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You are here: Home / Archives for Politics

Politics

This is the year of the nationalist reckoning

February 19, 2018 by Dr Pablo de Orellana

By Dr Pablo de Orellana, King’s College London

 

Lega posters for the upcoming 2018 Italian Election (Photo credit leganord.org)

Nationalism is back. In the last two years, nationalists have conquered the core of conventional politics in an electoral resurgence that has brought it back from the fringes. Its support, discourses and arguments draw on old logics but directly address grievances born out of global effects of the economic revolution that begun in the 1980s. While 2017 saw the consolidation of nationalist successes in the West, 2018 will see their ideas put to the test.

Nationalism is now a dominant political paradigm. In 2015 I predicted that identity politics and especially nationalism would burst into the global mainstream. In 2016, nationalist ideas were by far the most successful political offering, able to explain grievances including unemployment, future prospects, poverty and social change while suggesting solutions predicated on identity. The vote for Brexit and Trump’s victory also show that mainstream politics failed to address such grievances, particularly poverty. Furthermore, besides bringing some nationalists to power, in cases like the UK, France and Italy, nationalist ideas have conquered traditionally democratic establishment parties. In non-democratic states like Russia and China, nationalism is reinforcing their rulers’ grip on power, which might otherwise have run short on legitimacy and support.

As the short film accompanying this article explains, the core premise of nationalism is that if “patriots” win power, rights and services should be allocated on the basis of identity. Nationalists vary in their definition of identity, from citizenship to religion, race or ethnicity. Some nationalists define identity on the basis of biological differences, which is why the body can be so important for nationalist ideas of identity. Furthermore, this impacts on ideas of gender, with some nationalists, particularly in populist movements, drawing on biologically-framed arguments to determine the social or political role of genders. In this worldview, identity struggle is the result of “natural” difference, which is how nationalists can conflate patriotism with nationalism while accusing critics of treason. As seen in Poland over recent months, the radicalisation of such ideas can seriously jeopardise democracy. It is also crucial to note that nationalism is an extremely flexible political paradigm, able to live under right-wing as well as left-wing political umbrellas.

Nationalism has changed since its previous mid 19th and 20th century incarnations. A crucial difference in terms of political practice and dynamics is that nationalist electoral forces like Vote Leave in Britain, Republicans in the US, Front National in France and Forza Italia in Italy have come to depend on alignment or direct coalitions with loose extremist coalitions such as Leave.EU, the Alt-Right, Génération Identitaire and La Lega, which add vital votes to extremely narrow electoral margins. The international outlook of this generation of nationalists is not simply reducible to isolationism. Rather, it seeks to reshape international relations to allow “natural” identity conflict – read as Darwinian struggle for survival – to determine winners and losers. The antisemitism that characterised previous waves of nationalism has been replaced by anti-immigration sentiment and especially islamophobia. The consolidation of transnational alliances like the Europe of Nations and Freedom coalition between nationalist parties shows that, like the liberal, feminist and socialist ideals they revile, nationalism is also a remarkably transnational force.

2017 was the year of nationalist consolidation. Internationally, four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are now nationalists: Trump continued his conquest of Republicanism while overtly emboldening identitarian extremists and May’s Brexit has to a great extent became an anti-immigration endeavour. In France, however, while Le Pen convinced a staggering 33% of the French electorate, rival Macron decisively defeated her with 60% of the vote. Front National’s results in the subsequent parliamentary elections (8 MPs out of 577) show that French voters have rejected nationalism as a viable option for government. It is, however, likely that FN’s abeyance will to a great extent depend on Macron’s and possibly the EU’s performance in the near future. 2017 also witnessed mainstream politicians jumping on the “dragon of nationalism” for their own goals. The appeal of populist expressions of nationalism and movements has not only been evident in the US and France, but also elsewhere in Europe where it is having significant effects on all sides of the political debate. In Germany, the electoral surge of Alternative für Deutschland in the 2017 Federal Elections has led to attempts by mainstream parties to shift their policies towards the nationalist offering. In Italy, the current electoral campaign is witnessing the farce of Berlusconi proposing himself as a moderate while simultaneously promising to deport 600,000 migrants and disputing the elections in coalition with the extremist Lega and Fratelli d’Italia. A key development showing the broader appeal of nationalist politics in the last two years is the attachment of other agendas to a variety of nationalist ideas. In Britain, the Gove/Johnson wing of the Conservatives and the Corbynite side of Labour both regard Brexit as an opportunity to further their ideological models of the state, economy and society.

Nationalist rebels are no longer confined to fringe parties. In 2018, nationalists in power will need to prove that their solutions work or find ways to explain failure. It will be worth keeping a close watch on the success of Trump’s tax reforms and anti-immigration measures, whether difficulties in Brexit negotiations outweigh Brexiteer national liberation optimism, and the continued role of anti-immigration sentiment in polls such as Italy’s general election in March. Italy, still mired in the overtly racist debate as to the political rights of Italian blood, is also an excellent example of how the simple politics of birth and blood rights triumph in the face of complex economic problems and the failure or incapacity of mainstream politics to address them. In France, while Macron’s 2017 election is regarded as a centrist victory, Le Pen will indubitably benefit should he fail to address urgent grievances or please the complex “neither left nor right” coalition that brought him to power.

Crucially, the success of nationalists will not be assessed as an objective truth. As Trump, Putin, and the Brexiteers showed, one of the greatest successes of the contemporary nationalists is to link truth to identity rather than fact, expertise, reliability or science and treat criticism as sabotage or fake news. That is, as we have seen with Trump’s unwavering supporters, the believability of politicians will be determined by their identitarian credentials. In my assessment, this will aggravate the bubble effect where believability is determined by identity and political tribalism, leading to further radicalisation.

