tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21081176602670513282024-03-12T21:15:45.806-07:00Anonymous MugwumpUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-31501303374773060252017-12-29T04:38:00.000-08:002017-12-29T04:38:04.929-08:00Assorted Thoughts #1: Applying Averages<span style="font-family: "calibri";">This series contains some of the
key books, studies, papers and events that I’ve read over the last year. I’ve
decided to try to write one of these posts for two reasons. First,
because as I finish books, I want a record of some the key insights from them
both because it’s useful to refer to and because it might be interesting for
other people to read. Second, because it provides a nice little glimpse into
the topics that keep my occupied in a particular year and allows for me to
track how my thoughts on them develop. In an attempt to publish more and shorter posts, each
topic will be a separate post. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">#ApplyingAverages Long Live
Cohen’s D<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">This topic, more than any other,
has occupied my mind over the course of 2017. It’s a huge shame that it’s not a
topic of discussion in public discourse and I think it’s hugely important to
have mainstream voices take it on. The issue flared up during the
public fallout from the “Google Memo” – but it was an issue I was thinking
about in the context of immigration last year. I now feel comfortable that my
thoughts on this have fully formed and set them out in detail here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Consider the following findings:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">An analysis of the available FBI data by Vox's
Dara Lind found that US police kill black people at disproportionate rates:
Black people accounted for 31 percent of police killing victims in 2012, even
though they made up just 13 percent of the US population (</span><a href="https://www.vox.com/cards/police-brutality-shootings-us/us-police-racism"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri";">Vox</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">,
2017). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">--<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">As shown [reproductive women in the US who had]
ever [had an] abortion, sterilization, and methods of contraception increase
the likelihood of divorce compared to ever married women who have never used
these methods of family planning from one to two times the risk of divorce,
having an abortion in the past twelve months did not meet statistical
significance (Fehring (2015)) </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">--<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The
physiological differences between the sexes disadvantage women in
strength-based and aerobic fitness tests by 20 to 40%; so for the same output
women have to work harder than men. Despite the differences, there will be some
women, amongst the physical elite who will achieve the entry tests for GCC
roles. But these women will be more susceptible to acute short term injury than
men: in the Army’s current predominantly single sex initial military training,
women have a twofold higher risk of musculoskeletal (MSK) injury. The roles
that require individuals to carry weight for prolonged periods are likely to be
the most damaging... On recent operations women experienced a 15 to 20% higher
rate of Disease Non Battle Injury (DNBI) ("Women in Ground Close Combat
Review Paper", Ministry of Defence Review, December 2014). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">---<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Young black
people are nine times more likely to be locked up in England and Wales than
their white peers, according to Ministry of Justice analysis picked up by
Lammy. The BAME proportion of youth prisoners rose from 25% in 2006 to 41% last
year (</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/sep/08/racial-bias-uk-criminal-justice-david-lammy"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri";">The Guardian</span></i></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> on the Lammy Review) <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">--<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">66% of global
terrorism [in 2014 was] attributable to just four groups: Islamic State (Isis)
in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Taliban in Afghanistan and
al-Qaida (<em><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/nov/18/religious-extremism-main-cause-of-terrorism-according-to-report">The Guardian</a></em> on the Global Terrorism Index 2014) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">--<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Rates of
estimated diagnoses of HIV infection, rates of people living with HIV, and
rates of P&S syphilis were higher among MSM than among other men or women..
The rate ratios indicate disparities between MSM and other men and MSM and
women. Comparing MSM to other men, the estimated rate of diagnoses of HIV
infection in 2008 was 59 to 75 times as high, the estimated rate of MSM living
with a diagnosis of HIV infection was 38 to 48 times as high (Table 55), and
the P&S syphilis diagnosis rate was 63 to 79 times as high (Purcell et al
(2012)) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">--<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">84% of
‘grooming gang’ offenders were (South) Asian, while they only make up 7% of
total UK population and that the majority of these offenders are of Pakistani
origin with Muslim heritage (Qulliam (2017)). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The point here is not whether any
of these findings are true, but how we should act <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">if they were</i>. Could it be said that, for example, on the basis that
women <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on average </i>“experienced a 15 to
20% higher rate of Disease Non Battle Injury (DNBI)”, they should not be
allowed in to serve in direct combat roles? Should the different infection rates among homosexuals
vs heterosexuals mean they shouldn’t be able to donate blood, or, as Heritage
stated back in 1994, the “risk of AIDS is itself sufficient reason to deny gays
the privilege of serving in the U.S. military”? Or that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">given </i>we see average differences between races in the crime stats
that the criminal justice system is prejudiced? Or that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">given </i>that Muslim groups are responsible for a majority of global
terrorism that we should have a ban on Muslims entering the country? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">You can clearly see why I think
this area requires mainstream voices actively talking about the issue. These
are the implications that reactionaries and nativists come to. Without an
intellectually (and, more particularly) statistically response to these
policies, a raft of illiberal policies or policies that can cast doubt on our
institutions can be justified. And without actually engaging with the statistics or the arguments, we are potentially left vulnerable to believing dead dogmas, or worse, having our institutions affected. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The answer to the crude nativist applying averages, I believe, is that we
have to acknowledge average differences and emphasise that we are acknowledging
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">average </i>not the whole. Sam <a href="https://medium.com/@s8mb/understanding-averages-253394f3512c">wrote</a>
about how and why it was important to do this: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Think about
the claim that “Women generally have a stronger interest in people rather than things,
relative to men.”… For a given man and a given woman who seem similar in other
respects, this claim sounds like it’s saying that each man will be more
“interested in things” than each woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But it
doesn’t! This is what my friend “the Anonymous Mugwump” refers to as a
difficulty in “applying averages”. We tend to take claims about groups as
claims about each individual within those groups. That means that claims about
men or women being more inclined towards one thing than another sound both
obviously false and easily rejected, and very insulting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">For every one
hundred people, there might be ten men and nine women who are equally
“interested in things”. This would mean that on average men are substantially
more likely to be “interested in things” than women, but that as individuals
none of those women are any less interested than those men and that there are
millions of women who are just as “interested in things” as any man is.
Applying the average to the individuals would be a very silly (if easily made)
mistake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Sam goes onto say:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Group
differences, in other words, tell us next to nothing about the traits of a
given man or woman within those groups — there are lots of neurotic men and
lots of genius women. Very simple information about any individual is going to
tell you much much more than whatever the distribution of attributes is for a
group they happen to be part of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I want to elaborate on Sam’s
points here. Ben gave a very good talk at the Adam Smith Institute’s Forum in
2016 about how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">granular </i>information
can help us deal with statistical discrimination. For example, people may use
average differences in conviction rates between races as information for hiring
practices when they don’t have further information. The way to deal with this
is to provide information about the individual: did they actually go to prison?
Do they have the qualifications? When granular, individuated information is
used, it makes using crude averages redundant. Take the example that Ben always
uses from Air BnB reviews, as per Cui et al (2017):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">We find that
when guest accounts have no review, the average acceptance rate of White guests
is 48%, and the average acceptance rate of African American guests is 29%. In
other words, guests with White names are accepted 19 percentage points more
often than those with African American names (p-value =0:0002)… When there is
one positive review, the acceptance rate of White guests is 56%, and the
acceptance rate of African American guests is 58%. Note that, irrespective of
guests' race, the acceptance rate rises when a guest's quality is validated by
a positive review. In this case, the acceptance rates between White and African
American guests are statistically indistinguishable (p-value =0:8774).That is,
discrimination is eliminated in the presence of one positive review.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">And it’s not just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">new </i>information which can be identified
and utilised but also that technology can develop so that we can. The UK
government justified its ban on gay men donating blood on the basis of the above
mentioned discrepancy between straight and gay men. This policy was rightly
reversed following a determination </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40669950"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri";">that</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> “new testing systems
were accurate and donors were good at complying with the rules.” Technology and
free markets, operating not with "optimal" but more and more information, are key
to fighting the use of crude averages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">There is a further reason why
applying averages in a crude way is bad: it is encourages intellectually laziness and denies the complexity of the world around us. It
purports to end the debate with the use of average statistics but issues and
policy conclusions are almost always more complex. It is simple to say, for
example, that as a result of the disparity in those subject to Stop and Search powers
that the police are racist. But what if there are other considerations which do
not rely on maligning an entire police force? And, for your information, there
is suggestive evidence this is true, as per Miller (2000): <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The research
shows resident population measures are very different from populations actually
available to be stopped and searched. Specifically, the research suggests that
available populations tend to include larger proportions of people from
minority ethnic backgrounds than resident populations. Furthermore, when
statistics on stops and searches are compared with available populations, they
do not show any general pattern of bias against those from minority ethnic
backgrounds, although there are some specific exceptions… This suggest that
stops and searches are generally targeted at areas where there are crime
problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The same could be said about
police murdering African Americans. It’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so
easy </i>to refer average differences between shooting White and Black
Americans and conclude that the police in the U.S must be racist and gunning
down black people – but what if is something else? I think there is tentative
evidence to suggest that its related to violence used in particular areas,
rather than racist motivations (Klinger et al (2015)), the rates do not appear
to be disproportionate to the levels of average crime (MacDonald (2016/7)) and
experimental evidence suggests that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>police officers are more delayed in using force against Black people
because of a fear of social reprisal (James et al (2016)). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">These studies are not conclusive
and there are conflicting ones, but the point is that the debate cannot end
with the use of crude averages. Applying averages in such a ham fisted way (e.g. ban
Muslims because of average differences in committing terror) stops us from properly considering
controls and mitigation measures. I want to explore two issues in a bit more
detail to tease out some nuances. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">First, consider Donald Trump’s
“Muslim ban” on 7 Muslim majority nations. The argument is easy to understand: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Muslims are committing terrorism, so let’s
stop Muslim immigration</i>. To avoid being intellectually barren, we need to
provide a response that does not deny the (global) disproportionality of
self-described Muslims being involved in terror activities. Here are some
arguments – not fully made - that I think weigh in favour of not having a
blanket ban:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">1. Refugees
are already extensively vetted, so there’s no reason to ban a whole group of
people in the first place (see a form of this argument from Natasha Hall in </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/01/refugees-are-already-vigorously-vetted-i-know-because-i-vetted-them/?utm_term=.1f835019ad02"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri";">the
Washington Post</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><u>Response</u>:
Yes, but what about the desecendants of those refugees or migrants who come
here and then commit an act of terror? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">2. Terrorism
is incredibly rare and, in particular, the terrorism which comes from refugees
is extremely rare, as per Nowrasteh (2016): <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 72pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Including
those murdered in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), the chance
of an American perishing in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil that was committed
by a foreigner over the 41-year period studied here is 1 in 3.6 million per
year. The hazard posed by foreigners who entered on different visa categories
varies considerably. For instance, the chance of an American being murdered in
a terrorist attack caused by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion per year while the
chance of being murdered in an attack committed by an illegal immigrant is an
astronomical 1 in 10.9 billion per year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><u>Response</u>:
even though its rare, terrorism poses a unique quasi-existential threat to
Western civilisation, see <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/enemies-of-peace-thunderous-peanuts.html">this post</a> of mine for an elaboration of this
argument. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><u>Response to
the response</u>: yes, but even considering that threat, the utility gained
from providing new homes to refugees or immigrants outweighs this downside.
Evidence points:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">(a) There are
major economic benefits to migrants who come here accompanies with marginal or
neutral outcomes on the economic outcomes of natives (<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-empirics-of-places-we-go-part-i.html">see The Empirics of The Places We Go</a>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">(b) The amount
of Muslims who are terrorists globally represents 0.0066% of the Muslim
population (</span><a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/834504102713368577"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri";">source</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">),
suggesting that the amount of people who can have utility gains is high. To be
more particular, there a Muslim population in the UK of approximately
2.7million Muslims. There are, according to MI5, approximately 13 attacks
stopped between 2013 and 2017. There are, further, 20,000 people who are
considered to be at risk of being involved in terrorist activity, a significant
minority of that 2.7million figure. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">3. It is
better that, if there are terrorists and criminals amongst migrants, that they
be in a country with high state capacity and the rule of law where they are
likely to be caught than their home countries where they are likely to carry
out crimes with impunity. This has an empirical basis: 1 standard deviation
increase in migration is associated with 1/3 of a standard deviation decrease
in civil conflict in the origin state (see Preotu (2016)). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><u>Response</u>:
But you’re increasing the crime rate that natives will be subject to! Further,
or in the alternative, the purpose of the nation state is to protect its own
populace before others! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><u>Response to
the response</u>: I’m not sure that the nationalist philosophies justify
anything more than deriving some sense of enrichment from your own culture. The
interest that we derive from our own cultures seem incapable to me of
justifying any civil or political obligations on others. And even if they did,
I think they would be part of the equation in coming to a policy with all of
the trade-offs including, as described above, the massive utility gains for the
migrants themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">In any event,
if we look at the data from Germany suggests that we are not seeing levels of
crime that outweigh the utility given to migrants themselves. In particular, Gehrsitz
and Ungerer (2017) find that with respect to crime rates, they find “at best
muted increases in criminal activity”. In particular, they found a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">whole one standard deviation</i> increase in
migrant flow is associated with about 95 additional crimes per 100,000 people. It’s also
worth noting that this aligns with official data: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 72pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">… the
statistics compiled by the authorities also show that the probability is no
higher among refugees than in the domestic population. According to police
crime statistics, the number of criminal acts increased by about 4 percent in
2015 over the previous year. The increase was mainly attributable to a rise in
asylum- and visa-related offences. If these offences are factored out of the
equation, the number of criminal acts remained virtually constant, even though
the number of people in the country had increased by hundreds of thousands (</span><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/taking-stock-one-year-after-the-arrival-of-refugees-in-germany-a-1110654.html"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri";">De
Spigel</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> (2017)). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I’m hoping the above back and
forth – which I hope others and I will expand on in the future – shows why the
use of crude statistics is particularly unthinking. The second example is the
decision to allow women into front line combat roles in the UK. If you look at
the one statistic quoted above in isolation, you see that there may be a case
for not allowing women into direct combat roles. But the assessment is a
perfect example in showing how policy considerations are more complex than
members of the alt right who latch onto such statistics would have: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The review
studied 21 factors that contribute to CE [combat effectiveness], of which
physiology and team cohesion are the most relevant; these were considered under
separate workstrands. The review assessed that one of the factors will be
improved by the inclusion of women, seven are neutral or multi directional,
eleven are likely to have a negative impact on CE and in two the impact was
unknown. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The review goes onto note that
with mitigation measures, these 11 negative factors drop to 3. The outstanding
three negative measures are difficult to mitigate against and will be kept onto
review. If we followed a crude way of applying averages, we would not have
tried to identify these mitigation measures in the form of minor changes, increased resilience training etc. etc. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">To summarise: we shouldn’t use
the average as the whole, but nor should we deny the facts about average
differences. The reason why we apply averages in such a crude way is because
firstly, its not as illuminating as noting the degree of overlap between group
differences; it leads to lazy thinking on both the left and right, ignoring
that there are complex considerations and controls that mitigate against their
conclusions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But I want to be clear about
something I am not saying. Am I saying that averages differences should <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never </i>be used? No. I am saying that
where we have individualised, granular information or we have the capability of
obtaining it, we shouldn’t use average differences for the purposes of making
policies that affect individuals. In addition, where using an average
difference is completely out of line with the proportions involved, we should
air on the side of not using the average: for example, the Green Team may be
50% more likely to kill, but if that amounts to a 2% chance that any member of
the Green Team may kill, we cannot use a sledge hammer to crack the nut that is
the killers of the Green Team. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">And this brings me to the final
point: why should we try to avoid using averages aside from the fact they may
not illuminate as much as statistics about variations <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">within </i>groups and it makes people unthinking and lazy? I think one
potential argument is that it reinforces a world view <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not based </i>on treating people as individuals. <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: calibri;">Individualism matters: it is associated with good outcomes like a nations polity score (Gorodnichenko and Roland (2015) which in turn is related to economic outcomes (Kyriacou (2015)).</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><i>Methodological </i>individualism is
important because it tells us more about the world. What we mean by
methodological individualism is that the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">unit
</i>of social and moral life for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">causal </i>and
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">moral </i>purposes is the individual. An
ideology or policy preference based on using averages as a unit is at odds with
the correct way of scientific and historical analysis a la Karl Popper. He alludes
to just as much in the Poverty of Historicism: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unable to ascertain what is the minds of so many individuals, he [the
historicist] must try to simplify his problems by eliminating individual
differences</i>” (p.90). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">When we, as a matter of policy,
start treating averages <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as the basis for
policy</i>, rather than individuals (even when that is informed by an
understanding of group differences), we end up undermining the moral and other
status of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">individuals</i>. I consider it
to be no surprise that hard right individuals, nativists and extreme leftists
utilise collectives and averages at the expense of individuals – it is the core
of their ideology. It explains why so much of what they do is at odds with liberal principles of due process and the rule of law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I appreciate that some of the
above appears to be abstract and may, to some, appear to be obvious. But I am
always struck at how selective people’s approach to applying averages really
is. I wouldn’t try to make a claim about how wide spread such inconsistencies
are – there is no data – but I would ask people to apply, consistently, the
need to for controls, the need to appreciate overlapping bell curves, the need
to assess trade-offs, the need to avoid reinforcing a norm contrary to a
fundamental Western norm: individualism. The next post is about the need to
reinforce norms during the Trump administration. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-18888134885178750032016-12-18T13:41:00.004-08:002016-12-22T07:30:45.866-08:00Mein weltanschauung<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">My friends Ben and Sam have both written posts about which articles and books have influenced their thinking. There’s not a whole world of difference between us in terms of our core beliefs but I thought I would write a similar list. This is pure indulgence on my part, so if you're not interested in my views, this will bring you no enjoyment. </span>In addition, because I am incapable of writing anything short, I’m going to provide a bit of an explanation about my choices and how it interacts with my world view. I have not fully elaborated or provided all the sources for my views - this post is supposed to be a list of book that have influenced me, rather than a full bibliography of everything that supports the views below and I don't want to take the piss much too much. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Whiggishness </b></div>
<span class="s1"><i></i></span><br />
<span class="s1">
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"><i>Better Angels of Our Nature</i> - Stephen Pinker / <i>The Rational Optimist</i> by Matt Ridley / <i>The Great Escape</i> by Angus Deaton </span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">These three books are responsible for my views about the general progress of the world. There have been great rises in wealth, the decline in poverty, the rise of liberal democratic political systems, the historic declines in crime and war, and the incredible achievements on a range of social issues (sexual rights, womens’ rights, gay rights, and now, hopefully, transrights). It’s the source of “Mugwump’s Law” (not a thing) which is that they more you want to change the status quo, the more your views about the status quo are probably wrong.</span></div>
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</span><span class="s1"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">In a similar vein, <i>The End of History </i>(which I’ll return to below) is part of this belief. The progress we have seen is, at the very least, linked to the economic and political systems we have created in the West and are now proliferating slowly in the world - but is also part of the reason I moved away from being a proponent of democratic intervention. I previously believed, in principle, with the idea of removing authoritarian governments because they were authoritarian. But then I changed my mind - as Mueller (2014) points out in his essay “Did History End? Assessing the Fukuyama Thesis”: </span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">The central policy implication of the experience with the remarkable rise of democracy and capitalism is to suggest that, if trends are on one’s side, it may well be best not to work too strenuously to move them along... efforts to impose them are likely to be unnecessary and can be costly and even counterproductive.... People do not seem to need a lot of persuasion to find appeal in shining cities on hills that are stable, productive, and open even if some of the luster wears off as they get closer.</span></blockquote>
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</span><br />
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<span class="s1">Incidentally, the other main reason for democratic intervention losing favour with me was the work of Scott Walker. In his 2014 study (“Does Forced Democratisation Work?”) he looks at two types of U.S. democratic interventions: (1) intervention followed by push for democracy (Variant 1) and (2) interventions in autocratic states (Variant 2). In respect of the latter, he finds that 8 of the 14 countries that fit his category, meet the definition of democracy (i.e., a success rate of just over 50%) which isn't too bad. However, the results exclude Afghanistan and Iraq, and the results don't hold when you look at a different measures (Freedom House Scores). Looking at interventions in autocracies (Variant 2), he finds that only approximately 25% of interventions are successful when looking at the Polity IV score. </span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">However, my view is that the aim is not for these countries to become Norway in the short or medium term, the aim is to improve the general score of polities. Here, the results are encouraging. Looking at Variant 2 countries, the average Polity VI score increases from 0.56 in 1989 to 1.11 in 2009. But the general finding is enough to put me off the principle of democratic intervention; I continue to agree with attempts at democratisation following our security and/or humanitarian interventions. </span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><br />
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"><b>Institutions</b></span></div>
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</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
But I’ve jumped the gun in starting with my whiggish views. I believe in the importance of liberal democracy - a belief that comes from more studies and books than I can possibly name. So here’s a few particular views and their sources.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Economic Related</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East</i> - Timur Kuran / <i>Why Nations Fai</i>l - Acemoglu and Robinson / <i>Fragile by Design</i> - Calomoris and Haber — <i>Economic Origins of Roman Christianity </i>- Robert Ekelund and Robert Tollison </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
I was very late to reading about new institutional economics and my primer wasn't Douglas North, but Timur Kuran. His book, which I have provided an overview of <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/overview-long-divergence.html"><span class="s2">here</span></a>, provides an institutional explanation for why the Middle East became economically retarded. He places importance on the form of contracts, legal institutions like corporations, the (lack of) importance of Islamic restrictions on interest and how all of the aforementioned links with Islamic rules about apostasy, dhimmis and local court enforcement. </div>
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<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
This led me onto read more new institutional economic books. One of the greatest differences between me and my ‘Twitter crowd’ is that I believe that democracies provide better outcomes. I have explained the enormous weight of the evidence about how democracies are better are protecting fundamental rights. It is a common refrain that respect for liberal rights and the rule of law are responsible for good outcomes, not democracies. I will explain why I disagree with that view at some point in the future, but new institutional economic provides me with comfort in the view that democracies have better economic outcomes. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit,</i> a fairly convincing book written by Calomiris and Haber provides one example of why this is the case: democracies generally have more stable banking systems that provide broad credit. This is through a number of nterlinked mechanisms: an autocracy cannot give adequate guarantees that it will not expropriate the assets of bank investors, minority shareholders and debtors. Accordingly, they must ‘compensate the banks investors and depositors for accepting the risk that the banks assets may be expropriated’ (p.33). They do this by providing the banks with rents, commonly in the form of a monopoly right or privileges (p.44). </div>
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<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Banks like these – effectively nationalised or, at the least dependent on the teat of the autocrat – provide scarce credit (because most of the money goes to the autocrat himself and/or because they have monopoly rights, interest rates are high). They are also unstable: both the autocrat and the bank insider’s discretion misallocate and squander resources (by investing in either in the autocrat or the insider’s own businesses). These are all self-reinforcing mechanisms: because credit is not widely distributed, there is no need for the institutions that enforce contracts (this includes the rule of law which is required to independently adjudicate and enforce contracts).</div>
