An executive with Chinese characteristics
The Economist editors, as usual, offer some good explanations of basics.
Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits
[T]he Communist Party announced its plan to get rid of presidential term limits… Such limits may not matter much in themselves… The presidency is a weak office. Mr Xi could stay in power as the party’s general secretary and military chief, to which term limits do not apply. But the abolition is still important partly because it is the clearest evidence that Mr Xi does, in fact, plan to ignore convention that party chiefs step down after ten years, and keep all of his jobs after 2023. It also pierces the veil of politics and shows what kind of ruler he wants to be. At a time when he is trying to boost China’s image globally as a modern, outward-looking and responsible state, the political system he governs seems premodern, opaque and treacherous.
The system itself is extremely unusual. China has two ladders of authority: the government and the party. The party hierarchy outranks the state one. In other countries, the ministers of finance and foreign affairs (government jobs) are usually the most important ones after the president or prime minister. In China, they are not even in the top 25. Neither man is a member of the Politburo, let alone its inner sanctum, the Politburo Standing Committee. Formally, the People’s Liberation Army is controlled by the party, not the government. In one respect, though, Chinese politics is all too normal. As with other Leninist systems, it is bedevilled by the problem of leadership succession…
In the 1980s, reacting to the chaos of the Mao era, Deng Xiaoping tried to make the system more orderly and predictable by introducing new rules, norms and precedents. These included the reinstitution of the post of president (there had not been one since 1968), along with a two-term limit for the holder of that office as well as the vice-president. Mandatory retirement ages were also introduced… In a speech in 1980 [Deng] said the system should avoid an “over-concentration of power”, which, he warned, was “liable to give rise to arbitrary rule”. He said it should make a clearer separation between the party and the government. And it had to “solve the problem of succession in leadership”…
As the abolition of term limits shows, he failed—or at least, his reforms failed to rein in Mr Xi. Instead of avoiding an over-concentration of powers, the president has made himself chairman of everything. Instead of separating party from state, he has injected party control into areas which had once been relatively free of it, such as private companies…
Mr Xi has used his anti-graft campaign to rid himself of other rivals… This hardly looks like a predictable, orderly system…
So why has he done this? He could have stayed on as general secretary. His ideology, called “Xi Jinping Thought for a New Era”, would still have been in the party’s own charter, giving him the status of final arbiter in any dispute. The answer must be that it is because of the kind of leader he wants to be: with his power on full display, not hidden behind the scenes…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
Labels: China, executive, leadership, politics, state
China's upper house
China's legislature (the NPC) is unicameral. So what's with this People's Political Consultative Conference that meets the week before the NPC meets?
Well, if you go way back to the post World War II era, when the Communists and the Kuomintang were fighting for control of China, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference was established as a vehicle for communication and negotiation between the warring parties (and all the other parties that were on the scene back then).
In 1949, the Kuomintang was defeated and many of the leaders and soldiers retreated to Taiwan. Mao Zedong and the Communists established the Peoples Republic of China, and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference carried on without the Kuomintang. Until the establishment of the NPC, it was, in essence, the legislature. Some people have suggested that the CPPCC be officially reorganized as the upper house of the NPC.
Today the CPPCC is an advisory group made up of members of the political parties in China and many individuals (mostly rich business people). Meetings began early in March.
China's top political advisory body starts annual session
China's top political advisory body started its annual session Saturday afternoon in Beijing, vowing to take on new mission for the country's goal toward a "great modern socialist country."
Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the 12th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee [reported to the group]… "We will focus our advice and efforts on the main issues in securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and embarking on a journey to fully build a modern socialist China."
He stressed that the top political advisory body shall uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
In regards to its future work, the CPPCC would give top priority to studying and applying Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era…
"We will promote the ready acceptance of the leadership of the CPC among all political parties, social groups, and people of all ethnic groups and from all social sectors that participate in the CPPCC, and firmly uphold the core position of General Secretary Xi Jinping," he noted…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
, a list of vital concepts, thumbnail descriptions of the AP6,
and
a description of the AP exam format
. $2.00.
Order HERE.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: China, history, legislature, politics, state
Sorting out government, state, rule of law, and politics
Be very glad you're not trying to analyze Saudi Arabia.
In Saudi Arabia, Where Family and State Are One, Arrests May Be Selective
King Salman’s close relatives not only rule Saudi Arabia. They are also in business with it.
A major Saudi investment firm founded by one of the king’s sons, and now chaired by another, owns a significant stake in a conglomerate that does extensive government business… A smaller firm founded by another of his sons says it invests in health care, telecommunications, education and other regulated or state-funded fields.
None of that apparent conflict of interest seems to be against the law.
But now their brother, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is leading a sweeping crackdown against what he has labeled “corruption”… But his immediate family’s complicated and mostly undisclosed business interests are raising questions about what that accusation means in a kingdom where the law has so far included little or no regulation of what other countries have labeled and outlawed as self-dealing.