Much depends on the extent to which nationalists can address acute economic and social grievances on the ground as well as the sinking hopelessness for the future felt by the young. They might, as Trump has done over the past year, claim betrayal as an excuse for delay or failure. Ultimately, the future rests on whether the loose and small electoral constituencies forged by nationalists continue to believe in identity birthright as a political paradigm.

 

Nationalism: tales of love, fear, and hatred
A short documentary that explores the re-emergence of nationalism in our time, explaining how it works, why is it so powerful, and why it has returned. Written by Dr Pablo de Orellana of King’s College London and directed by Fernanda Marin of OuiShare Paris, the film introduces identityhunters.org, a student-led initiative to analyse and explore nationalist ideas and politics around the world.

 

 


 

Dr Pablo de Orellana is a Fellow of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and Co-Chair of the KCL Research Centre in International Relations. His research focuses on nationalism, identity politics and its effects on diplomacy and public political discourse. His Twitter handle is @drdeorellana. For more information about his research and teaching, please visit https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/people/teachingfellows/deorellana.aspx

 


 

Image Source

Banner: http://www.leganord.org/politiche2018 

Image 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU_cIAJn91M&feature= 

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: Brexit, feature, Identity, nationalism, Politics

Why Colombia’s Referendum Result Poses an Opportunity for Peace

October 12, 2016 by Charlotte Manson

By: Charlotte Manson

The ‘No’ vote in Colombia should be viewed as an opportunity to secure an inclusive agreement for a durable peace.
The ‘No’ vote in Colombia should be viewed as an opportunity to secure an inclusive agreement for a durable peace.

Results from Sunday’s referendum in Colombia have been described as astonishing and disappointing that will potentially throw the country into tumultuous uncertainty. Many journalists leapt to compare Brexit and recent referendums in Hungary and Thailand with Colombia denouncing the use of referendums as “messy, dangerous and not as democratic as they may seem”  and as political tools for leaders. Other commentators pointed out that despite their rising popularity, referendums are continuously producing an unexpected and unintended result due to the problematic nature of reducing complex issues to a binary choice.

Yes, there are risks with referendums but there is one essential difference in the Colombian conflict as El Pais points out, “there are weapons involved.” In other words, the rejection of the referendum in Colombia should not necessarily lead to a rejection of using referendums to make peace.

The result of the vote on Colombia’s peace process by 50.2% – 49.8% with a voter turnout of 37.4% on Sunday 2nd October is therefore a wake-up call. This outcome was a declination of the particular deal that emerged from the peace process. Mass demonstrations have taken place across the country since the vote results were announced, demanding that the peace be salvaged, preventing any return to war. Both the Government and FARC have repeatedly vowed to maintain the ceasefire and press on with negotiations. Yet Colombia’s former President and leader of the ‘No’ camp, Alvaro Uribe has made clear that he wishes to amend the existing deal but he has ruled out any direct participation in talks with FARC rebels. A large number of Colombians remain sceptical of the current terms in the existing peace deal, hoping that Uribe will push for a tougher stance on prosecution and punishment of FARC members. The guerrilla group’s leader Rodrigo Lodono – better known under his alias as Timochenko – has the added pressure of having to sell the peace accord to all FARC members in order to avoid dissident activity. However, can the setback of the ‘No’ vote thus pose an opportunity for peace?

First, if peace negotiations are not inclusive, they will not produce a positive result. As negotiations in Northern Ireland prior to 1998 proved, excluded voices will find alternative ways to espouse their opinion. Uribe has thus far been exempt from all peace negotiations despite leading the “No” camp with support from millions of Colombians. His voice, along with his supporters who reject the current peace process, came to the fore through the referendum result.

Within days of the ‘no’ vote, President Santos and the FARC rebels announced that Uribe needs to be at the negotiation table. Speaking in the Senate, Uribe said his party “has the will for dialogue”, while President Santos has selected three negotiators for bilateral talks with Uribe’s Democratic Centre party. Going forward with the peace process, the inclusion of members of Uribe’s party will allow for more hard-line opinions, much of which the charismatic Uribe represents, to be represented in the negotiations. Still it remains to be seen whether Uribe sustains the willingness to enter talks with FARC.

However, President Santos has managed to make strides in re-engaging with the country’s second largest left-wing, rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN). Earlier this week, he announced that the Government-ELN formal talks will begin on 3 November 2016 in Quito, Ecuador after three years of stalemate. Earlier negotiations with the 2000-strong ELN were markedly different to talks with FARC as high-profile ELN-kidnapping activities forced the Government to cut off all discussions in May of this year. Although the rebel-group still hold a number of prisoners captive, recent prisoner releases – including Spanish journalist Salud Hernandez Mora – are viewed as a signal of the ELN’s desire to be involved in the peace negotiations. Thus it is the inclusivity of all future negotiations that is the deal-breaker. The referendum result provides the chance to correct this mistake.  

Second, peace is not automatic even if overwhelming support is secured. Imagine the result of the vote had been different and the majority (50.2% based on the results of the recent referendum) of people voted ‘Yes’ – would it be fair for the peace agreement to be ratified despite 49.8% of voters rejecting the terms of peace plus more than 50% abstained voters?

In Northern Ireland, 71.1% of people voted ‘Yes’ in the Good Friday referendum of 1998. Despite significant changes that have occurred since, the power-sharing government in Belfast still faces serious challenges and 98 physical peace walls exist in Belfast today. In South Sudan an overwhelming majority of 98.8% voted for independence in 2011 ending Africa’s longest running civil war. Yet five years on, the euphoria of peace has perished as the country is embroiled in civil war, with millions of internally displaced persons and chaotic power-sharing governance

Remarkably, a minimum of 13% of the 4.4 million registered voters was required for the accord to be ratified. For such a decision after 52-years of conflict, the people need to have their say on a peace accord negotiated by the few. But the task of securing peace in any post-conflict society is formidable, even when majority support for peace is secured.