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</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Democracies, by contrast, protect against these risks more consistently than autocratic governments. In much the same fashion, <i>Why Nations Fail </i>(which is, unlike Fragile by Design, a moderately problematic book), provides the same mechanisms for general economic development. The requirement of autocrats to stay in power leads to extractive institutions; inefficient institutions that arise because the autocrats needs to provide rents and privileges to strongmen - to forestall any risk that they take over, and also to provide them with funds. The risk of economic actors becoming powerful is an additional reason why autocrats create a network of inefficiencies. </div>
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</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Just a brief little caveat: I do not believe in pure democratic systems. I believe in liberal democracies: key checks and balances that try to forestall the bad elements of democracy. I think there should be stringent constitutions, courts with the power to strike down laws, an unelected upper chamber, party political leaders should have the ability to control candidates and no matter should be put before the people in a referendum. The electoral failures of Brexit and Trump are failures of gate-keeping and a rejection of trustee models of representation. </div>
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</div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
The literature on the importance of institutions above has also led to views I have about the political decay that autocracy causes. I have written about how the origins of authoritarianism in the Middle East are internal, domestic institutions (see t<a href="http://www.apple.com/"><span class="s2">his post</span></a> for a collation of this view). This view contributes to my view, explained, below about disagreeing with democratic intervention: liberal democracies rely on a whole host of institutional developments over centuries, the most important of which is civil society. </div>
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</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Political Structure Related</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Why does government fail so often?</i> - Peter Schuck / The Silent Epidemic: Coal and the Hidden Threat to Health - Lockwood / <i>Capitalism and Freedom</i> - Milton Friedman / <i>On Liberty</i> - John Stuart Mill </div>
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</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
I am not an anarchist and I am not a libertarian. I believe in the power of the state to carry out certain services, to fund armies, to provide the funds for certain things (such as healthcare or the universal basic income). But, I have a huge scepticism of using the state. The high threshold for governmental action has it sources in much of my economic views. The book that started me on my path to being an economic liberal was Milton Friedman’s <i>Capitalism and Freedom</i>. If I read the book now, I’m sure I’d nitpick and not buy everything but it remains the case that as a 17 year old it had a massive impact on me. The same for <i>On Liberty</i> - I was an ardent defender of Mill throughout my university years: it gave me a respect for limited government that I have yet to shake off. </div>
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</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
This suspicion of government power has, like many of my views, been nuanced and tangled by an array of subsequent studies, but the fundamental point remains: the more limited the scope of government, usually the better. In <i>Why Do Governments Fail So Often? </i>Schuck writes about a study by Winston (2006) which looked at pretty much every single study that assessed U.S. federal government programmes that tried to handle ‘market failures’ (in particular, market power, information inequalities and externalities and public goods). He summarises the conclusions:</div>
</span><span class="s1"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
Thirty years of empirical evidence on the efficacy of market failure policies initiated primarily by the federal government but also by the states, suggests that the welfare cost of government failure may be considerably greater than that of market failure... Some policies have forced the U.S. economy to incur costs in situations where no serious market failure exists, while others, in situations where costly market failures do exist, could have improved resource allocation in a much more efficient manner </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
... my assessment of the empirical evidence reveals a surprising degree of consensus about the paucity of major policy successes in correcting a market failure efficiently.. Generally, my fundamental conclusions are not influenced by studies that use a particular methodology. In fact, researchers who used vastly different techniques to assess specific policies often reached very similar conclusions (p.52, p.23, p.63). </blockquote>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Schuck carries out a similar exercise in his book. He looks at assessments from Government Accountability Office, the Office of Management and Budget and several leading think tanks from across the ideological spectrum. His results are in line with Winston’s: </div>
</span><span class="s1"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
We found more than 270 such assessments, some of which will be cited in later chapters. Only a small number of these assessments could be considered positive; the vast majority were either clearly negative or showed mixed results (p.23).</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But I’m not a maniac. To briefly explain my ideological evolution: I was a social democrat, I became an anarcho-capitalist, then a minarchist - and since then I’ve made the trip to where I am today: a neoliberal (see Sam’s definition) with libertarian tendencies. The reason I’ve moved back toward the centre is, predominantly, because of the literature surrounding my foreign policy views and the environment. I’ll be talking about the former below, but I want to briefly cover the main book that made me change my mind about being a minarchist: <i>The Silent Epidemic: Coal and the Hidden Threat to Health</i>. In the margin of the following extract, which talks about the effect of the Clean Air Act, I have a hand written note which reads: “we need this!”: </div>
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</span><span class="s1"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
The improvements in air quality were thought to be primarily due to reductions in particulate matter and ozone. In this retrospective analysis, the modeling predicted an annual reduction of 184,000 premature deaths, 674 cases of chronic bronchitis, over 22 million lost days at work, and other outcomes... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
The EPA concluded that the total monetized health benefits from the Act during the 20-year period ranged between $5.6 and $49.4 trillion. The central estimate for benefits was $22.2 trillion. During that period, the costs to comply with the act were estimated to be approximately $0.5 trillion. Thus the net direct benefits were between $5.1 and $48.9 trillion, with a central estimate of $21.7 trillion... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
By the year 2020 the scenario predicted by the amended Act avoids 230,000 premature deaths among adults age 30 and above each year. The model also predicts avoiding the deaths of 280 infants each year. The monetary value of these two causes was set at $1.7 trillion for adults and $2.5 billion for infants (p.191-199). </blockquote>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
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</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The Role of Ideas</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Ideological Origins of the American Revolution</i> - Bernard Baliyn / <i>Roads to the Temple</i> - Leon Aron / <i>End of History</i> - Francis Fukuyama</div>
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</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
The central role of ideas plays a massive part of my world view. I know its cliche but ideas matter - but the reason why its not so cliche is the tendency for people to give primacy to structural issues like poverty, inequality or culture in explaining historically important events. I have published a review of Roads to the Temple (which you can read <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-fall-of-soviet-union-and-suicide.html"><span class="s2">here</span></a>) and explained the implications of this in <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-empirics-of-free-speech-and.html"><span class="s2">The Empirics of Free Speech, Part I</span></a>: </div>
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</span><span class="s1"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
To move on to the causal link between the progress we’ve made in terms of liberal democracy and free speech, Mueller is probably right when he says that </blockquote>
</span><span class="s1"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
Democracy’s rise has, it seems, essentially been the result of a 200‐year competition of ideas, rather than the necessary or incidental consequence of grander changes in social, cultural, economic, or historic patterns. It has triumphed because the idea that democracy is a superior form of government, ably executed and skilfully promoted—or marketed—at one point in the world’s history, has increasingly managed to catch on. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
By way of an elaboration I want to briefly talk about two books. The first is Leon Aron’s Roads to a Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991. I have reviewed this book elsewhere but the core idea is that freedom of speech allowed ‘every institution – political economic and social – to be subjected to trial by truth and conscience’ (p.51). It is following this process of self-discovery and criticism that surveys showed ‘solid majorities favour some key features of liberal capitalism’ (p.32-3). It then when people accept ‘alternatives to the current view’ does a ‘pre-revolutionary situation... become a revolutionary crises’ (p.20). </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
The second is Bernard Bailyn’s Ideological Origins of the American Revolution which focuses on the pamphlets that were ‘the literature of the Revolution’ and ‘convey[ed] scorn, anger, and indignation’ that were ‘probings, speculations, theories’ which ‘were not mere mental gymnastics’ but were they provided the ‘grounds of resistance.’ (p.8, p.18, p.231). Bailyn shows that the American Revolution was </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
... above all an ideological, constitutional, political struggle... [and] intellectual developments in the decade before Independence led to radical idealisation and conceptualisation of the previous century and half of American experience, and that it was this intimate relationship between Revolutionary thought [as expressed in the pamphlets] and the circumstances of life in the eighteenth-century that endowed the Revolution with its peculiar force... (p.x-xi). </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
These two books are not quirky artefacts of the historical record.[1] </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
[1] Fukuyama (1992) provides a more general history which shows the roles of ideas: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
‘The critical weakness that eventually toppled these strong states was in the last analysis a failure of legitimacy—that is, a crisis on the level of ideas. Legitimacy is not justice or right in an absolute sense; it is a relative concept that exists in people's subjective perceptions. All regimes capable of effective action must be based on some principle of legitimacy. A tyrant can rule his children, old men, or perhaps his wife by force, if he is physically stronger than they are, but he is not likely to be able to rule more than two or three people in this fashion and certainly not a nation of millions... It is clearly not the case that a regime needs to establish legitimate authority for the greater part of its population in order to survive. There are numerous contemporary examples of minority dictatorships that are actively hated by large parts of their populations, but have succeeded in staying in power for decades.... When we speak of a crisis of legitimacy in an authoritarian system, then, we speak of a crisis within those elites whose cohesion is essential for the regime to act effectively’ (p.15-16). </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
I think this emphasis on the role of elites to the detriment of force is misplaced but that doesn’t change his core argument that, in the spirit of both Aron and Bailyn, ‘there was a remarkable consistency in the democratic transitions in Southern Europe, Latin America... [With a couple of exceptions] there was not one single instance in which the old regime was forced from power through violent upheaval or revolution... [rather] it was ultimately made possible by a growing belief that democracy was the only legitimate source of authority in the modern world’ (p.21).</blockquote>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
This belief in the role of ideas is why I don't think blowback is a thing when it comes to explaining terrorism. But, in the same vein, the lack of specificity from Eustonites when they talk about ideological explanations is frustrating. The more thoughtful people don't talk about the role of Islam in terrorism, but the role of Islamism. But, for reasons I’ve laid out before, I don’t find this persuasive either. The common refrain of people like Majad Nawaz is “if you believe stoning is right, how can Islamism not be linked to violence?” (or something like that). One of the problems with this view is that they then conflate it with critical views about democracy, womens’ rights and views about free speech. </div>
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</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
If we’re more <i>specific </i>about ideologies, this criticism falls away. And this brings me to a paper from Fair et al (2012) which looks at the predictive power of Islamism as opposed to “Jihadism” - the results are unsurprising:</div>
</span><span class="s1"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
…neither religious practice nor support for political Islam is related to support for militant groups. However, Pakistanis who believe jihad is both an external militarized struggle and that it can be waged by individuals are more supportive of violent groups than those who believe it is an internal struggle for righteousness.</blockquote>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
I talk about this study and half a dozens showing why Eustonites are wrong in t<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/think-again-david-cameron-conveyer.html"><span class="s2">his post.</span></a> Finally, There’s one other extract which entwines my views about progress and the role of ideas - its from Zack Beauchamp’s review of The Great Escape published in<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/why-the-world-is-so-unequal-and-why-its-getting-better-40403839edc8#.virfdg4lt"><span class="s2"> Think Progress</span></a>. He writes: </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
it suggests that there’s a third type of innovation, beyond those of science and business, that propels humanity forward: moral advancement… Once invented, moral advancements can’t be contained inside national borders — another similarity between them and Deaton’s technologies. A belief in the fundamental moral equality of persons and the attendant democratic institutions has spread globally. Democracy is the world’s dominant form of government and belief in human rights is increasingly transcending national borders. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
Once invented, moral advancements can’t be contained inside national borders — another similarity between them and Deaton’s technologies. A belief in the fundamental moral equality of persons and the attendant democratic institutions has spread globally. Democracy is the world’s dominant form of government and belief in human rights is increasingly transcending national borders.</blockquote>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b></b><br />
<b>Liberal Nationalism</b></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i></i><br />
<i>The Limits of Nationalism</i> - Chaim Gans / J<i>ust Zionism</i> - Chaim Gans / <i>Liberal Nationalism</i> - Yael Tamir / <i>On Nationality</i> - David Miller / <i>Politics in the Vernacular</i> - Will Kymlica / <i>Multicultural Citizenship</i> - Will Kymlica </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
I consider myself a liberal nationalist - which probably comes as a surprise to some people. The refrain of a nativist that I and people who share my view are ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ has always made me laugh: I love my country and consider it to be a fundamental part of my identity. I have very complicated views about liberal nationalism that I’ll be describing in Part III of my immigration series so for now I’ll just give a few relevant extracts from the above books.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Kymlicka in <i>Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights</i>: </div>
</span><span class="s1"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
…freedom involves making choice amongst various options, and our societal culture not only provides these options, but also makes them meaningful to us. ...societal cultures involve 'a shared vocabulary of tradition and convention' which underlies a full range of social practices and institutions.... To understand the meaning of a social practice, therefore, requires understanding this 'shared vocabulary’ – that, is, understanding the language and history which constitute that vocabulary. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
Whether or not a course of action has any significance for us depends on whether, and how, our language renders vivid to us the point of that activity. And the way in which our language renders vivid these activities is shaped by our history, our ‘traditions and conventions’. Understanding these cultural narratives is a precondition of making intelligent judgment about how to lead our lives. In this sense, our culture not only provides options, it also provides the spectacles through which we identify experiences as valuable… </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
The availability of meaningful options depends on access to a societal culture, and on understanding the history and language of that culture… (p.84) </blockquote>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Kymlicka elaborates on what he means in <i>Politics in the Vernacular:</i> </div>
</span><span class="s1"><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
My basis argument can be summarized this way: modern states invariably develop and consolidate what I call a societal culture – that is, a set of institutions covering both public and private life, with common language, which has historically developed over time on a given terrirory, which provides people with a wide range of choices about how lead their lives… </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
These societal cultures are profoundly important to liberalism, I argue, because liberal values of freedom and equality must be defined and understood in relation to such societal cultures. Liberalism rests of the value of individual autonomy – that is, the important of allow individuals to make free and informed decisions about how to lead their lives – but what enables this sort of autonomy is the fact that our societal culture makes various options available to us. Freedom, in the first instance, is the ability to explore and revise the ways of life which are made available by our societal culture. (p.53)</blockquote>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
In <i>The Limits of Nationalism</i>, Gans says: </div>
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
People have a fundamental interest in adhering to components of their identity. They have an interest in being respected for their identity and the components that comprise it, or at least in not suffering humiliation or alienation because of it… desires involving objects in which people have fundamental interests must be given special weight in determining the contours of the political order. …such desires are very different from desires involving objects in which people do not have fundamental interests (for example, the wish to spend a vacation on one particular island as opposed to another island)… [With regard to] people ’s interest in adhering to components of their identity, the assumption that it is fundamental has ample support. It is supported by the fact that many people regard themselves as having this interest, especially in relation to their cultural identities (p.43). </blockquote>
<span class="s1"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"><b>Terrorism</b></span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"><i>Terror and Consent </i>- Philip Bobbitt / <i>The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists - </i>Charles Kurzman </span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">Perhaps no book has had as much of an impact on my views than <i>Terror and Consent</i>. It provides the building blocks for my views about the importance of Western power, the need for carefully managed interventions and the importance of international alliances with autocratic and multilateral institutions. Bobbitt’s book has insights into:</span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><br />
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Why the argument that “terrorism isn’t as common as dying from peanuts / fridges / insert your analogy here” are wrong. </span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Why the nature of terrorism has changed: we’re no longer looking at nation state terrorism, but market state terrorism. </span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Why the nature of war changing has implications for law enforcement and military strategy (i.e., why domestic police action is not sufficient for stopping terrorism). </span></li>
</ol>
<span class="s1"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">To elaborate on that final part, the failure in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 can be attributed to a failure to understand the changing nature of war. Bobbitt correctly attributes the chaos in the aftermath of the war to the inadequate number of troops required; and the de-Baathification of the Iraqi army. From a “law enforcement” only view, it made sense not to send more troops after the regime had been dismantled. But market state terrorists are not conventional armies, they thrive off security vacuums. As Bobbitt explains: </span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">[Only 10,000 troops were in a position to patrol Baghdad.] By comparison, New York City has a force of 38,000 police and it, despite some depiction in the movies, is not a war zone. But then neither was Baghdad, in a conventional sense, the war was over. The looting and civil disorder that followed were [inappropriate not considered] tasks for the military… </span></blockquote>
<span class="s1">
</span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">Coalition troops went from hot spot to hot spot , each of which they had to abandon to get to another… It needn’t have been this way, Based on recent experience in the Balkans, a number of studies had made remarkably similar estimates as to the number of troops that would be required to subdue Iraq. NATO had deployed 200 soldiers for every 10,000 civilians. For Iraq, this rough ratio would have meant a stabilisation force of more than 450,000 - three times the number commanded by the Coalition (p.164-165). </span></blockquote>
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">The issue in Iraq was not that there wasn't a plan, but that the plan was based on a misconceived idea of war in the 21st Century. The ideas about having more agile, flexible militaries which rely on modern technology such drones is part of this problem: Rumsfeld’s view about how many troops were needed did not come out of nowhere, they were based on believing in the predominance of air power. But this view poses a problem because of the security vacuums that get created. </span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">By way of analogy, the criticism made about information sharing between the CIA and the FBI in the 9/11 Commission Report were based on the idea that we could make a clear distinction between law and strategy, between law and war. You cannot: we are at war with a new force that requires us to blur the lines: wars require maintaining civil order and crimes require military responses. </span><br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1">I have written a review of the Missing Martyrs so wont say much more about it <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/review-of-missing-martyrs-terrorism.html"><span class="s2">here</span></a>. </span></div>
<span class="s1"></span><br />
<span class="s1">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"><b>Intended Consequences</b></span><span class="s1"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"><i>Engineering the Financial Crisis</i> - Krausz and J Friedman</span></div>
<span class="s1">
</span><span class="s1"></span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<span class="s1">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I think Jeffery Friedman is one of the most interesting living thinkers. He makes me think really hard about almost everything he writes about. His book on the financial crash puts the cause of the crash to minimum capital regulatory requirements. I think his explanation of the crash is persuasive but its even more important for how I view conflicting viewpoints and public policy. </div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Briefly, he shows that the capital adequacy requirements led banks to indulge in mortgage backed securities, because it helped them meet their capital requirements more quickly. This was not an act of irrationality, it was not an act of malicious greed: bankers themselves invested in these personally so it cant be said that they expected them to fail. But that’s not the main reason why I love the book and how its been influential. Here are some relevant extracts: </div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
Specifically, the vulgar usage of ‘‘irrationality’’ treats people’s errors as inexplicable... Another way to put the point is that the vulgar usage does not recognize that reality is complex and can produce many different interpretations, each of them plausible to sane, rational people.... Thus, the vulgar notion of irrationality treats accurate and representative ‘‘information’’ about objective reality as if it were there to be had, sans interpretation, by any rational agent, such that behavior that does not take our retrospective interpretation of this information into account must have been due to a lack of rationality—rather than to an absence of accurate, representative information, or the presence of an incorrect interpretation of such information…. To make an error in logic, let alone to be unaware of a fact, is not the same thing as to be irrational (p.50-51) </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
…we believe that Akerlof and Shiller’s critique of economism is founded on an error in logic: a conflation of irrationality with error. One can be perfectly rational and as unemotional as Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, yet make a mistake in thinking that a given action will, indeed, be instrumental to one’s desired end (p.125). </blockquote>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
This has incredibly important implications. First, I treat people who make conflicting political arguments as though they are rational. I may believe they are wrong, but I try make sure that its extremely rare where I believe someone is being unreasonable. My view on the minimum wage for example, is that its bad for employment, bad for prices, and reduces immigration which is bad for productivity and GDP. I don't hold, for example, Owen Jones as being unreasonable because he has a different view. The idea is linked to the premise that the political should not be personal or emotional. It should be a dialogue about competing ideas. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Second, and Friedman probably wouldn’t agree, it has implication for democratic government. The Caplan-esque argument is that the typical voter is “irrational” and so shouldn't be trusted. But Caplan here is making the same mistake: wrongness is not the same as rationality. The complexity that we see should lead us to being humble about certain views. Again, we are not talking about how right an idea is, we are talking about how to deal with it. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Third, the propensity to attribute malicious motives to people with different views (“he’s funded by Exxon” or “he’s evil”) is a weakness in political thought. It assumes you've already made the jump from X-view to malice without appreciating that the person with a different view could just be wrong. It assumes there is no reasonable reason for disagreeing with you. I voted Remain, but I wouldn't attribute evil, malicious funds or even irrationality to Leave voters without more evidence. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Methodology</b></div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Language, Truth and Logic</i> - A J Ayer / Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction between Language and Memory, Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer, <i>Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour </i>(1974). </div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I have spent a number of posts explaining why I have a strong aversion to narrative journalism. Journalists will write entire articles without mentioning a single study - and it really irks me. In my posts, I try to make sure that every single statement is backed by a study, and I draw people’s attention to anything that is not supported by data. This view comes from my early adherence to logical positivism. </div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I’m a bit of a fundamentalist when it comes to this - I have said that if there isn't a study in your article, it probably shouldn't be published; I even held the view that personal testimony should be removed from court rooms. The unreliability of eye witness testimony, the claims of the religious to have had personal encounters with ghosts, Gods and other assorted gremlins belies its importance. Loftus’ study was the first study I read during my A Levels that led me to this view; subsequent meta-analysis have confirmed their findings. </div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I recently had a discussion with Sam where he disagreed with this view - his view was that where there was no data, anecdotes could be used. I disagree. Conflicting anecdotes, the infallibility of the human mind, the fact that n=1, and biases lead me to refuse to give any weight to any anecdotes.</div>
</span><span class="s1"><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="s1"><b><br /></b></span>
<span class="s1"><b>Other Economic</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">The Great Recession: Market Failure or Policy Failure? - Robert Hetzel</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">‘Mark Sadowski on fiscal austerity, with and without monetary offset’ - Scott Sumner, Money Illusion</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">The Use of Knowledge in Society - Hayek</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Are Banking Crises Free Market Phenomena? - George Selgin</span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">7 Reasons Not to Care about High Pay - Sam Bowman, <a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/seven-reasons-not-to-care-about-high-pay"><span class="s3">ASI Blog</span></a></span></li>
<li class="li1">Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The Economics of British Imperialism, Davis and Huttenback</li>
<li class="li1">Redefining the Poverty Debate, Kristian Niemietz</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div class="li1">
</div>
<div class="li1">
<strong>On Inequality</strong></div>
<ol>
<li><div class="li1">
Overstating the Costs of Inquality, Scott Winship,<a href="http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/overstating-the-costs-of-inequality"> National Affairs</a> </div>
</li>
<li><div class="li1">
It's the Market: The Broad-Based Rise in the Return to Top Talent, Kauh and Kaplan, Journal of Economic Perspectives</div>
</li>
<li><div class="li1">
Ben’s stuff: Why Does the Son Rise? - <a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-spending/why-does-the-son-rise"><span class="s3">ASI Blog</span></a>; Why do rich parents give birth to rich kids?; <a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/?offset=1445904150000&author=56ede384d9fd56e06ef27050"><span class="s3">ASI Blog.</span></a></div>
</li>
<li><div class="li1">
Q&A: A Sociologist on Inequality, <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/economix/2014/03/25/qa-a-sociologist-on-inequality/?smid=tw-nytimeseconomix&seid=auto">New York Times</a>; and<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/business/economy/making-sense-of-income-inequality.html?_r=0"> Income Equality: A Search for Consequences</a>, New York Times</div>
</li>
<li><div class="li1">
Capital - Piketty</div>
</li>
<li><div class="li1">
'Why We're in a New Gilded Age' - Paul Krugman, <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/05/08/thomas-piketty-new-gilded-age/">New York Review of Books</a>; Review of Capital, Mervyn King, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10816161/Capital-in-the-Twenty-First-Century-by-Thomas-Piketty-review.html">The Telegraph</a> and 'Capital Punishment', Tyler Cowen, <span id="goog_1755005643"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/">Foreign Affairs<span id="goog_1755005644"></span></a>. </div>