Saudi laws, issued by royal decree or derived from Islamic law, have so far included little or no regulation of the sprawling royal family and its closest clients. The family has never disclosed the sources of its income, how much its members might take from the country’s oil revenues, how much they earn from state contracts or how they afford their lavish lifestyles…
The kingdom, an absolute monarchy, has also never attempted to create an independent court system to adjudicate claims…
And it was unclear which branch of the court system might hear the cases — the main Shariah court system or the more specialized board of grievance courts that handle administrative complaints.
“The law is not meant to govern the ruling family in any meaningful way, or to govern the relations between the ruling family and the state,” said Nathan J. Brown, a scholar at George Washington University who studies Arab legal systems.
“Ultimately, the king and some high members of the royal family can do what they want and make it legal later,” he said, and the lack of regulation over royal self-dealing “opens the door wide to what would be considered corruption in other systems.”…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Labels: concepts, corruption, government, judiciary, legislation, rule of law, state
Is Mexico still a nation state?
What are the characteristics of a nation state? How many of them does Mexico still have? What things are identified as obstacles to change?
Mexico’s Record Violence Is a Crisis 20 Years in the Making
The forces driving violence in Mexico, which is now on track for its worst year in decades, were first set in motion 20 years ago…
First, Colombia defeated its major drug cartels in the 1990s, driving the center of the drug trade from the country into Mexico.
Then, in 2000, Mexico transitioned to a multiparty democracy.
This meant that the drug trade moved to Mexico just as its politics and institutions were in flux, leaving them unable to address a problem they have often made worse.
Since then, a series of bad breaks, missteps and self-imposed crises have led to an explosion of violence…
In 2006, a new president and a new drug cartel both took extreme actions, the consequences of which are still unfolding.
The implosion of Colombian cartels set off a fierce competition in Mexico for control of the drug trade. A new cartel, La Familia Michoacána, broke off from a larger group, then cemented its power by deploying extreme, theatrical violence…
That same year, Felipe Calderón won the presidency by a hair... the narrow victory for Mr. Calderón left him without a strong mandate.
 |
| Mexican army on anti-cartel patrol |
Shortly after taking office, the new president declared war on the cartels and sent in the military…
Defenders say he had little alternative. Mexico had been a single-party state and, like most such states, had controlled local officials through patronage and corruption. When that system disappeared, drug cartels filled the vacuum, buying off mayors and judges. Only the military had the firepower and autonomy to take them on.
This began the drug war that has killed tens of thousands of people. But it also created a subtler set of problems now driving more and broader violence.
Mr. Calderón adopted the so-called kingpin strategy, in which troops captured or killed cartel leaders. This generated headlines, pleased the United States and could be accomplished top-down, with little input from corrupt or weak local law enforcement…
In bypassing mayors and governors because Mexico’s pre-democratic practices had left them systemically corrupt and unaccountable, the government further reduced their accountability…
“In the process of that fragmentation, we didn’t do the job of structuring the institutions of the police forces,” said Mr. Valdés, who ran the civil national security intelligence service as this was unfolding. “So we have the worst of the worst.”
Joy Langston, a political scientist at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico City, traces many of the country’s woes to a seemingly minor quirk in its political system.
All candidates are selected by the party, and officials serve one term before being shuffled off to another post.
During the one-party era, this was meant to impose accountability, which flowed from party leadership. Oversight institutions, seen as superfluous, never fully developed…
For example, voters have little opportunity to kick out bad leaders or reward good ones, giving officials little incentive to push through difficult reforms. And criminal groups are able to fill the pockets of notoriously underpaid policemen and other civil servants — often providing the wrong kind of incentives.
“At the end of the day, this is all an issue of accountability,” Alejandro Hope, a security analyst, said. “That is the key point of failure in Mexico.”
“Nothing happens if a police officer does not do their work,” he added. “Nothing happens if a mayor fails to transform local law enforcement. Nothing happens if a governor fails to invest in prosecutorial services. Nothing happens.”…
This is leading communities to do, at the grass-roots level, what Mr. Calderón did a decade earlier: bypass distrusted institutions, worsening the underlying problem.
Businesses and middle-class Mexicans are hiring private security in record numbers…
Rural communities, which are more vulnerable, have formed “self-defense” militias to run off gangs and mayors alike…
Mexicans seem keenly aware that their government is growing less responsive just as streets are becoming more dangerous. Polls show growing dissatisfaction, particularly over corruption.
“We have this political class that totally forgets why they are there,” said Armando Torjes, a community activist in Guadalupe, a working-class city in the northeast.
Each election, he said, brings a new official with a new three-year plan. Most, he added, leave office conspicuously wealthier…
“We wanted to improve the institutions, the judges, the jails, the police,” Mr. Valdés, the former head of the intelligence service, said. “We spent years trying to convince the political class.”