Third, finding out why people voted as they did is very important going forward, besides cumbersome weather conditions. Abstention in Colombia’s elections is usually higher than 50% – recent presidential elections saw 59.9% turnout – and the 37.4% turnout on Sunday is lower than was widely expected.

As Annette Idler correctly pointed out a substantial part of the Colombian population demonstrated with their votes they are ready to join ‘Pact of Reconciliation’ – it was just not enough to constitute a peace deal for all Colombians. But what about those who abstained, and did not put forward their opinion on the peace deal?

Civil society should organise, promote open dialogue and establish an equitable presence in the media. Uribe has the advantage of securing consistent media coverage due to his political machine and negotiations between the Government and FARC are rigorously followed by both Colombian and international media. There are diverse opinions in Colombia and as the high-level negotiators discuss the most contentious points, so too should civil society take part in the conversation.

Fourth, when analysing the geographic distribution of the vote, there is a large rural-urban divide in Colombia. Those further away from the zones of FARC activity, and those residing in urban areas voted ‘No’, with the exception of voters in Bogotá. In stark contrast, the country’s peripheries include many of the hardest hit provinces hardest hit by the ongoing FARC violence – for example those whom experienced bombings, hostage-taking and murders. Colombian newspaper La Silla Vacia reported that 67 of the 81 municipalities most affected by the conflict voted Yes in the referendum. In the town of Bojayá, where one of the FARC worst massacres was carried out in 2002 – after a rocket hit a church where more than 117 people sought refuge, all of whom were killed – the Yes vote won by 96%.

Colombia is highly divided on the issue of negotiating the conditions for peace, and it’s no wonder. The scale of the task towards reaching peace is immense: demobilisation, disarmament, reintegration, options of transitional justice, acceptance of FARC in everyday society including holding elected public office, scaling down the lucrative $30bn cocaine trade and the vast criminal networks associated with FARC.

No peace process allows for winners and losers, it is a compromise. Therefore all Colombians, particularly those at the negotiating table, are being tested on their commitment to ending the violence. So the setback from the referendum can be turned into an advantage. Reconciliation does not occur overnight and this referendum setback is part of the long process.

Therefore trust is key right now. Trust in the process, in the negotiators, in FARC sticking to their word, and in Santos and Uribe placing their personal and political differences aside and instilling confidence in the public, so that all parties are committed to moving forward. The potential for the peace process to ultimately result in an agreement that all sides can adhere to remains, despite the setback in the recent referendum. Indeed, when the Nobel Peace Prize Committee handed out the Prize to President Santos on Friday 7th October the Committee stressed “the fact that a majority of the voters said No to the peace accord does not necessarily mean that the peace process is dead”.

Colombia held a peaceful referendum ending in a disappointing result. Yet there are so many opportunities for Santos, Timochenko, Uribe, civil society and all other stakeholders to get a better deal in which the majority of Colombians can accept. The ‘No’ vote should be viewed as an opportunity to secure an inclusive agreement for a durable peace.

 

 

Charlotte Manson is a conflict resolution specialist having worked on peace-building and reconciliation projects in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Bahrain, Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories. She obtained a MA War Studies from KCL and is a Graduate of Sciences Po Paris and the University of Glasgow. Charlotte is currently a Policy Advisor in the European Parliament working on the Brexit negotiations following the UK’s referendum on the EU. You can follow her on Twitter @cemanson27.

 

 

Notes:

[1] ‘Why Referendums Aren’t as Democratic as They Seem’ New York Times October 4 2016; http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/world/americas/colombia-brexit-referendum-farc-cameron-santos.html

[2] ‘Colombia, like the UK, just sabotaged itself through a referendum The Independent, October 4 2016; http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/colombia-farc-brexit-referendum-sabotaged-itself-a7344866.html

[3] ‘Why Referendums are problematic yet more popular than ever’ The Guardian, October 6 2016; https://www.theguardian.com/politics/political-science/2016/oct/06/why-referendums-are-problematic-yet-more-popular-than-ever

[4] ‘Embattled Colombian government fights to save FARC peace deal’ El Pais, October 4 2016; http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/04/inenglish/1475582361_630819.html?rel=mas

[5] ‘Why the Colombian peace agreement failed, and what we can expect now’ The Washington Post, October 4 2016; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/04/why-the-colombia-peace-agreement-failed-and-what-we-can-expect-now/

[6] ‘Thousands march for peace in Bogotá and throughout Colombia’ The City Paper Bogotá, October 6 2016; https://thecitypaperbogota.com/news/massive-peace-march-takes-over-bogota/14834

[7] ‘Colombia’s peace deal in limbo after shock referendum’ Reuters, October 3 2016; http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1230BH

[8] Colombia’s Santos rival Uribe willing to work on peace deal’ Reuters October 6 2016; http://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-peace-idUSKCN1251MX

[9]  ‘Colombie: la paix, les FARC et la <<théorie du genre>>’ Le Monde October 6 2016; http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2016/10/06/colombie-la-paix-les-farc-et-la-theorie-du-genre_5009083_3222.html

[10] ‘Defeat of FARC pact puts focus on Alvaro Uribe’s next step’ The Financial Times October 5 2016; https://www.ft.com/content/26149bda-8ac8-11e6-8cb7-e7ada1d123b1