</li>
<li><div class="li1">
Capital Taxation in the 21st Century, Auerbach and Hasset, NBER Working Paper</div>
</li>
<li><div class="li1">
Does housing capital contribute to inequality? A comment on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, Bonnet et al, Science Po Economic Discussion Papers</div>
</li>
<li><div class="li1">
Is Piketty’s “Second Law of Capitalism” Fundamental?, Krussel and Smith, Journal of Political Economy </div>
</li>
<li><div class="li1">
A note on Piketty and diminishing returns to capital - Matthew Rognlie</div>
</li>
</ol>
<span class="s1"><b>Other </b></span><br />
<ol class="ol1">
<li class="li1"><span class="s1"> Wait a minute: is the government self-interested or isn't it? - <a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/?offset=1445904150000&author=56ede384d9fd56e06ef27050"><span class="s3">ASI Blog</span></a>. </span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Taxes, Lawyers and the Decline of Witch Trials in France, Noel Johnson and Mark Koyama, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 57 </span></li>
<li class="li1"><span class="s1">Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? The Logic of Appeasement in the 1930s - Norrin Ripsman and Jack Levy </span></li>
<li class="li1">The Threatening Storm - Kenneth Pollack</li>
<li class="li1">'Saddam, Israel, Nuclear Alarmish Justified?', Brands and Pallki, International Security, Vol. 36</li>
<li class="li1">'Krugman's Response to Alex', Tyler Cowen, <a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/01/krugmans-response-to-alex.html">Marginal Revolution</a> </li>
<li class="li1">The Case for Israel - Alan Dershowitz and the masterful takedown Beyond Chutzpah - Norman Finkelstein; One State, Two State - Benny Morris; Righteous Victims - Benny Morris; most scathing reviews written by Benny Morris. </li>
</ol>
</span><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-32650214670882610222016-07-28T12:17:00.003-07:002016-08-01T03:57:54.929-07:00The Empirics of the Places We Go Part I: Economic Effects of Immigration<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></b><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;">
</b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Congratulations! </span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Today is your day.</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You're off to Great Places!</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You're off and away!</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You have brains in your head.</span></b></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">
</b><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You have feet in your shoes.</span></b></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You can steer yourself any direction you choose.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You're on your own. And you know what you know. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And you are the guy who'll decide where to go.</span><br />
<strong><em><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span></em></strong> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh the Places You’ll Go</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> by Dr Seuss</span>
<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Believe it or not, this post was supposed to be about terrorism. But as I began writing, I realised that I couldn’t make any policy prescriptions on the basis of the link between immigration and terrorism without considering the wider effects. This is a post about immigration and why, at least for now, we should keep yelling for more immigration. I cannot provide a figure and I don’t know when we’ll have to stop (and we may well have to stop one day), but we are nowhere near. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I have become less pro-immigration as I have written this post. I don’t want to give the wrong idea, compared to the average person, I’m probably extremely pro-immigration but I’ve definitely become less certain and more restrictive than I thought I was. I’ve read quite a lot for this post but if you feel I’ve missed anything, please let me know. Here is a structure of the essay below:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Shunning Sylvester McMonkey McBean: Economic Effects of Immigration </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Predicaments of a (Douglas) North-Going Zax: Institutional Effects of Immigration </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Honourable Fifth Column: Crime, Terrorism and Immigration</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Defining the Priors of Star Bellied Sneeches: The (Tenuous) Compatibility of Liberal Nationalism and Utilitarianism </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How To Tell a Klotz from a Glotz: A Conclusion on Public Policy and Uncertainty </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This series will likely be in two or three parts, I’m not sure how the above will be divided exactly yet. There are end notes which aren’t integral to the overall argument at the bottom of the post so feel free to ignore those (in this part they cover irrelevant things like a non-nationalist justification for the existence of State of Israel, the signalling model of education, globalisation’s effect on workers in high-wage countries and voting Leave, and the Chinese </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">hukou </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">system). Section 1 does not cover institutional arguments that could affect economic output, this will be handled in section 2.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Thanks to </span><a href="https://twitter.com/s8mb" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Sam</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> for giving me some thoughtful comments on an early draft of this post. Any mistakes are his, and his alone.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Shunning Sylvester McMonkey McBean: Economic Effects of Immigration </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It is a truth universally acknowledged that the British public must be in want of less immigration, a fundamental value of 21</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 8.79px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super;">st</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> century Britain: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are four reasons why this truth should not be overstated – and, in my view, should not be heeded. First, it’s important to decompose the results. According to a recent Ipsos Mori poll, when you ask whether immigration has affected them personally, a slim majority (51%) say no effect and further quarter say it’s affected them positively. As Chris Dillow </span><a href="http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2014/05/immigration-the-preference-problem.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">notes</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, ‘whilst most people think immigration is a national problem, they don't believe it to be one in their own area.’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 3px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="\\bdb-law.co.uk\usrdata\MyDocs\MLA\Downloads\BDOfbSFCYAAHqhk.png" height="366" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-LMDi6xGe3k9TmV1vZuiwV0MT7WCxvgw7szU2EBGX-iIh55rJNkVPoKoJRsF7xZHm3Te2Evy9CVjBiXXAAcdbBZp6kbNBq61N99lohDEpdAQsfjvVLe0-CinREr3z0-CTswjxIMIw8cIGtj80g" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="602" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Moreover, the areas with the highest levels of immigration, are the most pro-immigration (see graph above from Markaki (2012)). The less experience you have of immigration, the more you are likely to oppose it. This is not caused by white flight (i.e., white people who don’t like immigrants moving away from high immigration areas)[1]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Second is that the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">reasons </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">people are anti-immigration matter – especially if, like me, you buy into the Burkean trustee model of representation. The table below shows the results from a </span><a href="http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/sun-eu-referendum-poll-june-2016/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">recent ComRes poll</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #292f33; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="https://ton.twitter.com/1.1/ton/data/dm/755138493618282499/755138493647552513/XLDb3GDQ.jpg" height="276" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9SbgnfqmIfZGIN027NAxAsVJJWAhMBaUxLIK8SUwB2QqaOcJIHW2fswjSvGtVM3chhU73W1wQ6A0tyEniufgVI9hj00k_ED8z1rl0LY4ZwGeSBcyJaiWoKF8mH4XbwgWCe0vegAkMGbmyVX-ng" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="640" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This interesting not least because it is strong evidence that anti-immigration views are based on the economy, rather than perceived socio-cultural changes or racist concerns.[2]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 68% of people are not willing to reduce their income </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">at all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">even if meant reduced immigration. It also means that, just like swathes of people in favour of nationalisation, if you buy into the trustee model of representation, MPs can legitimately ignore their views if immigration is actually good for the economy. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is linked to the point that people may be anti-immigration because theyre wrong about the economic effects. Indeed, when people are made aware of the benefits, support for immigration rises as noted by </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/08/immigration-opposition-falls-benefits-survey" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">The Guardian</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A YouGov poll found that the proportion of those questioned who viewed immigration negatively dropped from 63% to 54% after they were told that the government's financial watchdog believes that higher immigration will help the economy grow and ease pressure to cut spending… </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">YouGov found that, after being told the "full facts", the proportion of respondents holding positive views about net migration grew from 32% to 39%. The numbers wanting an end to all immigration dropped from 16% to 12%, and those advocating a small number of skilled migrants fell from 47% to 42%.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Third, we shouldn’t underestimate the value of the trade-off. The public may not like immigration, but they may vote for it because of the other things it brings. Brexit has given us an opportunity to see an example of this.[3]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Despite high levels of opposition to more immigration, people are willing to forego this in exchange for access to the single market (</span><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteWednesday/status/752048159514357760" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">source</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, see also </span><a href="https://twitter.com/IpsosMORI/status/748995191416164352" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><a href="https://twitter.com/BBCMarkEaston/status/753316694727258112" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">): </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fourth, relates to the perception of numbers. Sam </span><a href="http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/the-case-against-caring-about-inequality-at-all" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">noted</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> a study which showed that ‘most people know very little about the extent and direction of income inequality in their societies, or where they fit in to the income distribution.’ Sam went onto argue that, as a result, ‘we can only solve [this problem] by making people</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> feel</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> less unequal – not by making them less unequal in fact’ because perceptions are unhinged from reality. I think it’s a good argument and it can be applied to immigration.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We can see from the graph above (</span><a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/DownloadPublication/1634_sri-perceptions-and-reality-immigration-report-2013.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">source</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) above that in the UK, the perception is that just over 30% of the population are immigrants. The reality is that around 12% are. The perceptions are far from reality – given that immigration curbs may be costly and we cannot rely on people’s perceptions about the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">levels </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">of immigration, we need not give premium to people’s preferences – especially given the aforementioned three points.[4]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> A more PC argument that Sam might make is that we need to inform people more about immigration levels – either way, the lust for lower immigration doesn’t carry much weight with me. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1.1 Domestic Economic Impact</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m not convinced that there is a good economic case against high levels of immigration. For an overview of why, Lisenkova et al (2013) look at what would happened if we really did reduce migration to the “tens of thousands.” Their model splits people up into foreign born and native born. These two groups typically have different wages, consumption and life spans (that impact on the former two). They find significant negative effects for natives:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="http://www.niesr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/images/Blog/katerinablog.png" height="333" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/sEXHKSwxZqNoIDWkR2eFAxESQ9G0IfDukLQ_hEvlkFA6RnGkXhnYP323P2ZLrFij_QlAz1ZkJtS_zxCA7VMOnqtRTTUKYB7bXzgVq_jp-ttaum9lgUBT7XCWE7EHLr-EXTb5sDjzGe1bdNafdw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="510" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">...by 2060 in the low migration scenario aggregate GDP decreases by 11% and GDP per person by 2.7% compared to the baseline scenario... this policy has a significant negative impact on public finances, owing to the shift in the demographic structure after the shock. The total level of government spending expressed as a share of GDP increases by 1.4 percentage points by 2060. This effect requires an increase in the effective labour income tax rate for the government to balance its budget in every period. By 2060 the required increase is 2.2 percentage points</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The results are conservative in sense that they model for just below 100,000 (I’m not sure if this is what the Conservative Party means when they say they want immigration in the “tens of thousands”) and they don’t take into account the effects of immigration on things like total factor productivity. These results are fairly representative of the literature but its worth considering in details the specific impacts of immigration on employment, wages and public finances. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On employment</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, Luchino et al (2012) find ‘no association between migrant inflows and claimant unemployment.’ The correlation actually goes the other way so that a 2 percentage point increase in the amount of migrants leads to a 0.02 percentage point reduction in the claimant (i.e., unemployment) count but this result is not significant. They go one step further and look at whether this association changes depending on the business cycle – still no association. Note that this study was looking at the UK – but when you look at cross-sectional evidence, you find the same thing (see Figure 2 below). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The literature does raise some issues about whether this positive effect extends to everyone. For example, Dustmann et al (2005) find no significant effect on the overall level of unemployment but they did find it had a negative impact on those with only O-levels but a positive impact for those with A levels or university degrees. I’m not persuaded by this line of research for two reasons. First, when you look at the impact over long periods of time, the effect diminishes. As Devlin et al (2014) note: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">... our assessment is that there is relatively little evidence that migration has caused statistically significant displacement of UK natives from the labour market in periods when the economy has been strong... The evidence also suggests that where there has been a displacement effect from a particular cohort of migrants, this dissipates over time – that is, any displacement impacts from one set of new arrivals gradually decline as the labour market adjusts</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And this ties quite nicely with a similar but quite distinct point: the impact of immigration tends to be tamed by how flexible your labour markets are. As Sam </span><a href="http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/the-progressives-immigration-dilemma/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">says</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> ‘the more rigid a labour market, the worse immigration is for native workers.’ Looking at European data, Angrist and Kugler (2003) show that ‘increasing the severity of labour standards by one standard deviation, about the difference between Denmark and Belgium, would increase the negative effect of immigration from -0.027 at the median to about -0.042.’ Just to really hammer the point, the OECD produces this helpful graph: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="C:\Users\Mustafa\Desktop\download.png" height="305" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/xUGOZ5_VqG5S_n68oDQuCUKkZ51lbZIzNjDcnmRTRhmKAJgdtVbSflVaQu3vSbGpkKSlhHBNsqE0Myp5TjSFgJ2oB1lhcxnUlSCEDI5m0rqP_zPqbGYTjuOMg6-h3qN9paYexB59756AFrQjLw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="575" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The countries on the right hand side are likely to be integrating migrants into their labour markets better than those on the left. I decided to look at how these countries tacked on the Heritage Foundation’s measures of Labour Freedom (100 being the highest levels of labour freedom and 0 being the lowest). The average score for the ten countries with the highest risk is 56. The average score for the ten countries with the lowest risk is 70. That is a significant difference. You can check my working out by downloading the data </span><a href="http://www.heritage.org/index/explore" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fortunately in the Anglosphere, where the average Labour Freedom score is 81, we do have dynamic labour markets which moderate the effect – and, if anything this should lead you to favour economic freedom rather than restrictions on immigration. Why would flexible labour markets matter? The obvious is that people who do lose jobs can more easily find jobs in a labour market with less minimum wages, hiring and firing regulation and centralised collective wage bargaining etc. Di Tella and MacCullock (2005) find that if France had a labour market as flexible as the U.S., ‘its employment rate would increase 1.6 percentage points, or 14% of the employment gap between the two countries.’ </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But there’s an even more interesting mechanism that I wasn’t aware of until I read Brian and Kovak (2016): immigrants respond to labour market demands in a way that equilibrates the labour market. How? Well, natives don’t appear to be as geographically responsive to labour market demands: if employment declines and you lose your job, as a native, you are (relatively) not likely to get up and go somewhere where there is demand. But that is exactly what immigrants do: they will get up and go (see Figure 1 above). And this makes a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">huge </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">difference for natives:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We find that in metro areas where the Mexican-born comprised a substantial share of the low-skilled workforce prior to the Recession, there was a much weaker relationship between labour demand shocks and native employment probabilities than in areas with relatively few Mexican workers. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Natives living in metro areas with many similarly skilled Mexicans were thus insulated from local shocks, as the departure (arrival) of Mexican workers absorbed part of the relative demand decline (increase).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="490" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/LetBYKWy6t38ZOyESDTYJmdXrDXyeyNKwwDLSGeEdAWzedZSqsjqpOn-a9XUZoP4TFZKkJmEfKdk_0_36ENVK9Jf1tX7h_poXovDwMpjje9VOdn6HG9SlDFBe7eqkDSyES3wErFFwfeZrN_9VA" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="443" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Changes in employment probabilities for natives living in cities with large Mexican populations are much less related to local demand conditions than are changes in cities with few Mexicans. The relationship in above-median cities is 61 percent weaker than in below-median cities. Thus, native employment probabilities were insulated from local shocks in the presence of substantial numbers of Mexican-born workers, with improved native outcomes in the hardest hit cities and diminished ones in more favorable markets</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The key section to look at in Table 5 above is Panel B. You can legitimately question whether this result should be applied outside of the U.S. or Mexican immigrants, but it’s a fascinating study which shows the economic benefits of immigration. This effect seems to apply to “refugees” as well. I will be discussing the literature on refugees and native wages a little further below, but just in terms of outcomes on employment levels, Foged and Peri (2015) is one study. They conclude:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">... the increase in refugee-country immigrants pushed less educated native workers to change occupation. This move was significant and towards non-manual occupations, and particularly strong when workers changed establishment. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The idea is that they were ousted by immigrants but then pushed into </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">better </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">jobs. Indeed, ‘an increase in refugee-country immigrants by 1 percentage point of employment increases the complexity of native jobs between 1.3 and 3.1%.’ Just to clarify, in this section I’m talking about the overall, net employment effect (even for those at the bottom). There are some who will lose out. One recent study undertaken by the Federal Reserve of Boston finds that for every foreign nurse hired in city in California, one to two fewer native nurses are employed in that same city (Cortes and Pan (2014)). As should be clear, the general effect on employment to me seems to be positive. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On wages</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, much of the general conclusions above relating to employment apply: generally small positive effects (Ottaviano and Peri (2012), Longhi et al (2005)) and Wadsworth et al (2016)) – the graph below is taken from the latter). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="377" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/QT-jnixC1B2UQDD2kVSLhZ0vaisY5lCZmD9Hp18S4fHjlutGyQomB7YBVo_xDIOdceDrJ48767xyPWpmIDw7F_-My2r-O2z92HXvuIQU62b7E9QbkmpnmPXSmWVXGz-xb2JXHb38yU5fYsF_Bg" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="483" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are some studies which find negative average effects but these don’t seem to withstand scrutiny. The most famous is Borjas (2003) which found a 3.8% decline in wages. When you include an expanded data series, this drops to 2.2%. Even more interestingly, Borjas uses a weekly wage variable. Brauw and Russell (2014) multiple the weekly wage by the amount of weeks actually worked and then re-run the regression. You’d think it shouldn’t make a difference – but it does: its no longer</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">statistically significant! The finding that there are modestly positive effects on average wages, therefore, seems to stand. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However, this average increase in wages potentially impacts people in different parts of the distribution in different ways. I’m not sure I can do any better than Flipchart Rick’s post “</span><a href="https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/it-would-be-surprising-if-people-didnt-worry-about-immigration/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">It would be surprising if people didn’t worry about immigration</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.” I recommend that everyone read this post, and everything ever written by Rick. The Migration Observatory notes that: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The effects of immigration on workers within specific wage ranges or in specific occupations are more significant. The greatest wage effects are found for low-waged workers. Dustmann et al (2013) find that each 1% increase in the share of migrants in the UK-born working age population leads to a 0.6% decline in the wages of the 5% lowest paid workers and to an increase in the wages of higher paid workers. Similarly, another study focusing on wage effects at the occupational level during 1992 and 2006, found that, in the unskilled and semi-skilled service sector, a 1% rise in the share of migrants reduced average wages in that occupation by 0.5% (Nickell and Salaheen 2008).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are some interesting studies on the effect of refugees on wages. The main studies look at Cuban refugees in Miami after the Mariel Boatlift in 1980 (over 120,000 Cubans arrived in Miami). Here is Card’s (1990) headline results:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Apart from the temporary increase in relative wages of workers in the lowest quartile between 1979 and 1981,the distribution of non-Cubans' wages in the Miami labor market was remarkably stable between 1979 and 1985 .. the influx of Mariel immigrants had virtually no effect on the wage rates of less-skilled non-Cuban workers. Similarly, there is no evidence of an increase in unemployment among less-skilled blacks or other non-Cuban workers. Rather, the data analysis suggests a remarkably rapid absorption of the Mariel immigrants into the Miami labor force, with negligible effects on other groups. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enter Borjas (2015). He says that the Card study didn’t measure the right group that was likely to be affected by the influx of Cuban refugees (i.e., those without a high school education). When looking at this group of people, he found that wages were depressed 10-30%. I’m inclined to believe that Card’s finding is more robust for the following reasons:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Borjas’ study used four cities as controls: if every state (including those that did not experience an inflow of Ciban refugees) did not have a comparable fall, then it makes sense to attribute the decline to the immigrants. Which brings us to Peri and Yasenov (2015) - they use the ‘synthetic control method’. To get the point: the method allowed them use a larger pool of control states (43, rather than 4) – and when using this larger pool, they find that ‘the change in wages and unemployment of Miami highschool dropouts relative to the control group in 1979-1982 was, by no means, unusual andwell within the distribution of other cities’ idiosyncratic variation.’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Borjas’ sample consists of 17 to 24 workers in Miami each year. That is ridiculously small, and makes me question whether the results can really be statistically significant: his findings rely on wage falls for 16 people. Card’s sample covers people aged 16-61, Borjas’ covers 25-59. Peri and Yasenov note that the smaller CPS dataset (used by Borjas) rather than the larger ORG dataset (used by Card) the measurement error for average log has a standard deviation of 0.15 log points – and so 10-30% depression of wages in the data really is insignificant.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When using a Synthetic Miami vs Miami model using the ORG dataset, Peri and Yasenov find that there was ‘no significant difference in the post-1979 labor market outcomes between Miami and Synthetic Miami (the control group). Neither wages (annual, weekly or hourly) nor unemployment of high school dropouts differ between Miami and the control after 1979, up to 1983.’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Card includes women, Borjas excludes them. When David Roodman applied Borjas’ model to women, he found the opposite result (see graph above showing the rise in wages). And when you combine the data for men and women, you find that its essentially a flat line (see graph below).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As Sam </span><a href="http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/maybe-cuban-refugees-did-hurt-unskilled-miamians-after-all" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">points</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> out, ‘the relative wages of high school dropouts recover entirely by 1990 – the effect Borjas has found only holds in the short-run’ (more on this below).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The aforementioned Brauw and Russell make another significant point: large scale immigration is a mass entrance of new people into the labour and accordingly, essentially, a labour shock. They look at the largest labour shock: the entrance of women into the labour market in the U.S. post 1960s. And their results don’t match Borjas’ (2003 or 2015) model. They find that ‘insignificant coefficients on weekly wages among men and positive, statistically significant coefficients on annual wages.’ It is more likely that Borjas’ findings are wrong than there being a discrepancy in labour market shocks</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The preponderance of the limited evidence that we have on refugees seems to confirm Card, rather than Borjas. Foged and Peri (2015) (already mentioned above), for example, looked at refugees arriving in Denmark between 1986 and 1998. We have seen that low-wage earners were pushed into higher paying jobs. This explains their other significant finding: there is a 1 to 1.8% native wage increase following a 1 percentage point increase in share of immigrants from the refugee-sending countries studied. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Borjas has responded to some of these claims in an article for the </span><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430113/low-skill-immigration-depresses-wages-dont-be-fooled-those-who-game-statistics" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">National Review</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. His response is largely unpersuasive. What he calls the most egregious flaw in Peri and Yasenov is including 16-61 year old because ‘your 16-, 17-, or 18-year-old son or daughter who is now a sophomore, junior, or senior in high school is classified as a high-school dropout because he or she does not yet have that diploma.’ That seemed to me to be a fair criticism – except it only accounts for about 20% of the increase in Peri and Yasenov’s study. I e-mailed Peri about this and he confirms what I suspected: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The key point is that none of his point really matters for our results of no effect on wages. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We now [in a working paper due to be published soon] drop all workers below 19 in our main sample and the results are totally unchanged</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">… when one uses the larger, more reliable sample, with lower measurement error which is the May-ORG sample, one never finds the impact on Miami less educated wages.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Only with SOME samples in the much smaller March-CPs data, which rely on 15-20 observations per city in the relevant group (and so massive measurement error) one can find some negative effects on some subgroups. This is why Borjas is so obsessed in the sample choice. Only in one small sample, only with March-CPS data one can find a negative impact. But given the large standard error of those averages that occurrence can be by pure chance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The aforementioned Wadsworth et al study of EU immigration finds ‘no apparent link between changes in the real wages of UK nationals and changes in EU immigration’ – even for the least skilled native workers. Figure 11 below shows the effect on real wages as against the change in immigration levels from the EU. So much for the negative effect on wages of the lower rung of the economic ladder.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even if you wanted to maintain that there is a negative effect for low-earners, the studies that find negative results really are minimal. Nickell and Saleheen (2015) looking at the impact of a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of immigrants working in semi/unskilled services, find a 1.88 percent reduction in pay (see Table 7). What does this actually mean? Here’s how Jonathan Portes </span><a href="http://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/how-small-small-impact-immigration-uk-wages#.Vx8rjVYrJhF" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">explains</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> it: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Well, the first thing to note is that a 10 percentage point rise in the proportion of migrants working in a sector – the amount needed to generate the “nearly 2 percent” wage impact is very large. Indeed, it is larger than the entire rise observed since the 2004-06 period in the semi/unskilled services sector, which is about 7 percentage points… </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Moreover the estimated impact is partly simply a compositional one – reflecting the fact that migrants earn less, as well as the impact on native wages. Allowing for this, we can calculate that the new paper implies that the impact of migration on the wages of the UK-born in this sector since 2004 has been about 1 percent, over a period of 8 years. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With average wages in this sector of about £8 an hour, that amounts to a reduction in annual pay rises of about a penny an hour.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But here’s another interesting reason why you shouldn’t be that concerned about the wage effects. Those low-earners whose wages are probably affected are themselves immigrants. Manacorda et al (2012) find that ‘immigration has primarily reduced the wages of immigrants - and in particular of university educated immigrants - with little discernible effect on the wages of the native-born.’ Studies that look at wage effects without disaggregating groups are borderline worthless: Ottaviano and Peri (2012) find that there are positive wage effects for average native works (including those without a high school degree) in the range of 0.6 to 1.7% - but there is a 6.7% </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">decrease </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">for existing immigrants. </span></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/ByrneTofferings">@ByrneTofferings</a> Same thing that happened to coal miners. And may more communities be devastated for the good of us all.</div>