But he found those institutions — dominated by parties rather than technocrats and subject to the whims of officials who are required by law to cycle out every term — unresponsive…
“What’s happening in Guadalupe is what’s happening in all of Mexico,” Mr. Torjes said. “There was a political demand for change, but nothing really changed for us.”
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Labels: change, corruption, Mexico, state, state capacity
States within the state
How powerful are the states (in Mexico's case, narco gangs) within the state?
Mexico violence: 28 dead in prison fight in Acapulco
A fight between rival gangs in a prison in south-western Mexico has left at least 28 inmates dead, officials say.
The pre-dawn fight broke out in the maximum security wing of Las Cruces prison in the city of Acapulco…
Acapulco is the largest city in Guerrero state, one of Mexico's most violent areas and a big centre for drug production…
"The incident was triggered by a permanent feud between rival groups within the prison," [Roberto Álvarez, a state security spokesman] said…
This is the latest in a series of violent incidents across Mexico this year. May was the deadliest month in the country since 1997, when official statistics began, with 2,186 homicides.
From December 2006 until May this year, there were 188,567 murders, according to government records.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Labels: concepts, Mexico, state, state capacity
International? Transnational? Independent?
Just about the time it seems like nearly all the actors on the international stage are nation states, something else pops up.
We the networks
IF A satirist were to create a parody of an international conference, amping up the insularity and tedious intricacies for comic effect, he might come up with something rather like the meeting… in Marrakech. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as ICANN, will bring together 1,300 participants for 346 sessions…
Barring any last-minute hiccups, though, something remarkable will happen at the meeting. After two years of negotiations, ICANN is set to agree on a reform that would turn it into a new kind of international organisation. If this goes ahead, a crucial global resource, the internet’s address system, will soon be managed by a body that is largely independent of national governments…
The beauty of the internet is its openness. As long as people stick to its technical standards, anybody can add a new branch or service. For everything to connect, though, the network needs a central address book, which includes domain names… and internet-protocol addresses…
That is why, as the internet grew up, America decided not to hand control to the United Nations or another international body steered by governments. Instead, in 1998 it helped create ICANN, a global organisation that gives a say to everybody with an interest in the smooth running of the network…
Most were happy with the arrangement at first. But American oversight came to seem odd as the internet grew into a vast global resource with much traffic no longer passing over American cables. Then came revelations that the National Security Agency had spied on internet users in America and elsewhere…
The new ICANN will resemble a state, says Thomas Rickert of eco, Germany’s internet association and co-chairman of one of the main negotiation committees.
It will have a government (the organisation’s board), a constitution (its by-laws, which include its mission and “core values”), a judiciary (an “independent review process”, which leads to binding recommendations) and a citizenry of sorts (half-a-dozen “supporting organisations” and “advisory committees”, which represent the different interest groups). These will have the right to kick out the board and block its budget.
Dissenting governments and recalcitrant [American] Republicans notwithstanding, an independent ICANN is not only likely to come to pass but also to become a model for other sorts of internet governance…. Without generally accepted global rules, governments are bound to create their own, even if these cannot be implemented. “Multi-stakeholder” outfits like ICANN, where all opinions are aired, might well be the best hope to come up with rules that work…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
, a list of vital concepts, thumbnail descriptions of the AP6,
and
a description of the AP exam format
. $2.00.
Order HERE.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: government, International Organizations, nation, regime, state
Comparative Smog
Examine the photos below. Do some online research about the extent of smog problems in the cities pictured.
- How do the causes and severity of the smog problems in each city compare?
- How do the states compare in their capacities to deal with the problem?
- How do the governments compare in their abilities to use their capacities to alleviate smog problems?
- Are there international issues involved in either the creation of the problem or the solution?
 |
| London, November 2015 |
 |
| Moscow, November 2014 |
 |
| Beijing, November 2015 |
 |
| Lagos, October 2015 |
 |
| Mexico City, Novermber 2015 |
 |
| Tehran, November 2015 |
Here are some links to get your research started:
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two digital pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories, a list of vital concepts, thumbnail descriptions of the AP6,
and
a description of the AP exam format. E-mailed to you. $2.00.
Order HERE.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
What You Need to Know 7th edition is ready to help.
Order the book
HERE
Amazon's customers gave this book a 4-star rating.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: capacity, comparative methodology, concepts, government, state
Nation, state, country
This op-ed essay about the vote for Scottish independence is worth the time it takes to sort out the analysis (that includes references to Thomas Hobbes).
BTW, does writer Neil Irwin properly use the terms nation, state, country, government, and regime?
Why Does Scotland Want Independence? It’s Culture vs. Economics
It’s been a good three centuries, but now Scotland may want out of the United Kingdom.
The stakes are enormous for Scotland, and quite high for the rest of Britain. But the debate over Scottish independence also sheds important light on how debates over the nature of the state that are as old as Hobbes and Locke apply in a modern world of instant communication and cryptocurrency.
 |
| Alex Salmond, Scottish leader |
The latest polling on the referendum, to be held Sept. 18, points to a narrow edge for Scots who wish to pull out of the state that they have been part of since 1707 and go it as a nation of their own. Previous polls, by contrast, had given the edge to those who wish for Scotland to remain part of Britain. Both betting markets and forecasting groups are now putting the odds that Scotland will pull away and form its own state at something like 30 percent.
