggestions based on other countries' experiences with protests. Get them to pay attention to the context within which the protests occur.

Top 10 ways OWS can Excel: Counsel from Iran’s Green Movement

Following the disputed Presidential election in Iran, our Western compatriots gave many suggestions on combating state oppression. Various tactics and strategies were devised for Iranian protesters… It seems that most of those recommendations were ineffective within Iran’s particular social and political context. It may be worth outlining some of the tactics that were in fact useful to Iranian protesters…
Pick a color to represent your movement
Have an all-inclusive strategy
Demonstrate peacefully
Be rigorous
Be creative
Record protests with your mobile phones and send to television stations
Send your footage of acts of violence committed by the police to foreign television broadcasters
Write, “I am 99%” or “OWS” on all dollar bills that you circulate
Do not let politicians co-opt your movement
Write arguments and op-eds that aim at the logic of the system

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Sub-royal consent?

2011-10-31T08:25:00.000-05:00

Keep your eyes and ears open for this issue. There are more details and revelations to come.

Prince Charles has been offered a veto over 12 government bills since 2005

Ministers have been forced to seek permission from Prince Charles to pass at least a dozen government bills, according to a Guardian investigation into a secretive constitutional loophole that gives him the right to veto legislation that might impact his private interests…

Unlike royal assent to bills, which is exercised by the Queen as a matter of constitutional law, the prince's power applies when a new bill might affect his own interests, in particular the Duchy of Cornwall, a private £700m property empire that last year provided him with an £18m income…

MPs and peers called for the immediate publication of details about the application of the prince's powers which have fuelled concern over his alleged meddling in British politics. "If princes and paupers are to live as equals in a modern Britain, anyone who enjoys exceptional influence or veto should exercise it with complete transparency," said Andrew George, Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives in Cornwall…

Revelations about Charles' power of consent come amid continued concern that the heir to the throne may be overstepping his constitutional role by lobbying ministers directly and through his charities on pet concerns such as traditional architecture and the environment.

A spokesman for the Prince of Wales would not comment on whether the prince has ever withheld consent or demanded changes to legislation under the consent system…

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Bureaucrats running the army?

2011-10-31T06:24:00.000-05:00

These articles from The Economist are about a lot of things. They're about the recently resigned Minister of Defence, Liam Fox. He resigned because of a questionable relationship with a friend who "wasn't" a lobbyist. The articles are also about military planning and organization. But the topic that is probably most important to students of comparative government and politics is that of the role of senior civil servants and their relationships to the government.

On the defensive

THE resignation on October 14th of the defence secretary, Liam Fox, almost a year after the publication of the landmark Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), was the last thing either Britain’s beleaguered Ministry of Defence (MoD) or its armed forces needed. Dr Fox leaves behind much unfinished business for his successor…

Dr Fox’s departure followed a torrent of embarrassing newspaper revelations about his working relationship with Adam Werritty, a close friend and self-styled “adviser”. But despite Dr Fox’s poor personal judgment and disregard for the rules (see article), he will be missed…

A year on, the SDSR is still controversial. Its critics say it was a rushed job that neither cut deeply enough to put the defence budget on a sustainable footing nor made the right choices about which capabilities to reduce…

It looks as if one of the ideas in the SDSR—that there should be five essentially identical multi-role brigades—will be quietly junked in favour of “tailoring the force for the challenge” around two light and two heavy brigades which will draw on other resources as needed…

Ministers v mandarins

AS HE settles into life on the back benches, Liam Fox has the consolation of a partly, though not wholly, salvaged reputation…

Sir Gus O’Donnell, Britain’s top civil servant, looked into the matter and reported back on October 18th. He found no evidence that Dr Fox had profited from the access he gave Mr Werritty, or that any public money was misused. Mr Werritty received no classified information and did not influence British foreign policy…

The real implications of the Fox affair are not for David Cameron, the prime minister, but for the way politics is done—perhaps tilting the balance of power in favour of the civil service. This could happen in two ways. First, Sir Gus’s report makes recommendations that would tighten a department’s grip on its minister…

The second way in which the permanent bureaucracy could be emboldened is by a mooted clampdown on lobbyists… If the result of this and other new rules is that ministers see less of outsiders, the influence of their mandarins is likely to grow.

There is a tension in the government between reforming ministers, keen to push power away from central government in areas such as education, welfare and policing, and their more cautious civil servants…

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Approved, not elected

2011-10-29T07:36:00.000-05:00

Here's the Chinese report on a by-election. Who voted? And what were the campaigns like?

Four approved as lawmakers by China's national legislature

China's top legislature on Saturday approved the membership of four new national lawmakers.

Zhang Qingwei, Xia Baolong, Lu Xinshe and Jiang Dingzhi, who are respectively the acting provincial governors of Hebei, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Hainan, were approved as deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC).

The four were elected into NPC deputies through by-elections organized by the standing committees of local provincial people's congresses in September…

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