— Mugwump (@anonmugwump) <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/732256087014019072">May 16, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even more important is that the effect on wages seems to be short lived (see above, and Devlin et al). As far as the compositional effects on the poorer people go, I have to say quite bluntly: even if there is an effect (unlikely) and it’s not short term (unlikely): you can be worried, but don’t expect the rest of us to heed your concerns[5]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. There are more significant reasons why I believe this that will be handled below, but even just looking at the domestic side of things, I can’t put it any better than </span><a href="http://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/migration-and-trade#.VyDDqlYrKJA" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Portes</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Yes, we're doing this for the good of our country, and yes you may lose out, but ultimately we still have to do this… Just as we said to the coal miners 30 years ago: 'Sorry we can get our coal a lot cheaper abroad. We can't afford to keep on propping you up.'… In the case of coal mining and immigration relatively liberal policies had benefited people, on average, even if some individuals had lost out, and that these policies had therefore been broadly sensible: the human consequences, overall, were positive.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On public finances</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, the Office of Budget Responsibility (2013) looked at the question of how much immigration affects debt levels and finds what the Lisenkova et al (2013) found: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="379" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/vKwUUSfN7pdZxNdWzXqvg2YWX6K6e_yY8bJNedkyLDY2mUOo8a0yCIFK3_nyfjyTL1VDRBop7hGR7ikik0p8phZ-U6DpxRgPZTNViptqoBjvlKsm_VFCWHpn54dxWHubReVcJdQ5Fu2FImmXmA" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="601" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">By 2062, our debt as a percentage of GDP will be 175% with no immigration, it would be 100% with 140,000 a year and 75% with 260,000. There are two reasons for this. First, immigrants just don’t drain resources: they pay taxes, they create wealth. It is little surprise that the OBR has said that for Chancellor Osborne to reach his deficit target he must miss his target to reduce net migration. Indeed, revising immigration up from 105,000 to 185,000, led to the OBR revising output up by 0.9% (see this </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/01/osborne-reliant-on-rising-immigration-levels-to-achieve-budget-surplus" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Guardian</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">report). As the </span><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dc7f9f0e-a3ae-11e3-88b0-00144feab7de.html#axzz3y6lyasWd" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Financial Times</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> noted in 2014, migrants ‘created one in every seven UK companies’ and ‘are responsible for creating 14 per cent of British jobs.’ The report goes onto say: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">... entrepreneurial activity among the migrant community was nearly double that of UK-born individuals: 17.2 per cent had launched their own businesses, compared with 10.4 per cent of those born here. They are also, on average, eight years younger than indigenous entrepreneurs at 44.3 years old, compared to 52.1. This is despite the extra challenges they face, including access to finance and cultural and language barriers</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This finding is not unique to the U.K. As Anderson (2016) notes, in the U.S., immigrants have ‘started more than half (44 of 87) of America’s startup companies valued at $1 billion dollars or more and are key members of management or product development teams in over 70%’ of them. The value of just these 44 companies is ‘$168 billion, which is close to half the value of the stock markets of Russia or Mexico.’ </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The second reason why the effect on public finances shouldn’t be surprising is because the pull of welfare states is often overstated. Evidence from the U.S. seems to suggest that the welfare state is really not a magnet or, at the very least, immigrants are not using welfare states any more than the native population. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">…immigrants generally participate in the safety net at lower rates than natives once we restrict ourselves to comparisons within the set of lower‐income families. This is true for almost all programs we consider and is true both before and after [the 1996] welfare reform [which restricted welfare for immigrants]… our results show that immigrants rely more on earnings as a source of income (than do natives) and the degree of reliance has increased post‐welfare reform</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On the question of immigrants coming to Western countries to use our welfare states and draining them, the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">general</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> argument, therefore, seems to fail. However, there may be a differential depending on the origin of the immigrant. Which brings us to my favourite Radio 4 programme, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">More or Less</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. In an </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03qfzgx" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">episode</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> from 2014, they investigated the claim that immigrants create public debt. They note that: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">…between 1995 and 2011, on average each European immigrant put about £6,000 more into the public purse than they took out. Non-European immigrants, on the other hand, each took out about £21,000 more than they put in</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. on average, each native Briton took out roughly £11,000 more than they put in between 1995 and 2011. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FullFact (an under-appreciated site) has </span><a href="https://fullfact.org/immigration/how-immigrants-affect-public-finances/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">a nice summary</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of the research on the fiscal effects of immigration. I suggest you ignore the studies put out by MigrationWatch because their methodology is so flawed, I barely know where to begin. But, even then, the broader picture is precisely this: European immigration seems to be okay for public finances, non-European immigration does not.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It is worth considering the Dustmann and Fratitini research in a bit more detail. As you can see, they find that non-EEA migrants cost the public purse. However, when you take into account that some public expenditures are fixed, even non-EEA migrants outperform natives when it comes to contributions to the public purse: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="279" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/1-SEJltyApV22mLqFlB5Fpl21TEoQOx3cel2nr5Sd_TXAokrMaR_zILx643vSiXiuMHocIO5qfk1STPkljCQ4zVNL8V_9ufj2yAlcKnBme6OHlHlDFcPlS07VQRw_pfMnmFdeYBxolE2DZM8Hg" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="405" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Aside from the origin of the immigrant, their reason for coming may matter: refugees, for example, may be less likely to be able to work because of their age and/or skills and therefore their contributions to GDP and to public finances may be smaller. The evidence here does seem to show a negative impact on public finances. Ruist (2015) looks at the effect of the recent refugee flow into Sweden on public finances. The table below is worth considering:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="http://www.voxeu.org/sites/default/files/image/FromMay2014/ruist%20table1%2027%20jan.png" height="427" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/EexEp1hUf81QoFJcRdbKWDkmfMY2ZXLLN6-Y57YVZ1gtkLUeSLI1DTd2C-TVEi2VwExRYtoaPoG7ZlVzqGDxUEwdPNOFCQZPQwFnube3T6evJQthqiE0XiBJ9ATPyJ-bIe2s0KnhrTbJ98E8Og" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="516" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ruist finds that refugees account for 5.6% of public spending. Refugees in Sweden constitute 5.1% of the population so this isn’t hugely disproportionate. But, when you look at the table, you see that they account for 55.4% of social assistance and 25.3% of the spending on “crime and justice.” Refugees are a drag on public finances: the net fiscal redistribution is 1% of Sweden’s GDP. Ruist explains this finding: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">... they performed much worse than the rest of the population on the revenue side, where they contributed only an estimated 3.4% of total public revenue, essentially through direct and payroll taxes. The reason is clear: the employment rate among adult refugees was 20 percentage points lower than that among all adults. The reasons include poor language skills, lack of applicable training, lower female labour force participation rates, and so on... Four-fifths of the redistribution was due to lower public per capita revenues from refugees compared with the total population, and one-fifth to higher per capita public costs.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There still may be a drag but Ruist’s finding that around a pretty insignificant 1.35% of GDP being redistributed should dampen the weight of this argument. The more important point about Ruist’s finding relates to the labour market. With flexible labour markets, refugees can be integrated into employment far quicker – this has been addressed above, but when you put the points together you get a simple maxim: If you want immigrants not to be a drag, free your labour markets! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If you only cared about the public finances side of things, you should have no qualms, at the least, with European (and, let’s be honest, Anglosphere) immigration but you might want restrictions on non-Europeans. Leaving aside the impacts on public finances in the past, the OBR’s model is clear: you should want to encourage immigration to a level near 260,000. You might even cut out the nationality element and prefer that immigrants must have (1) a job or (2) a high paying job. This policy prescription has to be weighed against further factors below. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The public finances argument is not that conclusive for me (GDP, GDP per capita and wages matter more in my opinion) but here’s an interesting idea. If you do care about public finances and the impact from non-European immigrants – why not say you are anti-legal immigration but you are pro-illegal immigration? Why not support worker programmes? I do not support these and I will explain why and return to the issue of public finances below. But, as we’ll see, the benefits to immigrants are so large, that the answer should almost never be restriction of immigration but changes of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">other </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">policies. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">concluding point </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">to this subsection, the above broadly positive economic findings are consistent and significant. Ed West’s book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Diversity Illusion</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is an anti-immigration book worth reading (full disclosure: I consider Ed a friend) but it does contain a common incorrect refrain of the anti-immigration writers when he says ‘certainly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">some </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">economists believe that immigration benefits the economy… but just as many economists argue to the contrary’ (my emphasis) (p.73). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is not true. The weight of the evidence is behind the positive effects of immigration (a point that Ed accepts when he says that ‘economist tend to approve’ of immigration on p.84). There is a better argument that these effects are closer to zero and only marginally positive, but that doesn’t seem to be the argument of most anti-immigration writers. Below is the IGM Economics Experts Panel view of immigration’s effects on the average worker. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">10% is not “just as many” as 63%. As accepted, there will be losers but we cannot make policy on the basis that there are some losers. I use the word “some” very specifically. Aubrey et al (2016) look at the labour market effects (employment, wages etc.), the fiscal effects and what they call ‘market size effects.’ Market size effects are aimed at measuring ‘aggregate demand for goods and services in the receiving and sending countries’ as this ‘determines firms’ entry and exit decisions and in turn, the numbers of entrepreneurs and goods available to consumers’. They then try to measure who exactly benefits on the basis of these effects: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="255" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/M7BQGtdi8KF_QtHjkUsZiWHyhg47z_425g4ljgIFPSptwydNvQkCPKnuILyeAFt4yglqVUFdSD_j28m6Dwnkr_cinaSnzehULUCJ6Xiyod58Rt5L5Z5ZK7Jrbxib2EpxXZ2_qKKQ-GC0FRSYuw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="423" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The set of winners represents 6 9.1% of OECD non-migrant population aged 25 and over. This share increases to 83.0% if one considers the 22 countries whose GDP per capita was above USD 30,000 in the year 2010. Contrary to popular perceptions, winners mainly reside in net immigration countries; their gains can be important and are essentially due to the entry of immigrants from non-OECD countries, which has a drastic effect on market size… The average effect on non-migrants is positive in 28 OECD countries, nil in France, and negative in 5 traditional countries of emigration.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the second figure above (labelled (b)), the average effect of migration from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">outside </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the OECD on natives </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">within </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the OECD are considered. You can plainly see that ‘effect of extra-OECD migration is positive in 22 countries.’ How does this compare with intra-OECD migration? Aubrey et al identify ‘17 winners and 16 losers (the effect is nil in Sweden)’. Their main conclusion on total welfare is as follows: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Overall, extra-OECD migration flows increase the average utility of non-migrants by 1.2% in the OECD (and by 0.9% if older cohorts of migrants are included in the average)... Intra-OECD migration flows decrease the average utility of non-migrants by 0.1% in the OECD. Hence, the bulk of welfare gains from global migration is driven by extra-OECD migration, in line with Di Giovanni etal. (2015) or Iranzo and Peri (2009).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This is not me picking and choosing studies, the bulk of the economic literature and economists support the idea that immigration is a good for the economy and the domestic state with minimal, short-term downsides. Anti-immigration activists would do better to make a cultural or institutional case – something I’ll consider in the next part. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1.2 International Economic Impact</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of course, the domestic impact is not all we care about – the impact on global economic outcomes is similarly important. The different weight we should give to domestic and international factors will not be explored in this part. The first impact to consider is the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">net impact on GDP</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. The most famous paper is Clemens (2011) in which he states:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For the elimination of trade policy barriers and capital flow barriers, the estimated gains amount to less than a few percent of world GDP. For labor mobility barriers, the estimated gains are often in the range of 50–150percent of world GDP</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Clemens notes that if you assume that the average gain for an immigrant is $7,500pa (which is highly conservative), then you would have overall gains of 20 to 60% of global GDP. Clemens’ paper is a literature review which is why it’s unsurprising he’s not alone: Hamilton and Whalley (1984) suggest a gain of 147%, Moses and Bjorn (2004) suggest 96.5%, Klein and Ventura (2007) suggest 121%. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Clemens’ review has not gone unchallenged and here’s where we meet Borjas again – he provides the only critique worth talking about. In his book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Immigration Economics </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(2014) he argues that the costs of moving essentially wipes out the gains to world GDP. Borjas states that ‘“breakeven” cost of migration [is]… around $140,000’ and that ‘much of the presumed gains from open borders would disappear if migration costs were roughly of the same magnitude as the estimates in the literature’ (p.169, 262). It clearly doesn’t cost immigrants $140,000 to move across borders so what does Borjas mean? He explains: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In a world of income-maximizing agents, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">the stayers are signaling that there are substantial psychic costs to mobility</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, perhaps even on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars per person, and that they are willing to leave substantial wage gains on the table (p.168). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You read that right. Borjas is saying the fact that some people stay means that its because there are “psychic costs” to moving. These costs are hundreds of thousands of dollars. I realise I’ve probably just repeated the extract above but I’m hoping you’re as incredulous as I am. Milton Friedman’s </span><a href="http://freedomchannel.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/milton-friedman-on-slavery.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">phrase</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> about ‘looking how people vote with their feet’ comes to mind. What can we show by way of the empirical literature? Well, the first point is that Borjas is relying on the slightly ironic position that immigration controls don’t matter – people are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">choosing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not to come. Clemens and Pritchett (2016) explain: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This claim implies that the existing global limits on international migration—passports, visa restrictions, limits on recognition of professional credentials, all deportations, all sea patrols, all fences—do not collectively have important effects on workers’ decisions about where to locate. This would be the case if, as Borjas asserts is possible, migration itself generally conveys sufficient disutility that those policy barriers do not substantially alter workers’ choice of location. This opinion is incompatible with existing evidence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Second, we can compare wage differentials (i.e., the amount you could make if you moved to X-land from Y-land) in contexts where there are border controls and contexts where there aren’t – and we don’t need to guess about this as Clemens and Pritchett (2016) have looked into it. Their findings are, for me, the strongest economic argument for looser immigration controls. They find that when you have strong immigration controls, you get abnormally high wage differentials: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[Borjas’] Compensating Differential Case encounters further difficulty in explaining why there is a 600–800% real wage gap between Haiti and the United States (which are separated by tight visa restrictions and naval interdictions), but historically similar Guadeloupe exhibits only a 60% difference in real wages with metropolitan France (to which Guadeloupian workers may move at will). Similarly there is a 300% real wage gap between observably identical Filipinos in the United States and the in the Philippines [where restrictions are high], but only a 50% wage gap between ethnic Guamanians in the mainland United States and in Guam [where restrictions are less]</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This discrepancy suggests that it’s not that there are “psychic costs” but that there are barriers to immigration that are stopping people. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Third, a point linked to the first, the preferences of people would likely change in response to changes in border controls so that when Borjas claims that people don’t move </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">now, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">it doesn’t mean anything for what people would do if they had fewer restrictions. There is a large literature about ‘reference-dependent preferences’. The gist of these studies show that people value things they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">have </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">over things they don’t because, for example, losing something you have (your homeland) is worse than losing something you don’t (life in the West) especially when you think it is improbable to get the gain (i.e., are you actually likely to get access to the West? If not, the loss aversion is high). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And this is precisely why Borjas is wrong: immigration restrictions lead to the same kind of loss aversion (which Borjas takes as evidence of “psychic costs”) that impact preferences (Koszegi and Rabin (2006)) and accordingly the “cost” is not as high as stated, certainly nowhere near wiping out the consistent gain found in the literature. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That said, it is right to have some scepticism over the higher estimates of world GDP especially because not everyone who is pro-immigration wants the elimination of all barriers, they may simply want high levels of immigration. Doquier et al (2015) find that the global GDP gains when you actually look at more realistic migration levels (and desires) is between 7 and 18% increase in global GDP. Table 3 below shows the income gains for workers in a country (including immigrants following liberalisation), natural (natives in the country receiving immigrants) and stayers (those who stay in their country of birth). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="445" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/aYLzx4JaLvDM06J6HFSIr9frBf9AGVFFP1gciKxhyUFiSwTTsATsyAl1kJsSrHZ-0SLHGefrS_JblDxA7IaNhNL225mD95819SFM9F07WnqseGQw90enOkGc_VBMcKwu0EFF-5GX4lE5Q-Nu7w" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="601" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Dcoquier et al study is, in my mind overly pessimistic, but it does two good things: first, it measures potential migrants </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the educational composition of such migrants. Education in Fiji is worth less than education in the West (see endnote 7), so a skilled migrant with the same qualification as a native is not worth as much and their income gains wont be as high as some of the previous studies assume. But even on that basis, it is clear that immigration is good for the immigrants themselves and global GDP. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This leaves three things to discuss. First, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the brain drain; </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">immigrants who come here may have better outcomes but this may have negative outcomes for those left behind. The logic of the argument is clear: immigrants are likely to be productive members, perhaps the most productive and when they migrate they deprive their home nations of their productive goodness. And it’s borne out by several studies in the literature – to take one of the recent examples, Ha et al (2016)[6]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> look at the migration that happens within China and find that ‘</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">one permillage increase in the emigration rates will decrease the growth rate of that province by 0.4%.’</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s the interesting thing though: Ha et al (2016) find something else that it prevalent in the literature: migration increases the human capital of those who stay behind. Chands and Clemens (2008) find that a large exit of (skilled) Indians was associated with a large increase in human capital investment that human capital stocks rise, even net of large departures of skilled workers.’ Why is this the case? It’s because, rather sadly, watching people move out encourages people’s to want to do the same – and so they also go through the same steps that the migrant has but don’t end up leaving. This line of research has some interesting implications for the signalling model of education, please see [7]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> if you are at all interested. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Paul Collier (2013) in his book, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Exodus, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">states the following:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For developing countries as a group the [brain drain] concern is clearly misplaced: gains outweigh the losses… [However] Intractable poverty as a problem.. is becoming concentrated in small, poor countries that have suffered significant net losses of their skilled population. As their diasporas build up, their rate of emigration is likely to increase. For these societies, “brain drain” unfortunately remains the right concern (p.203)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s clear that Collier’s statement is driven by Doquier and Rapoport (2012). Here are their findings, I’ve highlighted something which Collier neglects to (an unfortunate feature throughout his book): </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On the whole, the simulations results reveal that the countries experiencing a positive net effect (the “winners”) generally combine low levels of human capital (below 5%) and low high-skill emigration rates (below 20%), whereas the “losers” are typically characterized by high high-skill migration rates and/or high enrollment rates in higher education. There appear to be more losers than winners, and the losers tend to lose relatively more than the winners gain. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The main "globalizers" (e.g., China, India, Indonesia, Brazil) all experience modest gains while many small and medium- size sub-Saharan Africa and Central American countries experience significant losses. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">However, the absolute gains of the winners exceed the absolute losses of the losers, resulting in an overall gain for the developing world as a whole.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I think this a neat finding but I’m not sure how much the ‘small, poor’ vs ‘developing nations’ dichotomy works. The aforementioned Chands and Clemens paper was based on Fiji and similar findings have been found in Cape Verdi (Batista et al (2011)), Papa New Guinea and Tonga (Gibson and McKenzie (2011)). It’s worth bearing in mind that the Doquier and Rapoport paper relies on not on real data but simulations using quite complicated algorithms and formulas that, to be quite honest, I don’t fully understand. They and Collier are probably nonetheless right that some countries suffer from brain drain whilst others do not – but I really don’t want to over-egg it because of that last line above. Beine et al (2003) find the same thing in their sample of 50 countries, they find </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">…the brain drain appears to have negative growth effects in countries where the migration rate of the highly educated is above 20% and/or where the proportion of people with higher education is above 5%. [By contrast] We found that most countries combining low levels of human capital and low emigration rates of their highly-educated are positively affected by the brain drain.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In that latter category of winners are 80 to 94% of the developing world (the former is from the Beine et al study, the latter is from Legrain (2002), p.181). And that’s without even taking into account returnees. There is evidence of massive human capital gains for the I.T. industry in Indian (Commander et al (2004)). But the returnees argument isn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">very </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">strong, it’s just a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">slight </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">mitigator. Why? Dustman and Weiss (2007) look at the UK and find that </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="303" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/l8gv0Q4WfSKOcSZlnuXejIrz6yrEADZi-3Oeuss2kGEpOpe7jmQPAZAMC9FPssiSX_2TYq4xYXDF8SicHXDK4dAqwdsBNJaPXwZtxRGPNlIwjqJ-pSMdVeUGw8wRknbpOoA3g5YmwsKwZXt_OA" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="601" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">….remigration for immigrants from Europe, the Americas and Australasia as well as the Middle East, other Asia and other countries is substantial (more than 45 per cent have returned after five years since arrival, compared with those who are still there after year 1), and seems to continue after five years, return migration for the other two groups is much less pronounced. There is little indication of any return for immigrants from Africa and the Indian Sub-Continent</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The evidence from the U.S. is similar: Mayr and Peri (2008) find that Asian and European migrants have a return rate of around 20% (or 0.8) but the Latin America return rate is close to 1 (both this study and the Dustmann and Weiss study use the same research design hence you can compare with Figure 3 above). The point is not that “don’t worry about immigration, a lot of them will leave” – but “the brain drain isn’t as bad because </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">some </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">people go back”. And what makes return migration a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">particularly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">good mitigator of the brain drain is that there is an emerging consensus those that do return </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the mostly highly skilled (Mayr and Peri (2008), Dustmann and Weiss (2007), Gundel and Peters (2008)). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="328" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/aYpiCU7l_EpQF-hbhwhRq6jnYtyBZtQtN2xKts90ZRfV3Vle5eTcJnkPHqvlNVhqRIXBQ3dO2sFxs-X7aeX2lAfh_RfXJv1VGsFB8JOCryhifOHDdnsxE1k7pA4s8EwhLEp0jwNJb8QBQqRXeQ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border-image: none; border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="602" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another way to mitigate the effect of the brain drain brings me onto the second thing to discuss: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the effect of remittances. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">di Giovanni et al (2014) has one of the best papers on the overall welfare gains (in terms of looking at market size effects, productivity gains and population effects and, importantly, remittances).</span><br />
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">… the long-run
impact of observed levels of migration is large and positive for the remaining
natives of both the main sending countries and the main receiving ones.