What’s all the more remarkable about this possible secession is that major, specific grievances over public policy between Scotland and the rest of Britain are hard to identify…
Many Scots feel as if they have more to gain from governing alongside people who look like them and talk like them than they have to lose from no longer being part of a bigger, more powerful nation…
One could point out that Britain as it exists today is the very model of a liberal democracy, that Scots are amply represented in Parliament, and that they have a great deal of control over day-to-day governance within their borders. The government has offered to expand those rights of local control over taxes and public administration if Scotland sticks with Britain. But it may not be enough…
In the 18th century, it was the creation of what is now the United Kingdom out of England, Scotland and Wales (and, presently, Northern Ireland). In the 19th century, it was the expansion of the United States to span a continent and the centralization of smaller states into what are now the nations of Germany and Italy. In the 20th century, it was the creation of the European Union, in which people from Finland to Portugal share a common market and common currency…
Among democracies, the march has been toward greater scale and reach, at the cost of less distinct national identity. There have been flare-ups of resentment in these large democracies… But none have come as close to getting their wish as the Scots will in just over a week…
If Scotland chooses to go independent, it will shed the advantages that come from being part of a relatively large global power (Britain’s population: about 64 million. Scotland’s population: about 5 million) for the chance to be governed by people with whom they share a deeper cultural affinity.
Paradoxically, pro-independence Scots have argued that they will recapture some of the advantages of size by joining the European Union. It seems slightly bonkers for Scots to get so frustrated about ceding power to bureaucrats in London and turn immediately to bureaucrats in Brussels, but there it is…
The Scottish referendum isn’t just about whether a few million Scots will govern themselves. It is a fight over the world of multicultural modernity that makes today’s global economy possible, but also leaves many people with a deep hunger for the sense of national identity it obliterates.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: culture, nation, politics, Scotland, state, UK
Reconsidering basics
In the light of recent Islamist terrorism (2014), analyst Fareed Zakaria wrote, in the
The Washington Post, an op-ed column wondering about his perceptions of terrorism in 2001.
 |
| Zakaria |
Below is a key paragraph. Use that or the whole essay and determine whether Zakaria is using terminology the same way your textbook uses it. Terms like country, state, civil society, nation, national identities, and others.
Does his analysis of his thinking make sense to you? Why? If not, what's missing or inaccurate?
Why they still hate us, 13 years later
What did I miss in that essay 13 years ago? The fragility of these countries. I didn’t recognize that if the dictatorships faltered, the state could collapse, and that beneath the state there was no civil society — nor, in fact, a real nation. Once chaos reigned across the Middle East, people reached not for their national identities — Iraqi, Syrian — but for much older ones: Shiite, Sunni, Kurd and Arab.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is NOW AVAILABLE.
Updated and ready to help.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
Labels: civil society, concepts, country, nation, national identity, state
A nation without a state? A state without a nation?
Once again, case studies from beyond the AP6. Excerpts from this bit of journalism (which is more careful about labels than most) could help introduce students to important concepts.
Iraq is a state but not a nation; Kurdistan is the opposite
It’s pretty hard to keep one’s mind straight about the artificial concept of “nation-state.” The world is organized according to this construct. The inhabited world is divided into states, each of which has boundaries and a government. If someone tries to change the boundaries from the outside, it’s a war. From the inside, it’s a civil war. When all the boundaries are being respected and everyone within each state accepts the legitimacy of the government, at least until the next election, it’s peace.
These “nation-states” seem to work best when what the world calls a country coincides with the other meaning of the word “nation,” a population bound together by a shared identity of some kind, including elements of history, ethnicity, language, religion and a dose or two of secret sauce. It also helps if the population has coexisted within boundaries that are accepted as legitimate, by the nation and by its neighbors, for a long time. Nation-states that have all of these attributes are actually fairly rare, but they do have significant advantages in avoiding wars and civil wars.
Iraq… is comprised of three major groups that have plenty of grudges against one another and little history of peaceful coexistence except during periods of foreign domination or brutal tyranny. Iraq is a fairly recent construct. A nation-state in the size, shape and borders of what we call “Iraq” had absolutely no history before World War I…
Iraq is a state but not a nation. Kurdistan is the opposite.
Kurds are a distinct ethnic group, with their own language and culture. They are actually probably the fourth biggest ethnicity in the Middle East… The Kurds are the largest Mideast “nation” that has no state they control or in which they are the majority.
 |
| Iraqi "Kurdistan" |
But… that’s not because the Kurds are too scattered to constitute a state of their own. In fact, most… Kurds… live in a concentrated contiguous territory that is separated by the boundaries of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and a tiny bit of Armenia.