[11] ‘Colombie: Santos et Uribe tentent de sauver l’accord de paix avec les FARC’ France 24 October 6 2016; http://www.france24.com/fr/20161006-juan-manuel-santos-alvaro-uribe-accord-paix-farc-guerilla-referendum

[12] ‘Colombia to begin formal peace talks with ELN in November while salvaging deal with FARC’ The City Paper Bogotá October 11 2016; https://thecitypaperbogota.com/news/colombia-to-begin-formal-talks-with-eln-in-november/14912

[13] Colombia ELN rebels free Spanish journalist Hernandez Mora BBC News May 28 2016; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36403957

[14] Results of the Referenda in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, Friday 22 May 1998, Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN) Ulster University; http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/election/ref1998.html

[15] Official Southern Sudan Referendum 2011 Results, ; http://southernsudan2011.com/

[16] ‘Colombia’s president rushing vote on deal with rebels’ The Washington Post August 25 2016; https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/colombia-farc-rebels-reach-deal-to-end-half-century-war/2016/08/24/3d15425e-6a5b-11e6-91cb-ecb5418830e9_story.html

[17] ‘Colombia’s Referendum: Low Turnout and Activist Minorities’ Security Praxis October 3 2016; http://www.security-praxis.eu/article/colombia-referenda-low-turnout-activist-minorities/

[18] ‘Colombia Referendum: Voters reject FARC peace deal’ BBC News October 3 2016; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37537252

[19] ‘Así es el país que votó No’ La Silla Vacía October 5 2016; http://lasillavacia.com/hagame-el-cruce/asi-es-el-pais-que-voto-no-58201

[20] ‘Colombia War Brings Carnage to Village Altar’ New York Times May 9 2002; http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/09/world/colombia-war-brings-carnage-to-village-altar.html?pagewanted=all

[21] ‘Colombia’s proof that democracy doesn’t work’ New York Times, October 7 2016;http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/sunday/colombias-proof-that-democracy-doesnt-work.html

[22] ‘The lessons of Colombia’s extraordinary peace process’ BBC News, September 29 2016; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37498940

[23] ‘Nobel Peace Prize for Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos’ BBC News, October 7 2016 ; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-37585188

[24] Image Source:  http://topsy.fr/hashtag.php?q=%23PazColombia

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: colombia, FARC, feature, Politics, referendum, Voting

Resource-Induced Conflicts, Part IV: Society, Resources, and Conflict in Yemen

September 21, 2016 by Charles Schmitz

By: Dr. Charles Schmitz

amazing-yemen-picture

In Yemen, natural resources do not cause conflicts, people do.  The relationship between natural resources and people is mediated by society such that a simple, causal relationship between resource abundance or scarcity and conflict does not exist.  In Yemen, scarcity does not cause conflict; in fact, a better case might be made for the reverse, namely that conflict causes scarcity.  Conflict drives investment and capital away from the country, destroys productive infrastructure, debilitates the state, and prevents the sustainable management of resources.

Talk of natural resource scarcity in Yemen focuses on oil and water.  In the 2000s, Yemen’s economy and government depended heavily upon oil revenues.  About a third of economic output and three quarters of government revenue came from oil.[1]  But oil production peaked in 2002 and has declined steadily ever since.[2]  What is more, Sana’a is often described as the first capital in the world to run out of water.  Water levels in aquifers around the city and elsewhere in Yemen are dropping precipitously. Oil production is falling and water resources are dwindling and in 2015, Yemen collapsed into a devastating civil war. While natural resource scarcity appears to coincide with conflict, the causal relationship between scarcity and conflict is difficult to support.

Unnatural Scarcity

In Yemen, the political dynamics of the Saleh regime created scarcity by driving investment away from the country and failing to manage Yemen’s assets. Yemenis and foreign advisors alike were well aware of two fundamental realities. Firstly, Yemen’s oil and water resources were limited. Secondly, like some of the oil economies of the Gulf States – such as Bahrain, Oman, or even Saudi Arabia today – Yemen needed to invest its revenues from oil to harness the labour of Yemeni’s in economic activities that could produce wealth in a post hydrocarbon economy. Yet the Saleh regime used the economy not for enhancing Yemen’s productive capacities, but for bolstering its political position. It created informal political barriers to entry that allotted key positions atop the private economy to a select group of families; those not included invested their money elsewhere. The lack of private sector development outside of the hydrocarbon sector meant that when oil revenues declined, the economy was not equipped to offer alternative means of making a living. Additionally, the regime also exacerbated tribal and political conflicts preventing the sustainable management of water resources. Thus, the political strategy of the Saleh regime drove the economy into the ground, and created unnatural scarcity by failing to manage Yemen’s resource assets.

The Politics of Aridity

While it is true that water resources in Yemen are very limited, water is also a renewable resource. The majority of Yemen’s water comes from rain, which – given its geographic location astride the Indian Ocean and its mountainous terrain in the West – is plentiful. In addition to the rain, Yemenis exploited groundwater by digging wells. Beginning in the 1950s, but greatly expanding in the 1970s, bore wells enabled Yemenis to exploit groundwater at far greater depths. While traditional social institutions had been developed to regulate the water rights for farmers and herdsmen, they were ill-equipped to monitor and regulate the emerging bore wells that allowed much faster withdrawal rates. Thus, the country’s water problem is not the absence of water, but rather the inability to manage the available resources. In this case, scarcity is a matter of management and state capacity, not a lack of water.[3] When water is managed in a manner that takes into account the technological developments of the last half-century, Yemen’s water resources will consequently be restored.

Additionally, water is not a driver of conflict, at least not directly. Those that make Malthusian arguments about water in Yemen point to violent disputes over wells. While it is true that tribal groups do fight one another over the control of wells, water is not the sole focus of tribal conflict. Rather, the increase in tribal conflict was driven by the politics of the Saleh regime that exacerbated armed conflict in general in the northern highlands.