Relative to the counterfactual scenario in which no migration takes place, some
countries in both groups are as much as 10% better off. Interestingly, while
the overall numbers are similar, the salient reason for the welfare changes is
different. For the countries with the highest immigration rates (Australia, New
Zealand, Canada), migration raises welfare through increased equilibrium
variety. For the countries with the highest emigration rates (El Salvador,
Jamaica), the staying natives are better off because of remittances<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;">
</span>
</span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hidden in these averages are
important nuances (which, again, shouldn’t be over-egged): <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-syfmujEM7OI/V58oEDyhrOI/AAAAAAAAAHc/xAbVyfRRGWwF2Koy0_iXl7czkV_9GiFDACK4B/s1600/1jpg.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-syfmujEM7OI/V58oEDyhrOI/AAAAAAAAAHc/xAbVyfRRGWwF2Koy0_iXl7czkV_9GiFDACK4B/s640/1jpg.png" width="512" /></a></span></div>
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…. in the long
run the large majority of OECD countries would be worse <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the absence of migration. The average OECD
country would experience a welfare change of <span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">-</span>2.38%,
with substantial dispersion in outcomes (standard deviation of 3.07%). In this
group, the largest losses are experienced by the natives of the countries with
the largest observed shares of the foreign-born in the population: Australia (<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">-</span>11:63%), Canada (<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">-</span>7:07%), and
New Zealand (<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">-</span>6:89%). However, it is worth
noting that a handful of OECD countries would experience welfare gains: Greece,
Korea, and Portugal would all be about 1.1<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">-</span>1.4%
better off in the no-migration counterfactual</div>
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…. the
majority of non-OECD countries also have lower welfare in the no-migration
counterfactual, although dispersion in country outcomes is substantial. The
average welfare change is <span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">-</span>2.00% with
an associated standard deviation of 3:55%. The highest welfare losses are to
native stayers in El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and the
Philippines, at around <span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">-</span>7<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">-</span>10%.
Interestingly, a handful of non-OECD countries experience welfare gains:
mainly, Trinidad and Tobago (5:70%), Mexico (1:32%), and Turkey (1:07%).
</div>
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It is
particularly interesting to compare the predictions for El Salvador and
Trinidad and Tobago. These two countries would experience similar population
gains due to return migration, at 19% and 17:9% respectively. But while the
former would suffer a welfare loss of <span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">-</span>8.72%, the
latter would experience a welfare gain of 5.70%... the diverging effects of
return migration on these two countries are explained by the role of
remittances.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;">
</span>
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These results are because of the
fact that remittances help mitigate the effect of leaving populations – but not
all countries get the same amount of remittances. The Table above shows the
percent change in the real average income of natives of that country in the no
migration scenario relative to the benchmark.</div>
</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The effect, however, of remittances also stands alone as an argument in favour of high levels of immigration. The literature on remittances is large and so I’m endeavouring to go through all of it. The graph above shows how remittances compare to other forms of transfers and flows. One thing that no one will question is the sums involved, see graph above (taken from Anghel et al in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Handbook of the International Political Economy of Migration</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2015), p.236). </span></span><br /></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Collier (2013) makes the laughable claim that ‘remittances largely offset the loss of output [from the immigrant leaving]’ (p.208). The difference is that there are now a few less mouths to feed and so per capita expenditure can be a little higher.’ This, of course, does not take into account the human capital effects explained above. But more importantly, the effect that his on poverty is phenomenal: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The World Bank has calculated what would happen to poor people’s incomes in a cross-section of thirty-seven countries if remittances dried up. In the countries where remittances account for a large share of the economy – 11 per cent of [GDP], on average – the share of the population living on less than a dollar a day would rise by half, from 24.8 per cent to 37 percent… Household surveys suggest that remittances have reduced the share of people living in poverty by 11 percentage points in Ugdana, 6 percentage points in Bangladesh and 5 percentage points in Ghana (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Immigrants, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Legrain (2007), p.164-165)). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Adams and Page (2005) looking at 71 countries find that ‘remittances do in fact, reduce the level, depth, and severity of poverty.’ Their estimate is that estimates that a 10 per cent increase in official remittances leads to a 3.5 per cent decline the share of people living in poverty. Jongwanich (2007) looking at Asia and Pacific countries find that a 10 per cent increase in remittances leads to a 2.8 per cent reduction in poverty incidence. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ahmad et al (2010) finds that for Pakistan ‘the probability of households becoming poor decreases by 12.7% if they receive remittances’ and that the poverty headcount ratio declines by 7.8%. Yang and Choi (2007) have a neat research design using rainfall in the Philippines. Bad weather can cause dramatic decreases in income and remittances are found by Yang and Choi to offset 62.9% of this decline. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And on and on the literature goes. In a perfect example of Collier’s back and forth, he does conclude his section on remittances by admitting remittances ‘have been beneficial and substantial for the people left behind in some of the poorest countries of origin.’ The picture on remittances isn’t all rosy in four respects. First, for those who care about inequality, as Anghel et al (2015) note the literature is quite mixed: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A large number of studies show that remittances have a negative impact on income ine-quality, as measured by the Gini coefficient (Barham and Boucher 1998;Rodriguez 1998; Adams et al. 2008b; Adams and Cuecuecha 2010a), and this effect is more pronounced when remittances come from international as opposed to internal migrants… However, De and Ratha (2005) found that the Gini coefficient drops for the effect of remittances; while McKenzie and Rapoport (2007) found that even though the initial effect of migration is to increase income inequality, as the level of migration increases, income inequality decreases. Given the mixed findings, the relation between remittances and income inequality is still a topic of debate (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Handbook of the International Political Economy of Migration</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2015), p.240)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Second, what are remittances actually spent on? My favourite study of the effect of remittances is Yang (2008). In 1998, the East Asia crisis meant that there was a devaluation of currency in some countries and the converse in others. This extra money (for countries who had their currencies devalued) went toward business investment and education. But again, the literature on this point is not as emphatic as the poverty-reducing effects, as Anghel et al note, there is a view that remittances ‘cause behavioural changes and are spent on consumption rather than investment goods’ (p.240). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The third concern about remittances is that they may reduce labour force participation. To cut to the chase, the effect is likely around zero but the composition changes in response to remittances. Amuedo-Dorantes and Pozo (2006) show that Mexicans receiving remittances increase their work in the informal sector although there is some negative effect for women’s participation in the labour market in rural parts of Mexico. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The fourth concern is the effect on growth. Some studies show negative effects, some show positive effects, most show no effect (again, I can do not better than the summary in Anghel et al (2015)). My view goes the plurality of studies. I’m not particularly concerned about this because of the overall effects of migration on growth, trade and globalisations. Here are the results of a meta-analysis undertaken by Genc et al (2011): </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">…we analyzed the distribution of immigration elasticities of imports and exports across48 studies that yielded 300 estimates. The results confirm that immigration boosts trade, but theimpact is less on trade in homogeneous goods. An increase in the number of immigrants by 10percent increases the volume of trade by about 1.5 percent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Why would this be the case? Well, migrants create networks in the destination country that have fewer costs to transacting with their origin state. Rauch and Trinidade (2002) find that the presence of a migrant Chinese population can increase in biltareral aid by 63% (their upper estimate is 102%). There’s also some evidence that the presence of migrants increases foreign direct investment into the origin country (Javorick et al (2011), for example, find that ‘a 1-percent increase in the migrant stock is associated with a 0.35–0.42% increase in the FDI stock’). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The aforementioned four concerns are worth talking about, but I’m not sure they would affect my calculus much in the face of the aforementioned poverty reduction effects. There is however one finding that bothers me and its one of the reasons I am for high levels of immigration but not open borders. How does the level of restrictiveness of immigration interact with the level of remittances sent? Doquier, Rapoport and Salomone (2012) look at this question. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Using a new database obtained by merging various second hand sources on bilateral remittances for a large set of country-pairs over the period 1985–2005.. [they find] The results strongly support the theoretical analysis, suggesting that immigration policies in the migrants' host countries determine whether the home countries receive relatively more or less remittances from their skilled emigrants</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[The] more restrictive destinations are associated with skilled migrants sending relatively more remittances). The marginal effect of costly family reunion immigration policies on the propensity to send remittances by skilled people is estimated to be equal to 0.267… As expected, the sign of the coefficient of the interaction term is negative and highly significant. Our estimate of the marginal effect of skill biased immigration policies on the propensity to send remittances is equal to 0.79.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This makes sense: if immigration is less restricted, the ‘left behind’ are more likely to come over themselves. I can imagine a migrant thinking “why should I send money, when they can just come over?”. I think this is a devastating finding to those arguing for open borders. Nine times out ten when you hear people talk in favour of it, they’ll talk about remittances. But their system would likely destroy a significant amount of those gains! It’s also worth noting that what changes is the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">preferences </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">of the migrants, rather than the number of people in need of remittances. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The final thing to consider, but only in a preliminary fashion, is the effect of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">national IQ </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">on economic outcomes. Like I said, I am only looking at economic outcomes independent of institutions in this section. Garret Jones’ </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Hive Mind </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">has the following graph: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jones doesn’t make this argument, but I will because it provides a good Segway to Part II of this series. National IQ has a positive correlation with GDP and GDP per capita. What if importing immigrants with lower IQ damages GDP? Well, the evidence on GDP and GDP per capita from the domestic section above would seem to refute this, but a more interesting argument is that even if it did affect GDP per capita, these are compositional effects. For example, if the average wage is 25k, and we let in a bunch of people whose average productivity / IQ is worth £16k, the average wage will drop. But the average for non-migrants is unlikely to have been changed. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jones does make an argument about the long term effect on institutions of immigrants. The following extract is a nice way to round up the literature above and conclude this part:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The economics of less-skilled immigration to richer, more productive countries are reasonably clear: life-changing good news for the immigrant with only fairly small effects one way or the other on so-called “native” less-skilled workers. That’s true when we look at the short run or when we look across towns and cities within the same country… </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[However] the possible—I emphasize possible—effect on long-run institutions. Will less-skilled immigrants tend to vote for policies that will weaken the wealth-creating opportunities they’ve enjoyed? Or will less-skilled immigrants and their descendants instead build up high levels of human capital, perhaps raising the average information levels of voters? Conversely, might more skilled immigrants bring a focus on the long run, a more informed perspective, into political discussions? (p.161-162). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">These are questions I’ll be looking at in the next part. Thanks for reading! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Endnotes</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span> <b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[1] Eric Kauffman undertook an </span><a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/positive-contact-or-white-flight-why-whites-in-diverse-places-are-more-tolerant-of-immigration/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">analysis</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of the BHPS and found that ‘there is no difference between pro-immigration whites and anti-immigration whites in their propensity to leave a diverse area.’ He goes onto conclude: </span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">…local diversity does lead to more tolerant white attitudes and this is not the result of white flight. As more locales become diverse, this should lead to interethnic contact and more positive white attitudes to outgroups.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Kauffman, in an </span><a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/white-flight-in-england/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">earlier post</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, noted the following:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We netted around 1700 white British respondents of whom about 200 said they had moved to a more or less diverse ward over the past decade. Whether the question asked about comfort with a boss of a different race or a Prime Minister of a different race, anti-immigration views or neighbourhood minority comfort thresholds, the result was the same. Namely, that racial and immigration attitudes had almost no effect on white mobility. Only at the conservative extremes did attitudes affect behaviour, but this was a marginal effect operating on 1 or 2 percent of the sample.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[2] I am not convinced that the predominant reason for the majority of people being anti-immigration is racism. Consider the fact that of the foreign born population, a majority is still for reducing immigration “a lot”. If you look at the graph below from </span><a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/DownloadPublication/1634_sri-perceptions-and-reality-immigration-report-2013.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Ipsos Mori</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, you can see that more recent immigrants agree with this anti-immigration position less. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ipsos says that this may be a function of their time in the UK and the ‘type’ of immigration. It is more difficult for a recent immigration to say “put up the drawbridge” than a more established one – but in relation to the ‘type’ of immigrant’, the most persuasive confounder is age. I would like to see a breakdown of the foreign born population’s views broken down by age. In any event, the point is that given that a foreign population is anti-immigration, the argument that anti-immigration views are xenophobic or racist is more difficult to sustain. Admittedly, it might be possible that all the previous immigrants have non-racist reasons and the natives have racist reasons but I’m unconvinced by this given the </span><a href="http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/featured/2014/08/the-decline-of-racial-prejudice-in-britain/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">downward trend of racism</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and the fact that only </span><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/05/guardians-claim-racism-rise-britain-little-bit-misleading" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">approximately 20-30%</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of people say they’re prejudiced themselves. Indeed, we merely need to look at why anti-immigration people give, from the same Ipsos poll: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">They could all be liars, or maybe, just maybe, people can be reasonably opposed to immigration without it being racist despite it being wrong. The idea of being reasonable but wrong is an idea I’ve gone on and on about and I’m sure I will return to it at some point. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[3] On the subject of the impact of immigration on voting Leave, the main graph to take heed of it the one below provided by </span><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21702228-areas-lots-migrants-voted-mainly-remain-or-did-they-explaining-brexit-vote" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">the Economist</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. They note that ‘The proportion of migrants may be relatively low in Leave strongholds such as Boston, Lincolnshire, but it has soared in a short period of time. High numbers of migrants don’t bother Britons; high rates of change do.’</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However, Colantone and Stanig (2016) (for more on this study see endnote 5) find that:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">…when London (which contains five regions) is included in the analysis, we find a negative correlation between arrivals and support for Leave — meaning that on average, regions with more new arrivals have lower support for Brexit. But once we remove those five regions from the analysis, there is really no pattern left in the data. This means that the correlation is driven by London, which is historically more cosmopolitan and diverse. For this reason we do not want to make much of this negative correlation — but are, at a minimum, confident that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">there is really no detectable relationship between how many immigrants arrived in recent years and how much support the Leave option received in the referendum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[4] If you believe in rights, there is a very interesting meta-argument about whether we should give precedence to rights to self-determination or rights of association (which is, in essence, an application of loose immigration controls). I will return to this argument in a future part to this series. However, it’s worth thinking about what this means for mandate-era Palestine. If you believe that rights of association should trump the will of the people, then you must agree with British policy during 1917-1933, 1945-1947 of permitting Jewish immigration into Palestine. It’s likely that the local population, had they been in control of their country, would have voted to stop immigration. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My own view is that post-WW1, the British needed to provide stable institutions for the Ottoman Empire’s breakup. Indeed, the purpose of the Class A mandate was that they required “the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone”. World War II provides a later of justification for Israel not because of the Holocaust but because British rule of Palestine became doubly justified in attempting to avert Nazi rule of strategically important areas. Accordingly, during the period of legitimate British rule, the policy of open immigration (if that is indeed the objectively correct policy), was justified. When it then came to the establishment of states in a state-less area, precedence should be given to self-determination – and that is a liberal (relatively) non-nationalist justification for the State of Israel’s legitimate existence and establishment. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This gives moral justification for the existence State of Israel but it does not say anything about the creation of the refugee crisis between 1947-1948. During the 1980s following a series of books published by the New Historians, most notably Benny Morris’ </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">showed that refugee crisis was not borne about because, as Zionist historians claimed, they were ordered to leave by Arab commanders but through a combination of leaving through fear, direct involvement in the war and Israeli expulsion orders.* I’ve come to the view that the debate about the causes of 700,000 or so refugees doesn’t matter: whether they left voluntarily or not, post-1948, Israel stopped them from returning. There’s a discussion to be had about whether this was right, but it makes a discussion about the causes of the refugee crisis of academic interest and nothing more. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">* The precise breakdown of the first wave is provided in Morris, ‘The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Middle Eastern Studies </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(1986) Vol 22, Issue 1, 5 available at </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-5-JeCa2Z7hMXpOaWotOTY0Wm8/edit" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-5-JeCa2Z7hMXpOaWotOTY0Wm8/edit</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[5] The same argument could be made about globalisation. Take China’s move toward a market economy in the 1980s. The move toward a capitalistic model has lifted millions of people out of poverty. However, we know from the work of Autor et al (2016) that it has cost some people in the West. He finds that around 1 million of the 5.5 million jobs lost in manufacturing in the U.S. is down to the “China shock” – trading with China. Those whose jobs are displaced don’t find it easy to adjust: equilibration is ‘remarkably slow, with wages and labor-force participation rates remaining depressed and unemployment rates remaining elevated for at least a full decade after the China trade shock commences.’</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However, as the </span><a href="http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_0dfr9yjnDcLh17m" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">above graph</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> shows, we know that free trade and globalisation is a good – for those in China and the U.S (see, generally, Norberg (2003), Bhagwati (2007) and Bhagwait and Panagariya (2014). To take the most recent TPP deal, estimates of raising American incomes by 0.5% (on average) makes trade deals worth doing, TTIP will raise U.S. GDP by 3% (see </span><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21695855-americas-economy-benefits-hugely-trade-its-costs-have-been-amplified-policy" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">). These are not trivial gains. But most importantly, global utility is raised: China's poverty rate since it has been following more market-orientated has lifted millions of people from poverty.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The particular relevance of the globalisation discussion is a more recent study by Colantone and Stanig (2016). They summarise their findings in a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Monkey Cage </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">post: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We found a strong and statistically significant relationship between the strength of the import shock and the Leave share in the referendum... Let’s look at Inner London, where 28 percent voted Leave, and Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire, where 56 percent did. That’s a difference of 28 percentage points in support for Brexit. According to the data and our statistical analysis, of these 28 points, at least 18 are attributable to the difference in the intensity of the “import shock” between the two regions.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[6]Incidentally, one of many of Mao’s devastating policies was the establishment of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">hukou </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">system which, essentially, branded people as agricultural or non-agricultural and stopped the movement of people who lived in rural areas to urban areas. As Ha et al note the ‘gross loss induced by the labor market segmentation from 1960 to 1978 amounted to 20%–60% of GDP.’ Commies are the worst.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[7] If you look at Docuqier’s model he says that one of the reasons the benefits of immigration is overstated is because we don’t take into account their education levels. It’s simply the case that, with some exceptions, most university educated immigrants come from universities that aren’t as good as Western universities. Accordingly, in Docquier’s model, he gives the following example: ‘each college graduate from Angola is considered as a combination of 0.73 of an actual college-educated worker and 0.27 of a less-educated worker.’ </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The issue is put more starkly by Mattoo et al (2008) which looks at the discrepancy across immigrant groups:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even after we control for age, experience and education level, we find that highly educated immigrants from certain countries are less likely to obtain skilled jobs. For example, a hypothetical 34 year old Indian college graduate who arrived in 1994 has a 69% probability of obtaining a skilled job while the probability is only 24% for a Mexican immigrant of identical age, experience and education.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s interesting to consider is what this means for the signalling model of education debate. We have the following options as to explain this disparity: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The market discriminates against immigrants irrationally / based on taste; or</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Signalling model is wrong: the immigrants are not as skilled despite having equivalent qualifications because their universities have not given them said skills; or</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Signalling model is correct: the universities aren’t as good and so the signal it sends to the market is “immigrants are not as good”. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We can discount (1) assuming Becker’s model of discrimination holds true: the market punishes employers who discriminate. If you don’t want to hire someone on the basis of taste discrimination, you essentially impose a cost on yourself. I believe this model to be true, see for example Weber and Zulehner (2014) who look at discrimination against women and how this impacts the survivability of said companies. They find that there is a </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">strong indication for a negative effect of relative female share on exit rates [i.e., going out of business], which is not diminished by the inclusion of a rich set of other productivity relevant variables in the regression model. This effect is mainly concentrated at the bottom of the distribution: firms with relative female shares in the bottom quartile exit about 18 months earlier than firms with median share of females… highly discriminatory firms that manage to survive submit to market powers and increase their female workforce over time.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Levine et al (2012) is another excellent example. In the 1990s, there was a liberalisation of the U.S banking system. It may surprise many to know that nationwide banking was only permitted in from the 1990s. Levine looks at the effect of the deregulation in the 1990s on the disparity between black and white Americans. The deregulation had two impacts: first, it allowed the entry of non-financial firms which could expand credit and second, consistent with Becker’s model of taste discrimination, the market </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">forced </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">those with bigoted views to incur financial cost where they hadn’t before. The result was a rise in relative wage rates between blacks and whites: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The graph on the right shows the percentage change in relative wages of blacks in states where racism was effectively higher than the median and the right shows the percentage change in relative wages of blacks in states where was racism was below the median. Importantly, there is an increase in both thereby proving the benefits of increased competition and the validity of Becker’s model. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So, what's true out of (2) and (3)? Annoyingly, I haven’t seen papers that directly address the question in a convincing way. Freidberg (2000) looks at the influx of immigration into Israel. As with the other studies, she finds the same discrepancy (see graph above). She also finds that 'the earnings gap between immigrants and natives can be fully explains by the lower value placed on the immigrants' human capital' and, indeed, once you account for this immigrants in Israel earn roughly 37% more than native Israelis. This doesn’t tell us much about the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">origins </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">of the human capital though.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mattoo et al (2008) mentioned above also look at this question. They look at “nominally identical” degrees among immigrant groups. They find that:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a large part of this country-level variation can be explained by certain country attributes. Some of these attributes affect the quality of human capital accumulated at home, such as expenditure on tertiary education and the use of English as a medium of education. Other attributes lead to a selection effect, i.e. variation in the abilities of migrants because they are drawn from different sections of the skill distribution of their home countries, and include the GDP per capita, the distance to the US, and the openness of US immigration policies to residents of a given country.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The fact that returns to education are impacted by the amount spent on tertiary education </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">could </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">be because under-funded schools don’t give people the skills they need or it could be that the market sees under-funded schools as not giving the right signals (or it could be both: lacks of skills -> no good market signal). Mattoo et al also find one other variable that matters: the effect of military conflict. As they go onto say:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the negative sign on the coefficient of the military conflict variable implies that the average quality of immigrants seem to increase with political stability… The existence of military conflict in the home country can have both a quality effect, because it weakens institutions that create human capital, and a selection effect, because it lowers the threshold quality of immigrants.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Again, military conflict leading to crapper schools makes sense but disentangling this effect from the signal that such education systems gives is difficult. Finally, I recently read </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Knowledge Capital of Nations: Education and the Economics of Growth </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">by Hanushek and Woessmann (2015). In one part of the book, they compare immigrants who have been taught in the U.S., vs those who have been taught in their countries of origin. Their main results show that being educated in the country or origin reduces average earnings in the U.S by 6 to 13% except for English speaking immigrants (where there is no reduction) after a series of controls. An increase in average test scores for those educated in their country of origin leads to 16% increase in earnings in the U.S. Hanushek and Woessman then go onto say:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The estimates do, however, provide direct support for the production view of schooling as contrasted with the signalling or screening view. As indicated above, one approach to identifying production versus signalling is to rely on what happens during schooling as opposed to the market returns to school attainment. The results above provide just such evidence because they show that the quality of different schools and the cognitive skills related to different schooling have direct payoffs within the same market (p100-101). </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I could be being incredibly dim but I’m not sure if this follows. It could be that the market is looking at signals for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">good </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">schools – and this could account for the results. I do not have a view of whether the signalling model of education is correct, but I think future research designs utilising immigrants is an under-explored way of obtaining an answer. </span></div>
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</b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Selected Bibliography</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Adam and Page, 'Do International Migration and Remittances ReducePoverty in Developing Countries?', </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">World Development</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2005), Vol. 33, Issue No. 10, 1645 available at </span><a href="http://n.ereserve.fiu.edu/010040973-1.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://n.ereserve.fiu.edu/010040973-1.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ahmad et alm, 'Remittances and Household Welfare:A Case Study of Pakistan', Asia Development Bank Working Paper (2010) available at </span><a href="http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/28405/economics-wp194.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/28405/economics-wp194.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anderson, ‘Immigrants and Billion Dollar Startups’, National Foundation for American Policy (2016) available at </span><a href="http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy-Brief.March-2016.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy-Brief.March-2016.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Amuedo-Dorantes and Pozo, 'Remittances as Insurance: Evidence from Mexican Immigrants', </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Journal of Population Economics</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2006), Vol. 19, Issue No. 2, 227</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anghel et al, 'Migrant’s Remittances: Channeling Globalization' in Talani and McMahon (eds), </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Handbook of the International Political Economy of Migration</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, Edward Elgar Publishing (2015) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Aubrey et al, 'The welfare impact of global migration in OECD countries', </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Journal of International Economics </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(2016) Vol. 101, 1-21 </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Autor et al, ‘The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade’, NBER Working Paper No. 21906 </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Beine et al, Brain Drain and LDCs’ Growth: Winners and Losers, IZA (2003) available at </span><a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp819.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://ftp.iza.org/dp819.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Bitler and Hoynes, 'Immigrants, Welfare Reform, and the U.S. Safety Net', NBER Working Paper No. 17667 (2011)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Borjas, The Labor Demand Curve is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market, NBER Working Paper No. 9755 (2003)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Borjas, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Immigration Economics, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Harvard University Press (2015)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Borjas, The Wage Impact of the Marielitos: A Reappraisal, Harvard University Working Paper (2015) available at </span><a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/working%20papers/Mariel2015.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/working%20papers/Mariel2015.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Brauw and Russell, ‘Revisiting the Labor Demand Curve’ IFPRI Discussion Paper (December 2014), available at </span><a href="http://cdm15738.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/128872/filename/129083.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://cdm15738.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/128872/filename/129083.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Brian and Kovak, Immigrants Equilibrate Local Labor Markets: Evidence from the Great Recession, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Applied Economics</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2016) Vol.8, Issue 1, 257 </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Card, 'The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market', Industrial and Labor Relations Review (1990), Vol. 43, Issue No. 2, 245 available at </span><a href="http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Choi and Salehyan, ‘No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Refugees, Humanitarian Aid, and Terrorism’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conflict Management and Peace Science</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2013), Vol. 30, Issue No. 1, 53</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Clemens ‘Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Journal of Economic Perspectives</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2011), Vol. 25 Issue 3, 83</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Clemens and Pritchet, 'The New Economic Case forMigration Restrictions: An Assessment', Center for Global Development Working Paper No. 423 (2016) available at </span><a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2630295" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2630295</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Collier, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Exodus, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Puffin (2013) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cortes and Pan, 'Foreign Nurse Importation to the United States and the Supply of Native Registered Nurses', Federal Reserve of Boston Working Paper (2014) available at </span><a href="http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/wp/wp2014/wp1407.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">www.bostonfed.org/economic/wp/wp2014/wp1407.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Devlin et al, ‘Impacts of migration on UK native employment: An analytical review of the evidence’ Home Office and Department for Business, Skills and Innovation (2014) available at </span><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/287287/occ109.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/287287/occ109.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Di Tella and MacCulloch, 'The consequences of labor market flexibility: Panel evidence based on survey data', </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">European Economic Review</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2009) 49 1225</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Doquier et al, ‘Efficiency Gains from Liberalizing Labor Mobility’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Scandavian Journal of Economics </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(2015), Vol. 117, Issue 2, 303 available at </span><a href="http://perso.uclouvain.be/frederic.docquier/filePDF/DMS_Liberalization.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://perso.uclouvain.be/frederic.docquier/filePDF/DMS_Liberalization.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- and Rapoport, ‘Globalization, Brain Drain and Development’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Journal of Economic Literature </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(2012), ungated version available at </span><a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp5590.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://ftp.iza.org/dp5590.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dustmann and Weiss, 'Return Migration: Theory and Empirical Evidence from the UK', </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">British Journal of Industrial Relations</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2007), Vol.45, Issue 2, 236 </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Foged and Peri, 'Immigrants' Effect on Native Workers: New Analysis on Longitudinal Data', Centre for Research & Analysis of Migration (2015) available at </span><a href="http://www.cream-migration.org/publ_uploads/CDP_07_15.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">www.cream-migration.org/publ_uploads/CDP_07_15.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Genc et al, 'The impact of immigration on international trade: a meta-analysis', Norface Migration Discussion Paper (2011) available at </span><a href="http://www.norface-migration.org/publ_uploads/NDP_20_11.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.norface-migration.org/publ_uploads/NDP_20_11.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ha et al, 'Brain drain, brain gain, and economic growth in China', </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">China Economic Review</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2016), Vol. 38, 322 </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hanushek and Woessmann, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Knowledge Capital of Nations: Education and the Economics of Growth</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, MIT Press (2015)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Javorcik et al, 'Migrant networks and foreign direct investment', </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Journal of Development Economics</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2011), Vol. 94, Issue 2, 231 </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jones, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Hive Mind, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Standford University Press (2015) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jongwanich, 'Economic Growth and Poverty ion Developing Asia and the Pacific Countries', UNESCAP Working Paper (2007) available at </span><a href="http://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/wp-07-01.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/wp-07-01.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Koszegi and Rabin, ‘A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Quarterly Journal of Economics</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2006), Vol. 121, Issue 4, 1133</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Levine et al, 'Bank Deregulation and Racial Inequality in America', Federal Reserve of Boston Bank Working Paper (2012) available at </span><a href="http://www.bostonfed.org/bankinfo/qau/wp/2012/qau1205.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.bostonfed.org/bankinfo/qau/wp/2012/qau1205.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Legrain, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Immigrants, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Abacus (2008</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lisenkova et al, 'The Long Term Economic Impacts of Reducing Migration: the Case of the UK Migration Policy', NIESR (2013) available at </span><a href="http://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/long-term-economic-impacts-reducing-migration#.VqNwz_mLTIV" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/long-term-economic-impacts-reducing-migration#.VqNwz_mLTIV</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lucchino et al, 'Examining the relationship between immigration and unemployment using National Insurance Number registration data', NIESR (2012) Discussion Paper No. 386 available at </span><a href="http://www.niesr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/090112_163827.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">www.niesr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/090112_163827.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mattoo et al (2008), 'Brain waste? Educated immigrants in the US labor market ', </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Journal of Development Economics</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2008), Vol. 87, Issue 2, 255</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Markaki, ‘Sources of anti-immigration attitudes inthe United Kingdom: the impact ofpopulation, labour marketand skills context’, Institute for Social and Economic Research (2012) available at </span><a href="https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/research/publications/working-papers/iser/2012-24.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/research/publications/working-papers/iser/2012-24.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mayr and Peri, 'Return Migration as Channel of Brain Gain', Return Migration as Channel of Brain Gain, CReAM (2008), Discussion Paper No 04/08 available at </span><a href="http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/14242/1/14242.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/14242/1/14242.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Nickell and Saleheen, 'The impact of immigration on occupational wages: evidence from Britain', Bank of England Working Paper No.574 (2015) available at </span><a href="http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/Documents/workingpapers/2015/swp574.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/Documents/workingpapers/2015/swp574.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">OECD, ‘International Migration Outlook’, OECD Publications (2015) available at </span><a href="http://ifuturo.org/documentacion/InternationalMigrationOutlook.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://ifuturo.org/documentacion/InternationalMigrationOutlook.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Peri and Yasenov, 'The Labor Market Effects of a Refugee Wave: Applying the Synthetic Control Method to the Mariel Boatlift', NBER (2015) available at </span><a href="http://econ.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2016/03/pdf_paper_seminar_peri.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://econ.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2016/03/pdf_paper_seminar_peri.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rauch and Trindade, 'Ethnic Chinese Networks in International Trade', The Review of Economics and Statistics (2002), Vol. 84, No. 1, 116 available at </span><a href="http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/docs/koenig-pamina/article_rauchtrindade_ethnic-chinese-networks.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/docs/koenig-pamina/article_rauchtrindade_ethnic-chinese-networks.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ruist, 'The fiscal cost of refugee immigration: the example of Sweden', Population and Development Review (2015), Vol. 41: 567 (summary available at </span><a href="http://www.voxeu.org/article/fiscal-cost-refugees-europe" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">www.voxeu.org/article/fiscal-cost-refugees-europe</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Wadsworth et al, ‘Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK’, Centre for Economic Performance / London School of Economist (2016) available at </span><a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit05.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit05.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">West, ‘</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Diversity Delusion, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Gibson Square (2013)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Yang, 'Remittances and Poverty in Migrants’ Home Areas:Evidence from the Philippines', (2005), available at </span><a href="https://www.cbd.int/financial/charity/philippines-remittance.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.cbd.int/financial/charity/philippines-remittance.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and Choi, 'Are Remittances Insurance? Evidence from Rainfall Shocks in the Philippines', World Bank Economic Review (2007) Vol. 21, Issue 2, 219 </span></div>
</b><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-34388060056956696062015-12-29T12:00:00.000-08:002016-08-01T02:59:29.166-07:00The Empirics of Free Speech and Realistic Idealism: Part II<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Harmful Speech: Sticks and Stones</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This section aims to go through the most popular areas where people attempt to show the negative impacts of free speech. I will dismiss some concerns whilst accepting others. The general gist of my argument is that the negative effects are often overstated though not always. I am not making any claims as to how to deal with the negative consequences and correlations laid out below. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are no policy prescriptions (at least as far as free speech is concerned) in this Part. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be honest, the main reason for going through this is because this is what I think a discussion about free speech should be about. Too often, people extol the virtues or vices of free speech as though this is a strictly normative question. It is not. And to the extent that it is, the discussion is boring. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m going to have to apologise for the length of this post. If there is anyone in the world who actually reads all of this, I will buy you a pint. Here is a contents so you can skip sections you don’t want to read: </span></div>
<ol style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">News Media: Murdoch and the Purple Land </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Effects of Money and Lobbying in Politics </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Video Games: Crash Bandicoot Shouting Fire in a Crowded Theatre </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Porn: Having an Orgasm in a Crowded Theatre </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sexist Speech: Crash Bandicoot Making Rape Jokes in a Crowded Theatre</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Race Related Speech: Hollywood, Skokie and Umugandas in Rwanda</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Incitement, Obedience and Speech Act Theory: Eichmann to Jihadi Twitter </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conclusion: Epistemic Humility </span></div>
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</ol>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.1 News Media: Murdoch and the Purple Land</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you spend enough time around Communist Twitter, you’ll find one of their main views is the idea that the media serves corporate or U.S. imperialist ends. For example, take Chomsky and Herman’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Manufacturing Consent </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wherein they argue that the following propaganda model has taken control: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[the] propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power and its multilevel effects on mass-media interests and choices. It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the dominant media firms are quite large businesses; they are controlled by very wealthy people or by managers who are subject to sharp constraints by owners and other market-profit-oriented forces; and they are closely interlocked, and have important common interests, with other major corporations, banks, and government </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[the] propaganda model suggests that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the "societal purpose" of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises (p.2, 14, 298). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is relevant to the discussion of free speech. If the media, who utilise free speech, do so to promote their own interests and are successful at doing so, it’s fair to say that this is a Bad Thing. But I don’t think Chomsky and Herman are right. There are two reasons I disagree with this view. The first relates to the views of the media themselves and the second relates to the effect that the media actually have. To take the first, it just does not seem obvious to me that concentrated corporate ownership skewers the perspective of a particular paper.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><img alt="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00897/97651bd6-eec3-11e4-_897787c.jpg" height="345px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/iK41M49475x5_1O-ZT5-M02mPjWfzYJixt34mtDZmvwG39cte3jFNyhMZF_TmO8yY3ILqMYIqHKKdVxzLR6UdSaJbb0ZKiqQYjbOCMkTrVkQuft48wVE3U0zz9stEL1wXN1OSd9PF1jAJrFc" style="border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="518px;" /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take the example above from the last general election. You can take a very cynical view of this: Murdoch is backing the SNP in Scotland and the Tories in England to erode Labour as much as possible. I don’t take that view. On Radio 4, the political editor of the Scottish edition of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Sun </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was quizzed on this apparent discrepancy. The exchange that follows below was transcribed by me (unfortunately the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today Programme </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has taken </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05s3gys" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the episode</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> down) and is quite indicative of the true position. The interview began by asking why the Scottish edition is now backing the SNP given that they didn’t support independence. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Andrew Nicoll</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Point was at that time, as the results show, the nation and our readership was pretty divided. Looking at the polling evidence now, considering offer of the parties, it seems clear the nation is united behind the SNP... People are crying out for them so we're backing them [i.e., the SNP].</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">James Naughtie</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Does that mean you just follow the tide rather than think what’s right? </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AN</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: In this case, the tide can run in the direction of what’s right... The offer that she’s [i.e. Nicola Sturgeon] making at this time which coincides with this the unique set of circumstances whereby its almost certainly going to be a hung parliament... will give Scotland a stronger voice at this particular time and its opportunity for her and we’ve chosen to back. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">JN</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: ... So, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Sun</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in London is saying she's barmy, you're saying she's wonderful. What are people supposed to make of that? </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AN</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I’m sure readers of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Sun</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in London will have their view and our readers will have another view. I see this criticism often [whereby people] will contrast editorials of the two editions but they really are distinct... we have a great deal of self-determination to plough a different furrow.... People might find that surprising, but I’m sure Mr. Murdoch wont find it surprising. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I buy this. Here is what I am seeking to show in the next few paragraphs:</span></div>