If the world drew a boundary around the territory of “Kurdistan,” it would be an overwhelmingly Kurdish nation with a population in the range of 30 million or so, a mountainous territory roughly the size of Nebraska…
The state of “Kurdistan” might be quite a prosperous nation if it ever existed. The Kurdish region of Turkey is rich in water resources… The Iraqi region has oil…
In the chaos of the ISIS takeover of Mosul and the humiliating, chaotic retreat of Iraqi troops, the well-trained and disciplined Kurdish paramilitary (known as the “Peshmerga,” which translates as “those who face death”) moved quickly into Kirkuk and control it as of this writing.
BBC reporter Jim Muir was in the Kurdish region as this was happening and wrote:
With the rest of Iraq apparently disintegrating along sectarian lines, and the central government in Baghdad in disarray, it will clearly be a long time before an Iraqi authority can challenge the Kurds' absorption of what they have long seen as the rightful jewel in their crown.
There’s no telling where the story will go next…
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
What You Need to Know SIXTH edition is COMING SOON.
Labels: concepts, nation, state
Nigeria: a failed state?
It's a question that's been on the minds of many people. The editors of
Leadership ("Nigeria's most influential newspaper") now make their case. Do they cover all the bases described in your textbook? (The editors are not political scientists, so forgive them if they use "state," "government," and "regime" in less than precise ways.)
Can you tell if this editorial is more than just a statement of political opposition to the government of President Jonathan? What resolution is suggested?
Our Stand: This State Has Failed
It’s about time we admitted it: Nigeria has become a failed state… About a third of the country’s land mass has been under emergency rule for the past one year… at least another third of the country including the Federal Capital Territory: mass murders, kidnapping for ransom, daylight armed robberies, breakdown of law and order, and unrestrained stealing of public funds.
Several authorities identify a failed state as one that can no longer perform its basic duties in such areas as security, power, eradication of poverty, education and job creation. Even the Nigerian constitution recognises that the reason for government’s existence is protection of life and property as well as maintenance of law and order. Events of the past few years indicate that Nigeria has since exceeded the minimum requirements for classification as a failed state.
Currently, the nation is still in grief following the massacre of over 100 people and injuring of more than 200 others by a bomb… On the night of the same Monday, Boko Haram, which has been working together with international terrorist groups al-Shabab and al-Qaeda, seized about 100 female students from a school in Chibok…
No day has passed in the past weeks without a tale of one horrendous atrocity or the other committed by the bloodthirsty hoodlums…
After each act of terror, the Nigerian president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, has made promises that he has never fulfilled…
And so, we ask again: what is a failed state? In this same country, 6 million university graduates applied for 4, 000 job slots in the Immigration Service. Almost 800, 000 of them were invited for an interview during which 23 of them died as a result of stampedes at some centres…
Our country has, in recent years, always featured on the list of the world’s failed or failing states. In its Failed States Index 2013 released recently, for instance, The Fund for Peace (FFP) ranks the country 16th out of 178 countries. It is only a few points looking better than war-torn Somalia that is ranked first… No wonder the country performed poorly on all indicators used by the FFP: mounting demographic pressure, movement of refugees or internally displaced persons, vengeance-seeking group grievance, human flight, uneven economic development, poverty or severe economic decline, legitimacy of the state, progressive deterioration of services, violation of human rights, security apparatus, rise of factionalised elites and intervention of external actors.
As the State of Emergency imposed on the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa expires this Saturday, President Jonathan should not attempt to extend it, unless he wishes to extend it to a larger part of the country. The leaders of the three states have made it clear that they won’t welcome an extension. After all, the entire nation is in emergency already, as clearly shown in the war with terrorists in the north, and the failed amnesty programme in the Niger Delta leading to the militants’ resumption of hostilities; armed robbers and kidnappers rule the roost in the south-west and the south-east. No doubt, the theatre of war now covers the entire country.
The Jonathan regime has demonstrated a frightening incompetence in the handling of the state’s affairs. It is now beyond doubt that the regime is incapable of protecting the people. This government cannot even protect Nigerians from the next attack or even the following day’s attacks. Before the latest kidnap of school girls in Chibok, nobody seemed to have been looking for or even as much as discussing those kidnapped earlier. All Nigerians now live in extreme fear.
When a state has failed, it should not be left to be propped up by failed leaders and failed politicians. But nothing is unstoppable. This trajectory can still be reversed before it is too late. That is why statesmen must speak up now!
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools, the original version and v2.0 are available to help curriculum planning.
What You Need to Know, 5th edition is SOLD OUT.
Labels: government, Nigeria, politics, regime, state
What is the United Kingdom?
If you're beginning your study of the UK (or if you're finishing it), it's important to know what you're talking about when you discuss the UK, Great Britain, Wales, England, etc.
Chris Wolak who teaches comparative politics at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, IL, offered a link at his Political Warrior blog to a C.G.P. Grey video that will help, although you might have to read some more or watch it more than once.