While tribes in Yemen are long standing traditional institutions that mediate conflict, the fractured nature of tribal society is also prone to conflict.[4] In the far north of Yemen, Saleh used tribal conflict to his advantage.[5] He ruled by the politics of chaos rather than direct control, supporting opposing groups in order to cause and nourish conflict, thereby preventing them from uniting in opposition to his regime.[6]- [7] Thus, conflict among tribes was not caused by resource scarcity, but by a conscious political strategy of the Saleh regime, particularly in the northern highlands. In a slightly different analysis, Lichtenthaeler shows how disputes over land and water in the northern governorate of Sa’adah were driven not only by population increase, but also by the attempts of the regime to alter the political composition of the region’s landowners by installing elements supportive of Saleh.[8]

Oil and Conflict

In our global economy, the relationship between people and the environment is mediated by markets. So while it is true that the quantity of oil produced in Yemen peaked in 2002 and declined every year since, government revenues rose dramatically in the post peak period. Average government revenue from exports of crude oil from 2003 to 2014 was 2.9 billion USD, whereas in 2002 revenues were 1.6 billion USD. Only in 2014 did government revenue from oil exports return to 2002 levels.[9]

The timing of the rise and fall of these oil revenues is important because those making Malthusian arguments for Yemen might point to the correspondence of the decline in oil production with the distinct episodes of conflict in Yemen’s recent history: a secession attempt in the south in 1994; an insurgency in the north from 2004 to 2010; a stubborn civil disobedience movement in the south from 2007; the overthrow of the regime of Ali Abdallah Saleh in 2011; a campaign against al-Qaeda in the south in 2012; and a civil war beginning in 2015 and still raging today. These episodes of violence, with the exception of the war of 1994, do correspond to declines in oil production, but they do not correspond to any scarcity of government resources or recession in the economy. In fact, oil revenues for the government and for the economy were highest in the period of the highest instability: 2004-2011. Thus, something other than resource scarcity was driving these violent outbreaks, namely political conflict over power and the nature of the state.

The war of 1994 is an important example because it is sometimes explained by arguing that the driver of the war was natural resources. However, the war of 1994 resulted from leadership disputes between the former rulers of the southern People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and the northern Yemen Arab Republic. The two republics were Cold War enemies, but the collapse of the Soviet Union allowed their leaderships to negotiate an agreement for unification. The agreement created a transitional government with equal power sharing while a new constitution was drafted for the united Yemen. The understanding of the leadership of the (much smaller demographically) southern state was that the two former ruling parties would form a coalition government following elections. However, the northern ruling party decided instead to form a coalition government with a third Islamic party in the north that was hostile to the southern socialist leadership.

In the interim period between the unification of Yemen in 1990 and the elections of 1993, significant oil was discovered in the region of the former southern state. Thus, some argued that the driver of the war was northern fear that the south would secede with its newfound oil wealth — a classic resource war. While oil revenues may have enticed the former ruler of the south to attempt secession and thereby secure the survival of his state, the war was not between the north and the south; it was between those that supported unification and those that supported secession. In the south, support for secession was not strong, as many distrusted the old socialist leadership and preferred to live under the liberal state (at the time) of unified Yemen. Moreover, half of the Yemeni Socialist Party also rejected the attempt at secession. In January 1986, the ruling YSP had been rocked by an extremely violent internecine conflict. The losing faction of the YSP and its associated military units fled to the northern Yemen Arab Republic. In the war of 1994, these southern refugees in the north led the war against the secession attempt. Their motivation was revenge. Among the military commanders of the southern forces supporting unity was Hadi, a southerner from the Abyan Governorate and the current president of Yemen. Thus the war was not a case of northerners taking over the south, but northerners and southerners determining the nature of the state and its leadership.

Similarly, the uprising in the south that began in 2007 was not a result of resource scarcity, but a failure of the political strategies of the Saleh regime. Following the war of secession in 1994, Saleh tried to build support in the south. However, rather than rebuilding southern politics, northern supporters of Saleh treated the south as war booty to be plundered. Southerners, including those who rejected secession in 1994, were consequently marginalized; a fate that led them to overcome their many differences in 2007 and unite in opposition to Saleh.

Significantly, the protests in the south came at a time when the Saleh regime was wealthier than ever. In 2006, revenues from state export of crude oil reached four billion USD.  In 2007, revenues slid to three billion, but in 2008, state revenues from oil exports reached a record 4.5 billion USD [see charts]. The Yemeni state had more resources than ever, yet irrepressible conflict flared. Saleh tried to use his resources to calm the south by reinstating many southern military officers that had been dismissed after 1994. But the grievances ran deeper than Saleh’s patronage could mollify. Thus, when the state coffers were overflowing, protests raged – scarcity or abundance did not cause conflict, the state’s behaviour did.

Current Conflict

In the current conflict in Yemen, it was the conflict itself that shut down oil exports and drove the economy into the ground. And while natural resources may have played some role (for example, the Houthi movement overran Sana’a with the promise to roll back cuts in government subsidies to oil products), the primary driver is the ambition of the former ruler of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Saleh, now allied with the leader of the Houthi movement, Abd al-Malek al-Houthi, to rule the country. Pitted against their ambitions is the hawkish regime of King Salman in Saudi Arabia who accuses them of facilitating Iran’s influence in Yemen. The Saudi air campaign and the naval blockade of the country crushed what remained of the oil economy and led to dramatic declines in the standard of living as well as a massive humanitarian crisis.