You don't have to do the homework unless you're in Mr. Wolak's class.
The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
The Second Edition of What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools is now available from the publisher
The Fifth Edition of What You Need to Know is also available from the publisher.
Coming in February: Just the Facts! A succinct study guide for comparative government and politics.
Labels: concepts, nation, state, UK
Nation state (1648-2030)
This ought to give your students something to discuss and write about. As a technicality, they ought to mentally insert "nation state" into the text wherever Parag Khanna writes "state" or "nation."
Parag Khanna is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation.
The End of the Nation-State?
EVERY five years, the United States National Intelligence Council… publishes a report forecasting the long-term implications of global trends. Earlier this year it released its latest report, “Alternative Worlds,” which included scenarios for how the world would look a generation from now.
One scenario, “Nonstate World,” imagined a planet in which urbanization, technology and capital accumulation had brought about a landscape where governments had given up on real reforms and had subcontracted many responsibilities to outside parties, which then set up enclaves operating under their own laws…
[M]ost of us might not realize it, “nonstate world” describes much of how global society already operates. This isn’t to say that states have disappeared, or will. But they are becoming just one form of governance among many.
A quick scan across the world reveals that where growth and innovation have been most successful, a hybrid public-private, domestic-foreign nexus lies beneath the miracle. These aren’t states; they’re “para-states” — or, in one common parlance, “special economic zones.”…
In 1980, Shenzhen became China’s first; now they blanket China, which has become the world’s second largest economy.
The Arab world has more than 300 of them…
This complex layering of territorial, legal and commercial authority goes hand in hand with the second great political trend of the age: devolution.
In the face of rapid urbanization, every city, state or province wants to call its own shots. And they can, as nations depend on their largest cities more than the reverse…
Scotland and Wales in Britain, the Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain, British Columbia in Canada, Western Australia and just about every Indian state — all are places seeking maximum fiscal and policy autonomy from their national capitals.
Devolution is even happening in China. Cities have been given a long leash to develop innovative economic models, and Beijing depends on their growth…
The broader consequence of these phenomena is that we should think beyond clearly defined nations and “nation building” toward integrating a rapidly urbanizing world population directly into regional and international markets. That, rather than going through the mediating level of central governments, is the surest path to improving access to basic goods and services, reducing poverty, stimulating growth and raising the overall quality of life…
And yet more fragmentation and division, even new sovereign states, are a crucial step in a longer process toward building transnational stability among neighbors.
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
The Second Edition of What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools is now available from the publisher
The Fifth Edition of What You Need to Know is also available from the publisher.
Labels: concepts, devolution, nation state, state
Teaching about the state
It's not always easy to get everyone up to speed on the basic concepts. Here's a good article from the
New York Times about Mali in which reporter Adam Nossiter uses the concept of state in a proper political science way.
Remind yourself and your students, that the state in a place like Mali takes on considerably more responsibilities than it does in Western countries. Those responsibilities strain the capacities of those poor countries.
Islamists Struggle to Run North Mali
The radical Islamists who control northern Mali appear incapable of managing basic services — including electricity, water and schools — and in some cases are asking for the return of state functionaries to run them…
 |
| Mali in West Africa |
[T]he Islamists’ grasp on administering the vast desert region, which is larger than France, seems much less secure…
“They asked for the state to resume its functions, because it’s too complicated for them to manage,” said Daouda Maïga, who used to run a state development program in Kidal…
About 400,000 people have fled the north since the Islamist takeover, creating a vacuum of talent that the Islamists have apparently been unable to fill….
Some… were surprised by the supplicatory tone of the Islamists, many of them religiously indoctrinated guerrilla fighters used to living lives of isolation in the desert…
“There are so many things that the state does, that they cannot do,” Mr. Maïga said. “Run the water system, the electricity, schools.” In Kidal, there is electricity one night a week at most, he said, and the same was true for water and telephone service.
[T]he Islamists wanted help running all state services except justice and security…
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
The First Edition of What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools is now available from the publisher
The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).
Labels: concepts, state
It's good to be the king
The perks of high office are meant to reflect the glory of the state. This report on benefits of the Russian president offers one glimpse. How do Putin's perks compare with those of other heads of state?
For Putin, Report Says, State Perks Pile High
President Vladimir V. Putin is rumored to be among the world’s wealthiest men, with an oil-fed fortune worth tens of billions of dollars. He denies that, vehemently, but a report to be published Tuesday suggests that the dispute may be beside the point.
In the report, sarcastically titled “The Life of a Galley Slave,” after the president’s own description of his tenure in office, Russian opposition leaders describe what they call an extraordinary expansion of presidential perks during the 12 years since the start of Mr. Putin’s first term as president — palaces, a fleet of jets and droves of luxury cars.
 |
| Constatine Palace |
Among the 20 residences available to the Russian president are Constantine Palace… a ski lodge in the Caucasus Mountains and a Gothic revival palace in the Moscow region. The president also has at his disposal 15 helicopters, 4 spacious yachts and 43 aircraft, including the main presidential jet… an Airbus and a Dassault Falcon. The 43 aircraft alone are worth an estimated $1 billion, the report says.
In response to a written query, the Kremlin’s press office said Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, was on vacation and unable to respond to the substance of the report. In a response reported by Kommersant, however, Mr. Peskov said the residences, aircraft and cars were government property used lawfully by the president…
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
The First Edition of What You Need to Know: Teaching Tools is now available from the publisher
The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available from the publisher (where shipping is always FREE).
Labels: leadership, Russia, state
How to make a state?
At this moment, the events in Libya offer an opportunity to discuss the elements necessary to make a state. If you can identify the elements in Libya, can students find examples of those elements in other countries they study?
The Vacuum After QaddafiColonel Qaddafi spent the last 40 years hollowing out every single institution that might challenge his authority. Unlike neighboring Egypt and Tunisia, Libya lacks the steadying hand of a military to buttress a collapsing government. It has no Parliament, no trade unions, no political parties, no civil society, no nongovernmental agencies. Its only strong ministry is the state oil company. The fact that some experts think the next government might be built atop the oil ministry underscores the paucity of options.
The worst-case scenario should the rebellion topple him, and one that concerns American counterterrorism officials, is that of Afghanistan or Somalia — a failed state where Al Qaeda or other radical groups could exploit the chaos and operate with impunity.
But there are others who could step into any vacuum, including Libya’s powerful tribes or a pluralist coalition of opposition forces that have secured the east of the country and are tightening their vise near the capital.
“It is going to be a political vacuum,” said Lisa Anderson, the president of the American University in Cairo and a Libya expert, suggesting that chances are high for a violent period of score-settling. “I don’t think it is likely that people will want to put down their weapons and go back to being bureaucrats.”
There is a short list of Libyan institutions, but each has limits. None of the tribes enjoy national reach, and Colonel Qaddafi deliberately set one against the other, dredging up century-old rivalries even in his latest speeches.
There are a few respected but elderly members of the original 12-member Revolutionary Command Council who joined Colonel Qaddafi in unseating the king in 1969…
Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, who has participated in several White House meetings on the crisis, said Libya’s tribal nature and absence of civil society were worrisome. But he said the experience of eastern Libya, where ad-hoc committees have taken control of local affairs, is a strikingly positive sign.
“People seem to be adopting a new identity based on their common experience of standing up to a dictator,” Mr. Malinowski said. “That doesn’t mean peace and love and brotherhood forever. But it’s a reason to hope that our worst fears about a post-Qaddafi Libya may not be realized.”…
“The current opposition movement in Libya is diverse and includes secular, nationalists, monarchists and Islamist elements,” said Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “I don’t think that any movement is in the position, in terms of resources and ideological power, to monopolize the political process.”
But he said that some hybrid of Islamism and nationalism was likely to emerge. In Libya, the strong nationalism that has run through all the recent uprisings is more likely to take on a religious tinge, experts believe, because it is a conservative society whose royal family once drew its authority in part from its spiritual role.
Probably the greatest insurance that Libya will not descend into Somalia-like chaos is its oil. The oil — once production fully resumes — can buy social content during a rocky transition period and offers insurance that Western powers cannot afford to sit by and watch such an important oil exporter disintegrate…
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available at Amazon.com or from the publisher (where shipping is always free).
Labels: concepts, state, theory
The military part of the state
Given experience in the USA, it's often easy to forget how big a part of the state the military is. In the US Congress, there are the yearly arguments about the huge military budget, but usually only peripheral, specific projects take the heat. In Mexico, the military has become a vital arm of the government within the country. And it's not a sparkling success. The government and the regime are threatened by the failures.
Mexico army's failures hamper drug warFour years and 50,000 troops into President Felipe Calderon's drug war, the fighting has exposed severe limitations in the Mexican army's ability to wage unconventional warfare, tarnished its proud reputation…
The army's shortcomings have complicated the government's struggle against the narcotics cartels…
The military has delivered important victories to the government by killing or capturing several senior cartel figures and confiscating large drug shipments. And the decision to put retired and active army officers in charge of police departments around the country has helped bring relative quiet to some violence-plagued cities, such as Tijuana.
But in places such as Ciudad Juarez, where Calderon has staked his political reputation, the death toll... skyrocketed [in 2010]. Seven of every 10 stores have been forced to shut down… and nearly a quarter of a million people have fled the city in the last two years…
"Mexicans are paying a high price … for a strategy that does not seem to have much impact," said Roderic Ai Camp, an expert on the Mexican military at Claremont McKenna College. "It is not reducing drug consumption in the U.S., it is not reducing drug-related income for the trafficking organizations, nor is it reducing their influence in other activities," such as kidnapping and people-smuggling...
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available at Amazon.com or from the publisher (where shipping is always free).