There is, however, one way through which scarcity drives the current conflict: poverty and desperation drives young men to enlist in the many different militias of the competing warlords.  The Saudi regime (by proxy), Ali Abdallah Saleh, the Houthi controlled state, and al-Qaeda in the south all pay young men to join the fight. Were these young men not desperate to feed themselves and their families, Yemen’s warring leadership would have much greater difficulty filling the ranks of their militias, and a negotiated settlement would be much easier to accomplish.

The Yemen case shows that the relationship between natural resources and people is mediated by society, and that it is the people that drive conflict rather than resources. In some circumstances, conflicts occur along with resource scarcity, but in other circumstances, resource scarcity accompanies social harmony. People and their politics are the key variables, not the abundance or scarcity of natural resources.

graph-1-yemen

graph-2-yemen

 

 

Charles Schmitz is a professor of Geography and a specialist on Yemen at Towson University in Baltimore, MD, USA.

 

 

Notes:

[1] Central Statistical Organization (2012), “Annual Yearbook,” Sana’a: Republic of Yemen.

[2] Energy Information Agency (2016), “Yemen,” Washington DC: US Government http://www.eia.gov/beta/international/country.cfm?iso=YEM

[3] Lichtenthaeler, Gerhard (2010) “Water Cooperation and Conflict in Yemen,” MERIP Vol 40, no. 254; Schmitz, Charles (2013), “Geography,” in Steve Caton (ed.), Yemen, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO

[4] Dresch, Paul (1990), “Imams and Tribes: The Writing and Acting of History in Yemen,” Khoury, Phillip, and Joseph Kostiner (eds), Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 287

[5] Adel Sharjabi ed. (2009), The Castle and the Chamber: the political role of the tribe in Yemen. Sana`a: Yemeni Human Rights Observer (Arabic)

[6] Blumi, Isa (2011), Chaos in Yemen: Societal Collapse and the New Authoritarianism, New York: Routledge

[7] Phillips, Sarah (2011), Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, London: Adelphi Books

[8] Lichtenthaeler, Gerhard (2003) Political Ecology and the Role of Water: Environment, Economy, and Society in Northern Yemen, Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company

[9] Central Bank of Yemen (2015), “Monetary & Banking Developments,” January 2015, http://www.centralbank.gov.ye/App_Upload/Jan2015.pdf

[10] Hill, Ginny and Peter Salisbury (2015) Yemen: Corruption, Capital Flight, and Global Drivers of Conflict, Washington DC: Brookings Institute Press

[11] Alley, April (2010) “The Rules of the Game: Unpacking Patronage in Yemen,” Middle East Journal Vol. 64, No. 3, Summer 2010.

Image Source: http://www.zamzamwater.org/yemen-details.php

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: feature, Politics, Resource Conflicts, Water Politics, Yemen

Book Review: Bremmer, Ian (2015), Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World

August 15, 2016 by Alexandria Reid

Reviewed by: Alexandria Reid

Bremmer, I. Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World, ( London: Portfolio Penguin), 2015. ISBN:978 0 24121 677 4

051615bremmer1_1280x720

In his latest book, written with America’s 2016 election in mind, policy pundit and LinkedIn favourite Ian Bremmer laid out three competing visions of America’s future role in the world. Deliberately written in layman’s terms, he asked Americans to consider foreign policy when casting their vote. To aid this process, he included what one reviewer dubbed the kind of multiple choice quiz that belongs in an issue of Cosmo at the start of the book. [1] It is the kind of quiz that might be used to assess your personality and tell you which moisturiser to buy accordingly, except instead of your star sign, he wants to know your views on China’s threat to America, the concept of American leadership and ‘America’s biggest problem in the Middle East’. [2]

Offering an unforgiving portrait of Obama’s foreign policy strategy – or lack thereof – Bremmer argues that today’s ‘Question Mark America’ is causing allies and enemies alike to take unnecessary and destabilising geopolitical risks. America is not yet fully in decline, he diagnoses, but Obama’s foreign policy improvisation threatened to change that. Published before anyone had seriously toyed with the previously unfathomable rise of Donald Trump, Bremmer wanted the electorate to put an end to the indecision of America’s post-Cold War presidents by demanding a clear foreign policy strategy from the 2016 candidates. With Trump’s populist foreign policy revealed, perhaps now he regrets ever asking?

Bremmer’s diagnosis of a declining America is deceptively simple, instinctively appealing and therefore utterly convincing at first glance. Whether addressing an elusive threshold for intervention in Syria in 2013, or a once-sovereign border in Crimea and Ukraine, the ambiguous nature of U.S. intentions leaves other players unsure where to locate America’s increasingly retrenched line in the sand. Simultaneously, he projects an America that is overstretched, burdened with leadership and receiving none of the benefits that justify taking the risk. Bremmer’s overarching message is that American foreign policy today jeopardises both domestic and international security. Worse still, it’s leading to America’s preventable decline. The prognosis almost goads people to demand not just an outline of a foreign policy strategy, but one which will Make America Great Again.

The remedy for American decline is an informed choice on foreign policy. Once you’ve completed your quiz, Bremmer handily lays out three options to choose from: ‘Indispensable America’, ‘Moneyball America’ and ‘Independent America’.

Indispensable, the most familiar of the three, is in essence a proposal for the reclamation of the post-1945 American leadership role that has been half-abandoned in America’s recent incertitude. Embodying Neoconservative ideals, but deliberately avoiding the pejorative connotations that come with the use of the label, Indispensable America continues to police world order whilst exporting its liberal values. Why should America bear the burden of making the world safe for democracy? Here, Bremmer could have easily answered in the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt; isolationism would lead America to become ‘a lone island in a world dominated by the philosophy of force.’ [3]

Moneyball, by contrast, sees this approach to world affairs as prohibitively expensive in both blood and treasure, and instead advocates ‘a cold-blooded, interest-driven’ strategy akin to that of the Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane after whom Michael Lewis wrote the book ‘Moneyball’. Moneyball America’s interests are defined narrowly, epitomised by the key phrase ‘America’s value, not its values’. Accordingly, its finite resources must be efficiently invested in strategic partnerships, predominantly with China, even at the expense of failing to support democracy abroad or relationship commitments in regions including Europe and the Middle East.