Labels: capacity, legitimacy, Mexico, state
The obsolescence of the Westphalian nation state
While you're accessing
Foreign Affairs to read about social media and civil society, you might want to also check out Jessica T. Mathews' article describing how nation states are being sidelined in today's global politics and economics.
Mathews is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
[The nation-state may be obsolete in an internetted world. Increasingly, the resources and threats that matter disregard governments and borders. States are sharing powers that defined their sovereignty with corporations, international bodies, and a proliferating universe of citizens groups. The bond markets must be satisfied or capital will go elsewhere. International involvement in domestic crises is a growth industry. Activists fight battles in cyberspace for every imaginable cause-and the nation-state gives in. The ramifications of this power shift will be seismic.]
Power ShiftTHE RISE OF GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY
The end of the Cold War has brought no mere adjustment among states but a novel redistribution of power among states, markets, and civil society. National governments are not simply losing autonomy in a globalizing economy. They are sharing powers -- including political, social, and security roles at the core of sovereignty -- with businesses, with international organizations, and with a multitude of citizens groups, known as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The steady concentration of power in the hands of states that began in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia is over, at least for a while.
The absolutes of the Westphalian system -- territorially fixed states where everything of value lies within some state's borders; a single, secular authority governing each territory and representing it outside its borders; and no authority above states -- are all dissolving. Increasingly, resources and threats that matter, including money, information, pollution, and popular culture, circulate and shape lives and economies with little regard for political boundaries. International standards of conduct are gradually beginning to override claims of national or regional singularity. Even the most powerful states find the marketplace and international public opinion compelling them more often to follow a particular course...
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
The Fourth Edition of What You Need to Know is available at Amazon.com or from the publisher (where shipping is always free).
Labels: change, concepts, state
What is a state? a nation-state? a country?
I used to use a lesson that asked students to determine the differences between and similarities among countries and multi-national corporations. It was a thought-provoking exercise.
Similarly, the editors at
The Economist ask us to think about what we mean when we say "country." It's a reminder of why political science asks us to be precise in our terminology. It's also a reminder of the ambiguity involved in comparative politics. (Remember
Ambiguity and nuance?) So, what is your definition of a country? a state? a nation-state? a nation?
In quite a state How many countries in the world? The answer to that question is surprisingly difficult
APPLY online for visa-free entry to the United States and the Department for Homeland Security offers 251 choices for “country where you live”. The wide but rum selection includes Bouvet Island, an uninhabitable icy knoll belonging to Norway in the South Atlantic; South Yemen (which stopped being a state in 1990); and the “Neutral Zone”—a diamond-shaped bit of desert between Saudi Arabia and Iraq that vanished after the 1991 Gulf war.
That is the trouble with such lists. Places that are not real states at all end up on them. And places that approximate a bit more closely to countries (at least in their own eyes) may be absent. America’s list, for example, excludes Abkhazia and South Ossetia, self-proclaimed states that broke away from Georgia with Russian backing…
Private-sector lists are just as odd as those compiled by governments. Hotmail offers 242 “countries/territories” from which you can register an e-mail account. Web-savvy penguins may be pleased that Bouvet Island is on the list. But human beings in Kosovo (recognised by 65 states) and Western Sahara (more than 80) will search in vain for their homeland.
Any attempt to find a clear definition of a country soon runs into a thicket of exceptions and anomalies. Diplomatic recognition is clearly not much guide to real life…
If diplomatic recognition is not the main thing that marks out a country, what does? Is it the ability to issue passports that are of some use to the holder, or simply actual control of a stretch of land? Again, the picture is cloudy. Legitimacy, physical control and the capacity to issue documents that other people accept don’t always coincide. For example, lots of countries that do not recognise Kosovo accept travellers bearing its passports...
[P]resence or absence from the UN is [not] much help to anyone seeking clarity. Israel joined the world body in 1949, but 19 of its 192 members do not accept the Jewish state’s existence…
A German thinker, Max Weber, defined statehood as “the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence”. That may be a practical approach but it doesn’t end the confusion. Chaotic Somalia spectacularly fails to meet this criterion, yet still counts as a sovereign state…
How far a populated patch of land qualifies as a country is ultimately a subjective question for politicians; it will never be settled by lawyers in a way that everybody accepts. And the fact that there are degrees of recognition—ranging from full diplomatic ties to virtually denying a state’s existence—gives governments a calibrated set of tools which can be used to reward good behaviour and penalise bad.
And whatever diplomatic theory says, life goes on. Taiwan is celebrating a friendly resolution from the European Parliament, and dishing out aid to Haiti. Kosovo rents dialling codes from Monaco and Slovenia. A football championship for teams from unrecognised countries is due to start next month in Malta. And a delegation of senior politicians from Somaliland had a friendly meeting at the White House on April 3rd. Presumably they had squared things with immigration control.
Teaching Comparative blog
entries are indexed.
Find out What You Need to Know
Labels: concepts, state
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