Independent America’s world outlook differs from both alternatives. In one of the more memorable lines of the book Bremmer suggests that ‘[i]t’s time for a new declaration of independence—a proclamation of emancipation from the responsibility to solve everyone else’s problems.’ [4] Much effort is expended to assure the reader that this is not a return to the disastrous isolationism of the 1930s, rather, it is about adopting an unambiguous stance of non-interventionism and leading by example. By making others take responsibility for their own security at last, America can focus on its own values by ‘perfecting democracy at home’, rebuilding American infrastructure and keeping more money in the taxpayers’ pockets. America cannot afford the exceptional role of policing the world, nor should it, because it forces the nation to compromise the liberal constitutional values that made it exceptional in the first place.

Only at the very end does Bremmer reveal that he prefers a foreign policy strategy that delivers an Independent America. Employing the Goldilocks method of decision-making, Bremmer infers that if Indispensable is too expensive and can no longer attract domestic support, and if Moneyball is too secular for a society which still believes in their own exceptionalism, then, in his eyes, Independent America is just right. Picking the option that most resembles a dangerous isolationism might come as a surprise to those who know Bremmer as the founder and President of the Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political risk consultancy.

Bremmer’s personal choice aside, it is the way in which he approaches the debate that should concern anyone reading Superpower. The debate the book hopes to incite is an important one, and candidate and voter alike would benefit from a meaningful and accessible discussion about foreign policy in America today. Yet, this is not what Bremmer offers. Instead, he provides a deeply flawed book which infantilises the reader under the guise of accessibility. This does the reader a disservice because it fails to provide them with the tools of analysis to judge whether Trump or Clinton are capable of actually delivering an Independent or Indispensable America with their outlined policies.

Bremmer’s book might help you decide what you want if you were not sure in the first place, but it will not help you make a reasonable choice about how to get it. By offering three mutually exclusive and easily recognisable categories, Bremmer seeks to eliminate the essence of the grand strategic conundrum that has seen America oscillate between policy characteristic of both Indispensable and Independent America since the end of the Cold War. It is the same conundrum that has left many people to wonder if there has been an ‘Obama Doctrine’, or merely a series of post-hoc rationalisations for a reactionary foreign policy. [5] Yet to an unrealistic degree, Bremmer’s discussion mutes the importance of feasible policy in American grand strategy. This is where Trump’s politics triumph. They promise the unattainable in the pursuit of ‘America first’, exercising flagrant disregard for the constraints of domestic and international politics. [6] Both Trump and Bremmer’s vision of the American domestic project is built on the foundations of a liberal international order that demands American proactivity in ways that contradict their foreign policy analysis. Bremmer’s book encourages the reader to demand what they rightly consider to be their national interests, but offers no roadmap for how to reasonably achieve them in a dynamic and multipolar context.

 

 

Alexandria Reid is a recent graduate of War Studies at King’s College London and recipient of the Sir Michael Howard Award for Best Graduate in BA War Studies. Alex currently works for Strife as a Social Media Coordinator, and as a research assistant for Dr. John Bew. In September she will begin her Master’s education as a Conflict, Security and Development student at KCL. Twitter: @AlexHREID.

 

 

 

Notes:

[1]  Boyes, Roger (27 June 2015), ‘Superpower Three Choices for America’s Role in the World by Ian Bremmer’, The Times, Accessed 5/08/2016, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/non-fiction/article4479814.ece

[2] Bremmer, Ian (2015), Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World (Penguin), pp.1-4

[3] Franklin D. Roosevelt (10 June 1940), ‘Address at the University of Virginia’, Accessed 5/08/2016: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15965

[4] Bremmer (2015), p.50

[5] See, McCoy, Alfred (15 September 2015), ‘The Quiet Grand Strategy of Barack Obama’, The American Conservative, available at: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-quiet-grand-strategy-of-barack-obama/ and Drezner, Daniel (2011), ‘Does Obama Have a Grand Strategy’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 4, pp.57-68, available at: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2011-06-17/does-obama-have-grand-strategy

[6] McCurry, Justin (21 July 2016), ‘Trump says US may not automatically defend Nato allies under attack’, The Guardian, Accessed 5/08/2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/21/donald-trump-america-automatically-nato-allies-under-attack

Image Credit: http://www.wsj.com/video/ian-bremmer-geopolitics-in-an-unstable-world/6FA80445-CFF1-4437-B7BC-E6AE2A9A028D.html

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Blog Article, Book Review Tagged With: Alexandria Reid, America, Book Review, feature, Grand Strategy, Ian Bremmer, Politics, Superpower: Three Choices for America's Role in the World, US Foreign Policy

Find the money-pot: Interagency budgetpolitik and American foreign policy

August 10, 2016 by Jackson Oliver Webster

By Jackson Webster

Washington_Monument_Rainbow

Gee, I wonder how much partner capacity we can build with the gold at the end of that rainbow!

 

In policymaking, as in politics, it’s usually wisest to ‘follow the money.’ This famous tagline of All the President’s Men was of course referring to corruption within the Nixon administration, but the key role played by money-matters in policymaking nonetheless finds its way into the conduct of American foreign policy.

The White House has three main tools at its disposal when dealing with the outside world: The Department of State (DoS), USAID, and the Department of Defense (DoD). Traditionally, State deals in diplomacy, USAID deals in development, and Defense deals in war, however these roles are becoming increasingly intertwined in today’s dynamic environment abroad.

Since the authorization of military assistance to Greece and Turkey in 1948, a process which has come to be known generally as ‘security cooperation’ has, through both accident and design become a mainstay of America’s presence abroad. This ‘security cooperation’ has been authorized by Congress on a piecemeal basis over the decades, and it currently consists of over 80 separate legal ‘authorities’ for delivering assistance to various parts of foreign countries’ security services. Each of these authorities has a separate pot of money from which it receives funding, and the amount of congressional control over each operation varies greatly. Over the past two administrations, this set of programmes has been included in a broader diplomatic initiative which has become a cornerstone of American foreign policy: ‘building partner capacity,’ or BPC. This process is intended to allow “like-minded regional partners” to share the burden of international security in an era of fiscal tightening in the United States.

What these trends amount to is a marked difference in the character of American foreign policy, particularly in terms of the agencies involved in its execution. Immediately following the Second World War, and well into the 1950s, the focus of American foreign policy outside of Korea was the reconstruction of Europe and the extension of Washington’s trade influence through strong Bretton Woods institutions (IMF, World Bank, etc.). Much of this was a ways-and-means issue. The Department of State had a great deal of money in its pockets due to the implementation of the Marshall Plan, as well as the burden of postwar diplomatic initiatives, and had a great degree of federal —especially congressional— attention paid to it as a result.

Since 9/11, the counterterrorism initiatives of the Bush and Obama administrations have caused funding to flow into the Department of Defense. State, on the other hand, has not received an authorization for its operations in 14 years, and thus its budget and responsibilities have remained relatively stagnant. The last time the purse strings for State were examined there was no Facebook, Saddam Hussein was still in power in Iraq, and Donald Trump was only a mediocre businessman without a reality TV show. Broadly speaking, this trend has caused significant mission creep away from the Pentagon’s traditional role and into what the armed forces call “military operations other than war.” The idea of the American arms industry being leveraged as a tool of diplomacy is nothing novel, however what has been a revolutionary change in our foreign policy is the centralization of a major part of our interaction with our allies overseas under the DOD rather than under the diplomatic bureaucracy at Foggy Bottom. While State was once America’s primary instrument abroad, this role has moved across the Potomac into the Pentagon, and DOD has now assumed much of the day-to-day work of maintaining our global network of alliances, in part due to its significantly larger piece of America’s budgetary pie.

The US Senate is currently entertaining a defense authorization bill, sponsored by Senator John McCain (R-AZ), to reform security cooperation and assistance programmes. The reforms contain a near-ludicrous 92 pages of legal jargon which, among other things, diverts a significant amount of money to the direct control of the Secretary of Defense for the purpose of ‘security cooperation’ with our allies. The current estimate is $10 billion for 2017, but during future appropriations and authorizations processes, that number will probably increase.

What this means in terms of US foreign policy is, as noted, an issue of ways-and-means. Should an administration wish to strengthen relations with a given country, solve a diplomatic problem, or confront an adversary, it will use the tool with the most resources at its disposal. In today’s budgetary climate, that’s the DOD, which means the military will continue to be America’s leading method of interaction with the outside world, not State and its civilian foreign service. This disconnect between what the military and its bureaucracy are designed to do and what they’ve recently been asked to accomplish both reinforces and is symptomatic of the funding prioritization of Defense over State. This effects all levels of Defense’s activities, from the Marine asked to “shoot with one hand and pass out aid with the other” to the 4-star combatant commanders asked to accomplish what were once considered diplomatic or development goals with the often blunt instrument of the military. Congress is giving the DOD a lot of money to execute a set of responsibilities of questionable effectiveness for which the military was not designed and which the military itself doesn’t necessarily want to do.

While debate continues inside the Beltway over the strengths and weaknesses of the Senate’s proposed reforms, the most important takeaway from describing this process is the key role played by the congressional appropriations and authorizations process in the conduct of foreign policy. After all, a programme or policy without a large pot of money attached, for all intents and purposes, does not exist. Regardless of whether President Obama chooses to veto this year’s authorization bill or not, the fierce nature of the debate and its eventual consequences for policy are telling of the impact of budgets and bureaucracy on America’s foreign relations. Every programme needs a pot of money, and the politics behind agencies getting their hands on these funds are worthy of study for those wishing to understand why and how the United States does what it does overseas.

 

 

Jackson Webster is a graduate of the Department of War Studies and is currently based in Paris where he is reading for a master’s degree in international security policy from SciencesPo.

 

 

 

Notes:

1) All the Preseident’s Men, Alan J Pakula,1976.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq_4Zlhoj4k

2) Aftergood, Steven. “Assessing “Security Cooperation”, 2015. https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2016/04/security-cooperation/

3) “What is ‘Building Partner Capacity'”, 2015. https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44313.pdf

4) De Long, Bradford, and Barry Eichengreen. “The Marshall Plan: History’s Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program,” National Bureau of Economic Research, 1991. http://www.nber.org/papers/w3899

5) Vinik, Danny. “The State Department Hasn’t Been Authorized in 13 Years.” Politico, Sept. 2015.

6) Graham, David. “The Many Scandals of Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet.” The Atlantic, Jun. 2016.

7) The bill can be accessed here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2943

8) Schubert, Frank. Other Than War. NSC Joint History Office, Washington, DC, 2013.

Image Credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Washington_Monument_Rainbow.JPG

 

Filed Under: Blog Article Tagged With: Department of Defense, feature, Finance, Politics, Security Sector Reform, United States

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