<ol style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Corporate ownership of the media does not lead to corporate-friendly media output arising from a conflict of interest.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The main driver of media output is consumer demand (i.e., people read what they already agree with) as the above extract indicates. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This could create a new negative effect of a free media: people living in a bubble where their views are reinforced by an uninformative partisan press. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do not believe this bubble exists: reputational effects and consumer demand for truth rather than reinforcement of existing beliefs means that the partisan media does not, uniformly or consistently, distort the truth. </span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gentzkow and Shapiro (2010) look at what actually drives media slant and output. They look at whether the corporate ownership of the media </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">drives </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the message of newspapers. What they find is that output is actually related to what readers </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">already believe. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As in, the reason the Guardian produces left wing commentary is because their readers are left wing. How do we account for reverse causality (i.e., the Guardian is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">making </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">people left wing)? Gentkow has a pretty cool control: religiosity. It’s less likely, for obvious reasons, that religiosity would be affected by media output. And here’s what they find: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…consumer demand responds strongly to the fit between a newspaper’s slant and the ideology of potential readers, implying an economic incentive for newspapers to tailor their slant to the ideological predispositions of consumers.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="456px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/VD7Z9VJTlF5Nk08120bs-u5itnppayDDROcW5rDIoqi84-rkoG7-S--NMh3RhXS8dRmL9SLksg0YICKRgLLIIVd1uAX_73dP8Y3368vnlBvfymNUiN9HcMM-ZSBfZcvTdy2tVre8Yu0bMk3b" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="518px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We find little evidence that the identity of a newspaper’s owner affects its slant. After controlling for geographic clustering of newspaper ownership groups, the slant of co-owned papers is only weakly (and statistically insignificantly) related to a newspaper’s political alignment. Direct proxies for owner ideology, such as patterns of corporate or executive donations to political parties, are also unrelated to slant.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another study that looks at the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">question of corporate ownership is Dellavigna and Hermle (2014). They look at the question of whether media concentration leads to more favourable reviews of films made by papers owned by the same media conglomerate. Turns out, it doesn’t: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using a data set of over half a million movie reviews from 1985 to 2010, we find no statistical evidence of media bias due to conflict of interest in either the News Corp. conglomerate or the Time Warner conglomerate. The null finding is not due to imprecision… </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overall, reputation-based incentives appear to be effective at limiting the occurrence of bias</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: we find no evidence of bias by commission, no evidence of editorial bias, no systematic evidence of bias by omission, and no evidence of bias among the aggregators.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 15.17.38" height="441px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ypXvjkTwvFEyL2JQ7hUalP4-5urw-KYEQjYYxCLu6t-oB1tR4OiBvdv7oV2ZWMD5xV-7-J_zlxen6jmw8OF1vhNpNmg8ruYI733opWWhhAbvXH-azC0OKj66LArwwDjlFRHTBi1uae4Fk7Ho" style="border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="602px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2014-11-13 at 15.17.45" height="452px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/dYQyQ_3KZqRKXAAlYixi7EplajIecMLkgQ6FZHVkyjli9eBjMaBpWQnMF9jHc8kuquS9okOQ_J8RShM6MtjzkTP-OOCBLX775YLBleTTV6kFDuYTdRRYR2YoKsAyOvspLERwYGTv7HDgFt0i" style="border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="602px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What the figures above show is that Time Warner reviews of Fox films are about as negative/positive as their reviews of Time Warner films. The same finding applies to states (in the West): they don’t seem to drive media slant.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [1] </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We can think a bit more deeply about the question: what specific incentives are at play here? Well, consumer demand drives slant but what if people </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wanted </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">accurate news? We’d still expect slanted news in this situation. An earlier study by Gentzkow and Shapiro (2007) notes that ‘For free markets to produce accurate information requires three things: that consumers want to hear the truth, that markets provide incentives to give consumers what they want, and that firms respond to these incentives. None of these is a given.’ </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this study they look at the viewing audience of a host of TV news stations in the Middle East. They first confirm that consumers seem to be driven toward viewpoints they already agree with (in line with the evidence above):</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of those who say they turn to CNN first for information about world affairs, the average favorability toward the US is .43. In contrast, the average favorability among those who turn to Al Jazeera first is .34. The difference in the mean favorability between these two groups is equal to about a third of a standard deviation and is strongly statistically significant. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whats more interesting is a potential problem: free speech can’t actually allow good ideas to out if everyone just reads stuff they agree with, right? The interesting thing about this study is that it also looks at the quality assessments that people make of the channels looked out:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="351px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/a8wMFeKf-BQIGN4KEQDGQeVvsoVODUPfmeKssK3HVLDXWgi2amdK2kve-A5X_NgNPEjCLBdvG2zckamHgE3LwR7g5K-uT7QOPG8U9a9KGUcOm2_Vy8GdajUxie1FQqtD_bYXc0-9e-sF6O_u" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="499px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The coefficients show that consumers relatively predisposed to share the views expressed by Al Jazeera - those who are less favorable toward the U.S. or say religion is important in their lives - rate its quality significantly higher. These same consumers view CNN as lower quality. A one standard deviation decrease in favorability toward the U.S. increases the perceived quality of Al Jazeera by .1 standard deviations (p < :001) and decreases the perceived quality of CNN by 0.6 standard deviations (p < :001).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This provides a potential pathway for us to reconcile the fact that (i) people seem to read what they are predisposed to agree with and (ii) they think what they’re reading is accurate. Essentially there is confirmation bias: you think what accords with your pre-existing view is accurate. But this is not a good argument in favour of free speech. In fact it gives us reason to doubt the positive role that news media can play in advocating policies or holding parties to account. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But there’s something we haven’t considered: the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">suppliers </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rather than the demanders of media. As Gentzkow and Shapiro note, ‘the fact that the ultimate driver of the market is a demand for accurate information means this distortion [i.e., simply reinforcing existing views] can only go so far.’ How do we assure that our press is trying to be informative, rather than serve the interests of a corporate of government entity? Gentzkow et al (2004) look at two (partisan) scandals in American history: the Credit Moblier scandal in the 1870s (Republican Congressmen Ames bribing individuals with stocks) and the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s (the leasing of land for oil expropriation that similarly involved bribes).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="387px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/m3yYGEnYRjqehvBjDI7nqABa6yEzZViXBGtPwE1sTPfgpA2tqUYOBM2ryqw_JC35gmdqlx6_KFnRTsv-r5C7ouZzDn3JtGiOnOTlKOquK_vz-TejKf3PeGjzf6smf1DPds75yDNCnj-l1-V2" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="451px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The 1870s scandal was covered in a highly partisan fashion. The Republican press covered less and disparaged the sources for the story (see figure above). By the 1920s, the American press had changed. It became less partisan (see figure below). There is still a difference, but there’s a clear equalisation. The press, as a whole, was more informative than the 1870s. What caused this?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Declining costs and increased city populations caused a huge increase in scale. In 1870, a newspaperman might make more money pleasing a local politician than in selling papers and advertisements. By 1920 newspapers had become big business, and they increased readership and revenue by presenting factual and informative news. Following these financial incentives, newspapers changed from being political tools to at least trying to present a façade of impartial reporting.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the decades from 1870 to 1920 when corruption appears to have declined significantly within the United States, the press became more informative, less partisan, and expanded its circulation considerably.34 It seems a reasonable hypothesis that the rise of the informative press was one of the reasons why the corruption of the Gilded Age was reduced during the subsequent Progressive Era.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="471px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Uv33KNPQk_C7TlL3XLEUn9QS0UyIYVymB0YpG53G34C6sJ3DhcFXPYFhJzFeypID0wKn75TKkY2enO1LSfqdFecwvTkBR6KtWSo9qYleA52Z9ybtAobHaGZrZhqPKouV2U9MPCap4yWfCcY9" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="552px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, from the available evidence, I’m just not convinced that corporate ownership of media is a problem. The reputational effects in a competitive market seem to do a reasonably good job of making sure the media doesn’t serve the interests of either the state or commercial interests. The study quoted in the first footnote below also indicates that its only when you have high market and political incentives (i.e., lack of competition) do you have a partisan press that is substantively uninformative. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Effects of Media Consumption</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even accepting that media output isn’t driven by corporate interests and that competition </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">generally </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">leads to an informative press, you might still consider there is a case for regulating the press in some way because it has a negative impact. Even if the media isn’t pursuing some corporate interest, it could still misinform the public – and, therefore, you could argue that it should be regulated. Which brings us to John Zaller’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(1992). I think its a book that is commonly misinterpreted. In his dissertation, Zaller (1984) argued that:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...most new attitudes originate among the nation’s scientific and policy elite, spread outward to professional politicians and the press and (through the intermediation of these groups) diffuse gradually among the public</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not unreasonably, this is seen as a key takeaway from the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nature and Origins</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. If this is true, it provides a clear mechanism for how the media can have a real impact on the views of the electorate. But I don’t think that’s what </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nature and Origins</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is really about. He clearly says that further external evidence is required for the idea that the elite are the ones doing the diffusing (p.272). I think Zaller’s methodology has some significant weaknesses. Zaller (1994) uses the Gulf War as an example of his model: as “mainstream” (read, elite) cues changed in the media, so too did the views of the public. I find this mechanism strange given that we saw above that media output is driven by consumer demand. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In any event, Zaller in that same article states that there ‘there is room for doubt’ as to the extent to which the elite are leading mass opinion (p.202). Zaller (1998) is more explicit: he looks at the effect of Monica Lewinsky revealing the affair with Clinton (and the initial Clinton administration denials). In this study, Zaller is clear that the model of elite cues cannot explain the fluctuation in support for Clinton: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… while media coverage of the Lewinsky matter explains part of the opinion change that occurred, it cannot explain all of it. In particular, the notion that the public responded mechanically to media coverage cannot explain how Clinton ended up with higher job approval ratings than he began with.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The tradition of studies on economic and retrospective voting, which maintains that the public responds to the substance of party performance, seems strengthened by the Lewinsky matter. On the other hand, the tradition of studies that focuses on the mass media, political psychology, and elite influence.. seems somewhat weaker… However poorly informed, psychologically driven, and "mass mediated" public opinion may be, it is capable of recognizing and focusing on its own conception of what matters.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zaller’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Theory of Media Politics </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(1999) was even more explicit: he found news media seemed to have no impact of presidential outcomes. Rather, as in the Lewinsky article, people’s perceptions about the ‘bottom line’ (peace, prosperity and ideological moderation) seemed to have predictive power. I think Zaller’s evolution over time is fascinating (see Bartels (2013)) and it warns against us arguing the media has an overly important impact on mass opinion. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn’t an easy view to sustain: Reeves et al (2015) look at the effect of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Sun</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s endorsement on the 1997 and 2010 general election:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="206px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/WGpHG-geCJWElOmp2fJ1nRmMMMuuCnyFcI9AtH0geyY1Vs05oWFQ9GKckXy88X91Lf2eKezSQda4Q3EKo-85IVccipzg6PihlJTN4M2YCyPkUiBTKKnaJ0ac53m1jj9f2RksqH7BWYTDzIa_" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="601px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… we estimate The Sun’s decision to switch parties generated about 525,000 votes for the Labour party in 1997 and about 550,000 votes for the Conservative party in 2010.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, from my reading of the literature, this is not representative. Most studies show that media influence is marginal (see for example, Druckman (2005), Curtis et al (1994)). Martin and Yurukoglu (December 2015) find that watching watching Fox News for 2.5 additional minutes per week increases likelihood of voting Republican by 0.3pp, watching MSNBC for 2.5 additional minutes is zero. (Ben tweeted this paper earlier in the year where the January version of the working paper found 0.9 for Fox News and 0.7 for MSNBC). A particularly interesting part of the literature looks at the effect of gaffes and their coverage and finds little effect (see graph below, taken from </span><a href="http://themonkeycage.org/2012/09/mitt-romney-and-that-47/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="http://themonkeycage.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/trialheats12gaffes-1024x743.png" height="336px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/pXMDqTfHhQKlIF8XfmHXt2a-VALb9INcsd9gOIgNUflQump0fS8XKfGqDGD_tCFr2t7sfChRUzC4cyEhOSbaTioY1iOyXfPHXfmBQ4D_zdjCvFjXneytWsTr8ie3EI2aER3HQrFIxiAEcRQz" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="463px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that media output is determined by consumer demand also makes me doubt the effect that the media has. Zaller’s (1992) theory is based on elites and the media, but even here, I find the theory unpersuasive: Saeki (2013) finds 'the legislators’ ideology in the House or Senate has no impact on the preferences of partisan voters.' In fact, there is a greater impact going from the publics’ ideology to the ideology of a Congressmen (see panels 2 and 3 in the graph below).. Elite and media cues seems relatively unimportant (see </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/22/how-the-myth-of-messaging-gets-politicians-into-trouble/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="413px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Nu6OXwrFj-8Zp2GclrkVf_rYpTSkMXulYIJiHZ3xMgKDcWwhz4RWlb0VCHvlPBhA0H7v2GORHikbB6dAWL8Nx-tasU-KcYHH4Hob3xhO6tbAdpzV57ZvVTAjItl-ynQs1dV7gbL6LuEvWrTf" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="428px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you aren’t convinced that (i) corporate/partisan ownership of media isn’t problematic and (ii) the media doesn’t have that much of an effect, there’s something else that assuage your concerns about the news media: our actual consumption of media. As John Sides notes on </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/18/most-americans-are-not-like-antonin-scalia/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Monkey Cage</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most Americans do not get their news from some ideologically congenial set of outlets. First, most Americans watch very little partisan news at all. People report watching partisan news in surveys but data on what they actually watch reveals that these surveys exaggerate. For example, Princeton political scientist Markus Prior found that about 18% of Americans call themselves “regular” viewers of Fox News, but only 5% actually watch at least an hour of Fox News every week.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second, most Americans get news from non-partisan sources or a variety of sources... Here is his graph of whether news consumption was skewed to the left- or right-wing.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/files/2013/10/lacour.png&w=1484" height="419px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/yMiHE5Rl-_0BVrVOibGac7eHs9GK30vtwIWy21249VOyC4OBUSSt23UWE-hSIUSKFzFYClLvdHNqbH5urvMFINYPO1HXfJJ1Jzq1t0oAxXX-rHLvd8GyiQGY3FZ4vU4KA2Qd3TX3llKx6RCk" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="407px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A positive score means watching and listening to media that is conservative, and a negative score means watching or listening to media that is liberal. But most people are clustered near zero. They have a pretty balanced news diet.... [This is] consistent with the research of Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro, who examined news consumption on-line and found that most consumers read ideologically diverse new outlets.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To the extent that media influence does matter, it’s only because there is an active engagement with ideas, our biases and an evaluative process in each individual. Fox News and The Sun might make you aware of something you didn’t know beforehand – and that’s okay. And no, Fox News </span><a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/20/jon-stewart/jon-stewart-says-those-who-watch-fox-news-are-most/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">doesn’t make</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you stupid. News media does not, therefore, appear to be an area where we need regulation. Chomsky’s ideas about an unthinking public and an avaricious media have little basis in fact. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.2 The Effects of Money and Lobbying in Politics </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many people are concerned about the role of money in the political sphere. Piketty in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Capital </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">barely touches on the reasons he is concerned with inequality but when someone raised the issue with him, he </span><a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/456118270773723136" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stated</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> his ‘main concern’ with inequality was ‘it creates capture of the political process.’ The concern isn’t difficult to understand: money is used to buy ads, pay lobbyists (after an election) or directly finance candidates (prior to election). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="328px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9MNhtP2Lp4Oip2Xf2EBM1emt7rfQvArnB9ik_0JZU4qMXNYc9gSiKV7CcRNlpIv_5qlUA-3XSOUxkDVUT6SGH7HLeeE9o7SK9UbiOyJhcmaWmfhg8IF5MUW4xL77ntHvzHAWS77BxaoPGyP1" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="363px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…widespread lobbying threatens the political culture and the principle of equal representation that undergirds democracy. Inasmuch as it is effective, the function of paid lobbyists is to make their clients more represented than the general public. They are hired as alchemists, to turn money into power through the production of information and the careful use of influence… One of the persistent concerns is that lobbying facilitates extractive behaviour (Teachout (2014)). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This, it might be argued, creates a corporate-centric political system that meets the interests of the wealthy which are distinct from the interests of the population (see table above from Baumgartner et al (2014)). Each one of the aforementioned acts, though, is inextricably linked with the freedom of expression: a lobbyist does not use force, he uses words. As for the link between speech and money, its worth exploring some U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the U.S. Supreme Court decision of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buckley v Valeo </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">424 U.S. 1 (1976) the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) was considered. FECA imposed a number of limits on campaign finance and political financial support, namely it limited individual political contributions to any federal candidate in an election to $1000; limited individual contributions to political committees to $5000 per year and limited “independent expenditures"- expenditures not coordinated with the candidate or his campaign-by individuals and groups "relative to a clearly identified candidate" to $1000 per year. Volokh (2002) gives an example of what FECA meant: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Say you wanted to put a modest ad in a medium-sized newspaper saying “I’m outraged by Bush’s stand on abortion, and urge everyone to throw him out of the White House.” Under [FECA], it probably would have been a crime for you to express yourself in this way.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Supreme Court held that some of these provisions violated the First Amendment. Broadly, the provisions that related to contributions to candidates were constitutional because of the compelling state interest in avoiding corruption. The expenditure (i.e., not going to candidates directly) limits were unconstitutional because there was little risk of corruption as compared with direct contributions and therefore it burdened speech with no compelling state interest. I disagree that a distinction between contributions and expenditures exists[2]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> nonetheless, the underpinning rationale in relation to expenditures is worth quoting: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money. The distribution of the humblest handbill or leaflet entails printing, paper, and circulation costs. Speeches and rallies generally necessitate hiring a hall and publicizing the event. The electorate's increasing dependence on television, radio, and other mass media for news and information has made these expensive modes of communication indispensable instruments of effective political speech.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In an endnote attached to this paragraph, the Supreme Court stated that ‘Being free to engage in unlimited political expression subject to a ceiling on expenditures is like being free to drive an automobile as far and as often as one desires on a single tank of gasoline.’[3]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A restriction, then, on campaigning, lobbying and the like is a restriction on the speech of the contributors. More than any other precedent, it was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buckley </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that was relied on in the much-hated decision of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Citizens United</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Given that corporate and union lobbying has divergent interests from the electorate, is there a case for restricting their speech to avoid policy outcomes in their favour? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Campaign contributions and expenditures (prior to election)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This section looks at campaign contributions and expenditures and whether they actually have an effect on policy. The conventional view is that campaign contributions and expenditures ‘buy’ favours from politicians. Ansolabehere et al (2002) have three key findings which challenge this view: </span></div>
<ol style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Campaign spending as a form of consumption:] …almost all money in the existing campaign finance system comes ultimately from individuals and in relatively small sums. Individuals give because they are ideologically motivated, because they are excited byte politics of particular elections, because they are asked by their friends or colleagues, and because they have the resources necessary to engage in this particular form of participation, namely money.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="docs-internal-guid-1c201b5c-ef45-ffc2-4aae-a3b78d772ddb" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<ol start="2" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Previous literature:] Corporations and other investor contributors may still have substantial influence on policy. Evidence for this idea, however, is thin. We have surveyed an extensive literature [looking at nearly fourty articles in economics and political science that examine the relationship between PAC contributions and congressional voting behavior]. Legislators' votes depend almost entirely on their own beliefs and the preferences of their voters and their party.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PAC contributions show relatively few effects. In three out of four instances, campaign contributions had no statistically significant effects on legislation or had the wrong sign (suggesting that more contributions lead to less support). Also, given the difficulty of publishing\non-results" in academic journals, we suspect that the true incidence of papers written showing campaign contributions influence votes is even smaller</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Their statistical analysis:] An additional $60,000 in corporate PAC contributions (approximately one standard deviation) changes the voting score by at most 2 points; an additional $50,000 in labor PAC contributions changes the voting score by 6 point. By comparison, changing the party of a district's representative changes the voting score by more than 30 points... </span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="256px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/8gG3gSrL0sHKGl9739FCcmTFE756ymDVps0B1t2pBn_RnKWjRSpfZo218MMTrpEWR2joNnFz-iMchvawXa8YAUR3xXabIpp059IMUzmAYyF7saaXQB9oOP1ST80njq1UmGUsm9wFELxIW6_I" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="353px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Controlling for voters' preferences using district fixed effects almost completely eliminates the effects of contributions on legislative voting, in both the OLS and IV estimates... Using legislator fixed effects eliminates the effects of contributions entirely, in both the OLS and IV. The estimated coefficients are tiny and statistically insignificant. Evidently, changes in donations to an individual legislator do not translate into changes in that legislator's roll call voting behavior.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most interesting study in this area is Levitt (1996) who looks at the effects of campaign spending on the election results. He finds ‘campaign spending has an extremely small impact on election outcomes regardless of incumbency status’ and that ‘an extra $100,000 (in 1990 dollars) in campaign spending garners a candidate less than 0.33 percent of the vote.’ He goes on to estimate what would happen if there were limits on campaign spending. He finds that 'impact on spending caps on election outcomes is extremely small... less than 1percent of the elections during the time period examined [would be different].' </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Ad spending graphic" height="393px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Bu1gG16GzvOnqkFuL_Q422xbvNIyXAmZwm8HPzQtG4N2-WQ9Xs0ZRk_Zu4Z0--RSqPiX_bsywA7GEjplZaOytMLBETp0OTQ9MkcKHZn5RzbW3xQyD2LCMgIais2ZMgr15Ng6DLv6toSHJWaE" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="602px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More recently, </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/12/14/10109940/elections-buy-billionaires" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vox</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> found that, in the context of the Republcian presidential nominee race, the correlation between ad spending and polling outcomes was ‘-0.2 — that is to say, ad spending is negatively correlated with polling averages in the Republican primary so far.’ The concern for money in politics seems to me to vastly overstated – and important given that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buckley </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is right that any restrictions on money are necessarily restrictions on speech. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lobbying (post-election)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This ties in with another view I have: lobbying isn’t necessarily effective. Lobbying essentially encompasses speech by lobbyists directed toward legislators once they are elected; a discussion about lobbying is usually devoid of any consideration within a larger sphere of free speech because of the preoccupation with corruption. Baumgartner et al (2014) is a useful starting point. They looked at a random set of 98 policy changes, identifying the major actors, goals and different ‘sides’ each actors was on. They then followed the issues as they went through the legislative process. They found: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our simple question was whether the policy change under consideration ever occurred. We found, overall, across the 98 issues that 58 cases showed no change; that 13 saw marginal changes; and that 27 cases saw significant policy change.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Baumgartner et al then put together thirteen separate measures of interest group resources of the actors involved. They then mapped these resources (essentially money spent on lobbying) and the outcomes. Their results are clear and counter-intuitive: </span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="120px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/boUvoM2Bs-2cO9DQJpChraKZL1wXJJYxroCZeKP0PPE0AxhJhvGI6N_HF2yb4IyRqbEuxjQ75NLBKJWn7d6DSRkvhgVaELrJflsDY1tcK12GMSMVVipC9BdNpO-JjQlXTzYji734JHaRWoCP" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="454px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Table 3 shows the correlations between resources bT3and outcomes, but this time not for individual actors but for the aggregated ‘‘sides’’ which all seek the same outcomes. Now all of the individual-level measures of resources become statistically insignificant as businesses and citizen groups and other types of groups join together and aggregate their resources into heterogeneous sides. None of those relationships remain. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="326px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/uqGCqCv7CpXS09lzflrviJOMFGbChQgcpKhccn5XyxIuJsa310IrlkDiLGprtiGuuiJRe5iUWbwZJcoKffo-MLBP4JwqTfu_wAEcZpVbTd_PAdDKapfWpDbuoIWZfgTopNpeju0IeXK0um4L" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="267px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Table 4] asks, for each type of material resources that might potentially matter to a lobbying group, whether the side with more of that resource won… The purely financial types of resources mattered little. Numbers ranged from 50percent success for those with greater levels of campaign contributions to 53 percent success for those with greater business resources, and none of those percentages is statistically significant. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those with greater levels of the financial resources and those with lower levels of the financial resources achieve their policy goals an equal amount of the time </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(my emphasis). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Walt and Mershimer in their book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Israel Lobby </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">argue that ‘loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy’ (p.112). Absent lobbying, there is no interest in maintaining the current levels of support for Israel because, they claim, Israel is not a strategic asset. In fact, it is a liability because it attracts criticism if U.S, encourages terrorism and makes nuclear proliferation more likely. They further argue that there is no convergence of values because of the way Israel treats Palestinians. These are all incorrect statements which I will not be discussing, the part I want to focus on is the purported power of the lobby. If their view is correct, there are serious reasons in favour of lobbying being significant and therefore regulating that exercise of speech. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Koplow (2011) undertakes the only quantitative study I know assessing the claims of Walt and Mershimer. The first thing to note that that up until 1974, financial aid and grants to Israel were relatively low. In 1974, they rose to $2.6billion up from $474million the previous year. Koplow says that 'strategic considerations [are] a simple way of explaining this jump in support—Israel’s role in supporting Jordan during the PLO revolt and Syrian invasion in 1970' but 'the coalitional logrolling argument has no comparable explanation.' He goes on to say: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If level of aid is used as the benchmark of political effectiveness, there is no explanation as to why the American Jewish community, as embodied by the Israel lobby, was relatively ineffective before 1974 and has been so remarkably effective since. Support for Israel among American Jews was the same before and after the increase in American support, and thus the greater lobbying success does not reflect a change in American Jewish attitudes. Pointing to the activities of pro-Israel lobbying groups does not account for the enormous policy shift that took place in 1974, or the long-term patterns in military aid.. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This strategic rationale is also consistent with military sales to Syria in 1973 increasing to $2.46 billion, up from $580 million in 1972. There was, obviously, no Syrian lobby controlling the stakes. But whilst this is a persuasive example, it doesn’t tell us about wider trends when it comes to lobbying. Koplow, however, notes that even here the argument is quite weak: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="192px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/su16ewmF24zyTruknc04mcI49QFHmyqhvnViltfUGWEXBAJ7TcsDg6Uz7EZJTGHpoPzsGWbm9MSPxDjhs6il8HFoXGn7nRT0WK9NveTkUoctS03tsuhxgK1nrqGJNlfvnh6RG8kuI1OUAdYt" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="350px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From 1998 through July 2010, pro-Israel groups have spent $25,248,057 on lobbying activities, and from 1990 through October 2010, pro-Israel contributions from groups and individuals have totaled $93,878,940. Yet, there is actually a reverse correlation over this period of −.47 between lobbying totals and yearly aid to Israel, and reverse correlation of −.68 between contributions and yearly aid to Israel… if the power of the pro-Israel lobby is driving policy, it must be doing so in a way that cannot be measured, since lobbying activities and donations have no correlative, let alone causal, effect on levels of U.S. support.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m a big fan of making the jingoistic claim that the American people are the most powerful Israel Lobby. And that is precisely the mistake that Walt and Mershimer make, and one of the reasons I doubt the Gilens and Page study: they ignore public opinion. They simply state their view about Israel as a strategic liability with differing values and then seek to explain policy on the basis that everyone should agree. Except they don’t. Koplow notes that:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="215px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/s5ODmOiLjeLA5plbaeknO6Q-lJws1ScuCaLrn8-G9izUyw5KlMLjchf2Oo6EI7kYGa_lzPdjZFeYnp9qI7N1nlOr8BqWzUYSzlxS7k2EQSWqdwjglwrzwfK9dO8I7A-YvYkRT33pPZg1Vz8d" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="393px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only in four out of twenty-one instances have less than 50 percent of the public indicated holding a very favorable or mostly favorable view of Israel, and those holding an unfavorable view of Israel have never outnumbered those with a favorable view during this time period, with an average gap between the two groups of thirty-one points.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This support has a causal effect on U.S policy. Koplow gives the example of the failure of the ‘Israel lobby’ in stopping the sale of 5 AWACS to Saudi Arabia in the 1990s and their failure in obtaining the release of Jonathan Pollard. Significantly ‘by looking at cases where the public’s preferences differ from those of pro-Israel groups [in opinion polling which he cites], we can see that the causal arrow runs between voters’ preferences and politicians’ policy views.’[4] I want to focus on a more recent example: AIPAC’s botched attempts at controlling everything in relation to the Iranian negotiations on their nuclear programme. Late in 2014, there was an attempt to table a sanctions bill. Here is how Eli Lake describes in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Daily Beast </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">how AIPAC failed:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AIPAC was forced, in the wake of Democratic opposition, to retreat for the moment on the Iran sanctions bill the group had been pushing for months. Then, nearly every Republican in the Senate ignored AIPAC’s call for a retreat on the bill, and decided to keep on pushing for a vote on it, anyway.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Somehow, on the issue arguably of most importance to both the Israeli government and America’s pro-Israel community—Iran and its nuclear ambitions—AIPAC didn’t merely fail to deliver. It alienated its most ardent supporters, and helped turn what was a bipartisan effort to keep Iran in check into just another political squabble.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are many other instances, whether its </span><a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/09/18/bibis-blunder/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">U.S rejection of redlines</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> or meetings. The most important point from Koplow’s study is that lobbying doesn’t seem to matter much and public opinion does.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alternative Argument</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to be very honest and say that the literature cited above in terms of lobbying is one sided. There is evidence that lobbying does matter. Gilens and Page (2014) is a study that undermines both the claim that lobbying doesn’t matter and that public opinion matters. They find that </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="149px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/9-oFx3tNKqkgZ2KWmX1O74LfjyRCpAwHAqpxHsf3zpI6g4qmFd8oObrHmRZN4jeYfiQbmsYbath1yskb4ur58cvCcgi78PSnXiVRqpGKyuaLq-abpiS--fVhfeX_N7YMs76Wem80ARdj9luT" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="671px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…a proposed policy change with low support among economically-elite Americans (one out of five in favor)is adopted only about 18 percent of the time, while a proposed change with high support (four out of five in favor) is adopted about 45 percent of the time. Similarly, when support for policy change is low among interest groups (with five groups strongly opposed and none in favor) the probability of that policy change occurring is only .16, but the probability rises to .47 when interest groups are strongly favourable..</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="277px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/StbBoyPLeJlFNT_whI1zndzihkGEtY83h2Vyhn7boC0T-FcFdHqoh3GoUFztJuFCDLWFMIknH9YEuU_D_ILWGX76gP0yuqloBqNpwqRrp_bTLjGbCb8QkNsiA4Y1tpeKM9bwopwr77H0I9zw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="230px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the alignments of business-oriented and mass-based interest groups are included separately in a multivariate model, average citizens’ preferences continue to have essentially zero estimated impact upon policy change, while economic elites are still estimated to have a very large, positive, independent impact.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have serious reservations about this study: the views of the median voter and the ‘economic elites’ are highly correlated (0.78) which makes the conclusion that the median voter is not significant hard to sustain. Moreover, as John Cassidy notes, ‘the explanatory power of some of the equations that Gilens and Page use is weak.’ The three-variable probability model explains less than 10% of the variation in the data (R-squared = 0.074). To repeat: R-squared = 0.074; the standard deviation of its errors is around 5% less than the standard deviation of the dependent variable! And, yet, this is the study that many use to bash the U.S. as an oligarchy (see </span><a href="http://www.alternet.org/no-we-dont-get-democracy-we-deserve-why-toxic-idea-needs-die" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for the fringe left journalist, Adam Johnson, basing most of his argument against Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the basis of this study). Given this weak statistical underpinning, I am inclined to believe the contradictory studies quoted above. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would also add the following as reasons for downplaying Gilens and Page. Going back as far as Page and Shapiro (1983) we know that there is a huge congruence between public opinion and policy. They found in 66% of cases, policy change was congruent with public opinion change. For the remaining 34%, 'approximately a quarter vanish when lags longer than one year are allowed for.' The 34% also drops 24% where there are ideal policy measures. The number is reduced more still when they account for temporary opinion changes: the final number that Page and Shapiro give as ‘'better estimate of congruence’ is 87%. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nonetheless, even whilst rejecting Gilens and Page’s study, you can make a reasonable argument that lobbying and campaign contributions are related to positive outcomes for corporate and union interests. Take Kalla and Brockman (2015) who run an experiment to see how far campaign contributions go in allowing for access: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="231px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/l-gMpp4BHNgHqye_dnuOZtXS29ZnamhXKKmEopQElw-UoOASF3gGCVVmCWkySJUbKSvXjstZullOmdmypp3PbF9Wbw46AKq-iYL7h3wNDCb8Dd7hPRazJuejJKKrttthW8Df-73GR5tCoZ5z" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="322px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the experiment, a political organization attempted to schedule meetings between 191congressional offices and the organization’s members in their districts who were campaign donors. However, the organization randomly assigned whether it revealed to congressional offices that prospective attendees had contributed to campaigns [Constituent Condition v Revealed Donor Condition]. When informed prospective attendees were political donors, senior policy makers made themselves available between three and four times more often.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note that their findings ‘leave open the question of whether increased access translates into tangible influence’ but access might be a reason in and of itself to try to limit contributions. More importantly, Denes and Duchin (2015) find 'connected firms are 10% more likely to win a contract. Connected firms receive larger contracts, with longer durations and weaker incentive structures.’ Canayaz et al (2015) find that the companies and organisations with former officials have abnormal returns: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The equally-weighted portfolio of revolver-hiring firms delivered average returns of 18.95% per year in the three years prior to the hiring. These returns compare favorably to average returns of 11.98% per year for all other firms in our sample during the same 1990-2012 period [i.e., those firms without officials joining]. The annualized difference between the two, 6.97%, is statistically significant, and it remains so once risk-adjusted using the one-, three-, or four-factor asset pricing models. For instance, using four-factor alphas the difference between these two portfolios is a highly statistically significant 7.43% per year.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="400px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/MuGKAmGPQFsqC9ItZf1UTVsJf8rZxpkDw6yWBiLqX-599jOa_Q5WhrQUyrC_xTOP3BsVFYIA9nuNeNsZi9W-VuVeCy_sMpKTAqX4AW8tVMOOa_U6qberMB_P_xl7yJK0qkaQLYFyu0kzyrOn" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="571px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our results are also stronger in the years immediately before the hiring and significantly weaken as we move further away from that date, as we would expect if they were the consequence of revolvers helping their future employers before making their move.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I should emphasise that the literature is mixed. In addition to the studies above, for example, Chen et al (2014) find that whilst ‘lobbying is positively correlated with future excess returns’ that ‘that most lobbying expenditures are not associated with abnormal returns, and that simply spending the most on lobbying does not necessarily lead to better stock market returns.’ Smith’s (2001) notes that ‘serious studies of legislative behaviour have overwhelmingly concluded that campaign contributions play little role in floor voting.’ </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rather than simply say that the literature is mixed and most support my view, I would say that even granting lobbying is effective, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Take the following fun example from 2012 from the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/opinion/why-netanyahu-retreated-on-attacking-iran-soon.html?smid=tw-share" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">about the “United States Lobby” that exists in Israel: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…behind the scenes, the Obama administration was conducting a quiet campaign that would strengthen the view, already circulating among Israeli security professionals, that prematurely attacking Iran would not advance Israel’s interests and would damage Israel’s relationship with America. Instead of holding Israel at bay or threatening punitive action, the administration was upgrading American security assistance to Israel…</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">….increased American assistance has been accompanied by closer institutional links between the two countries’ defense and intelligence communities, as well as more intimate personal ties between both communities’ top echelons. Through numerous meetings in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Washington, the Obama administration has used these connections to convey an unambiguous message: Do not attack before all nonmilitary efforts to roll back Iran’s nuclear program have been exhausted.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ever deeper American-Israeli defense ties have created what might be labeled a “United States lobby” among Israeli security professionals, who now have a strong interest in continuing the close partnership. It is no accident that the security institutions have become among the most vocal opponents of attacking Iran. No one knows better than they what is at stake if they ignore Washington’s concerns.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The point being that another word for lobbying is persuasion or making the other person aware to agree with a certain position. It’s not some economic quid pro quo, its an exchange of ideas. Take another example from 2013 reported in the </span><a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/banks-lobbyists-help-in-drafting-financial-bills/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">which is about banking legislation:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One bill that sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month — over the objections of the Treasury Department — was essentially Citigroup’s, according to e-mails reviewed by The New York Times. The bill would exempt broad swathes of trades from new regulation…. Citigroup’s recommendations were reflected in more than 70 lines of the House committee’s 85-line bill. Two crucial paragraphs, prepared by Citigroup in conjunction with other Wall Street banks, were copied nearly word for word. (Lawmakers changed two words to make them plural.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Icky, right? Maybe not, as the report goes on to say:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Industry officials acknowledged that they played a role in drafting the legislation, but argued that the practice was common in Washington. Some of the changes, they say, have gained wide support, including from Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman… Lawmakers who supported the industry-backed bills said they did so because the effort was in the public interest… Citigroup executives said the change they advocated was good for the financial system, not just the bank. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What if Citigroup know the effect of the legislation better than others? What if the reason why there is ‘wide support’ including the Fed isn’t because of an attempt at political capture but a sincere attempt to have a workable policy? What if being close to the U.S. intelligence community reminds Israeli security officials of how important their relationship is? None of these questions have an easy or consistent answer. But I think Smith (2001) is right when he notes that: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Campaign money is of little value if it cannot be turned into an electoral victory and it makes little sense to betray one person convictions, lose the support of one’s party, and offend public opinion in order to obtain a contribution…to find corruption, we must assume that the representative is acting against his or her own best judgment and principles, against the wishes of a majority of his or her constituents, and against the intense preferences of a minority… How likely is any legislator to do such a thing for a mere contribution? (p.55, 59)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For clarity: my primary argument is that things like campaign contributions and lobbying don’t matter. But, in deference to how mixed the literature is, I would say that our aversion to interest groups is misguided. Whether it’s Save the Children campaigning for minimum levels of aid or Citigroup lobbying for certain legislation, we needn’t jump to accusations of corruption or cronyism. Democratic politics is about legislators listening, being persuaded in a marketplace of ideas – and it really doesn’t matter if the person putting forward that idea is Exxon Mobil or a constituent. The burden for suggesting that there is impropriety is necessarily high and I simply haven’t seen any convincing evidence that there is necessarily or mostly a link between money, lobbying, politics and impropriety. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.3 Video Games: Crash Bandicoot Shouting Fire in a Crowded Theatre </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I haven’t really played video games since I was 11. And even then, my favourite games were Simpsons Hit and Run and Crash Bandicoot. I also played GTA but mostly liked putting in cheats to fly cars around (I don’t think I played any of the missions). Fortunately for me, there is a vast literature that exists on the subject of the negative effects of video games. Ferguson (2014) provides a starting point for what the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">experimental</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> literature tells us: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> For both movies and videogame violence, some studies find evidence for effects on increased aggression (e.g., Ivory & Kaestle, 2013; Turner & Berkowitz, 1972), null effects (Ramos, Ferguson, Frailing, & Romero-Ramirez, 2013; Tear & Nielson, 2013) or even reduced aggression (Feshbach, 1961; Mueller, Donnerstein, & Hallam, 1983; Shibuya, Sakamoto, Ihori,& Yukawa, 2008; Valadez & Ferguson, 2012). </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overall, making clear, declarative statements from this body of work is difficult.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even the meta-analyses on this question are divided (see this </span><a href="https://oliverqueenathewatchtower.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/concerning-a-new-study-on-video-games-and-sexism/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">admirable critique</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of a study I put a lot of weight on below). My favourite example of an experimental study is Barlett et al (2009) which finds that individuals who play violent video games are more likely to ‘give hot sauce to hypothetical individuals who do not like spicy food.’ But, this inconsistent data seems to be heavily impacted by a lack of ecological validity. This is shown by two recent studies looking at real world (i.e., not in the lab) effects of media violence. Ferguson (2014) looks at both movie violence and video game violence. To start with the former, Ferguson obtained the top five grossing films over five year periods from 1920 to 2005. These films were then rated by trained raters for their violent content. Ferguson then applied a bivariate analysis tacking the results of movie violence with homicide. He found: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="270px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/i-obj61HVE5GECCehQqzVmoONNsJSkj-Q7n3alv1bDsyKyf-h3SoGHKzsBJxymN6XozZG7aOuYxFTbGYxV2xVP8fotm1W-1r3fL0E_vqh78POqPlLn-NDrxuGZ77avyuFIVj-SSESOYHn5m_" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="354px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When only the years from 1970 on are considered, the relationship reverses in trend with homicide rates [negatively] correlated r =−.28 (df = 8, p = .50) with frequency of movie violence and a strong r =−.61 (df = 17, p = .11) with movie graphicness. For the years prior to 1940, movie violence demonstrated an almost perfect inverse [positive] relationship with societal violence with the two variables correlated r =−.98. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This explains why his paper is called ‘Does Media Violence Predict Societal Violence? It depends on What Look at and When’. Recent movie violence (1970 to 2005) appears to have no role in violence but it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">seems </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to be highly correlated with homicide trends 1940 to 1970. Fergusson uses the same methodology for video games and finds: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="218px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Z_bXoEs80UsgIA3kCDdRRyfQPQgCwVoT8yBJY5sU2cQAWUSaGd9lzjxwoNiSWW1JRd-39IT89zXtb-YM0ZSAZMA2GqyZqYsT0BixUJwNgTJnWcx5F60CwiaWh2XvjoMMPul70GbWwsUuidE0" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="288px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As can be seen, videogame violence consumption in society is inversely related to societal youth violence. The bivariate correlation between these two phenomena is r =−.85 (df = 15, p = .001). [I.e., more video games is correlated with less violence]</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Markey et al (2014) is another study that looks at real world effects. They look at homicides and aggravated assaults. Their study investigated the associations between violent crime and video game sales, Internet keyword searches for violent video game guides (the idea being that people would look for ‘cheats’), and the release dates of popular violent video games. They find: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="269" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/kG1r1XD0pAI0JOvA7C1xdmX5_EBoX-czjjYlCp8P4V-WU_drNoNg4haykSt8YFvYTu4nFyedvjHPmlO9xCLo-LImVB1sKLAdUzQpObBR9i-yRR-5aSclot70qPbifMftsv8728nSun-3lUlj" style="border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="640" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Annual trends in video game sales for the past 33 years were unrelated to violent crime both concurrently and up to 4 years later. Unexpectedly, monthly sales of video games were related to concurrent decreases in aggravated assaults and were unrelated to homicides. Searches for violent video game walkthroughs and guides were also related to decreases in aggravated assaults and homicides 2 months later. Finally, homicides tended to decrease in the months following the release of popular M-rated violent video games</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These results should not be that surprising. South Korea and the Netherlands spend more on video games than most countries and are far safer than the U.S (</span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/17/ten-country-comparison-suggests-theres-little-or-no-link-between-video-games-and-gun-murders/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">source</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). The literature above from experimental studies are inconsistent and, as Ferguson (2014) and Markey et al (2014) show us, they seem to lack ecological validity. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the sake of transparency, Markey et al’s 2014 study had some criticism from Bushman et al (2015) because, apparently, ‘trends in gun violence in youth are actually consistent with gun violence trends in PG-13 movies.’ Except, they use CDC statistics on 0 – 19 year olds </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">victims</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This is wrong because the majority of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">perpetrators</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> would have been adults. When Markey et al (2015) re-ran the regressions, their 2014 results stand for youth as well. Interestingly, in that latter Markey et al (2015) riposte is the following graph: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img height="347" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/U_Y5Jm7DF0-3DME7-tpQ3UbqvMR-1dwXSReXCLudtOPoNXh2Ow5KZSVl2iFKyIVvsRr8w8BDgH-JYR55_m5KmbRWrtyghVLSoSziUm1ASndFr4LnuALmL0iJffO_CorrruIQi2oQIxbVQCII" style="border: currentColor; line-height: 1.38; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have given my reasons for being in the ‘unsure’ camp in respect of the first question (if we are talking about lab-condition measured aggression) and being in the ‘disagree’ camp for the second question (especially since the 1970s). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.4 Porn: Having an Orgasm in a Crowded Theatre </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first question to consider about porn is whether it can really be part of ‘free speech.’ Free speech typically covers the conveyance and marketplace of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ideas</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. John Finnis (1967) is probably the leading proponent of the view that porn is not speech. In his essay 'Reason and Passion: The Constitutional Dialectic of Free Speech and Obscenity', he argues that the rationale for free speech is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rational criticism of government</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This can only be done through ideas which engage </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reason </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rather than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">passions</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Accordingly, ‘to the extent that expressions derive from the passion end of the reason-passion continuum, the rationale for that freedom disappears.’ In the following passage, Finnis seems to getting at the Yiddish saying ‘a stiff prick turns the mind to shit’: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The designed effect of these techniques [pursued by pornographers] is always the same-the replacement of aesthetic attention to the material with an attitude in which the practical concerns of the reader or viewer (in this case, a concern to achieve the emotionally aroused states which he desires for himself) [i.e., </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">passions</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">] intrude upon and suppress an understanding contemplation of the created symbol [i.e., any room for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reason</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">].</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t buy it. There is, of course, the argument that the government is inept to define what constitutes an idea and what constitutes an appeal to the passions and I will return to this in the next section. But at its core, I think Finnis is wrong. I think sex and projections of sex are vital for people developing their own sexual identity and provoking traditionalists to change (think </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lady Chatterley</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). I could be wrong though, I am unfamiliar with the literature on this point (please do let me know if you know of any relevant literature). I would note though, that in a </span><a href="http://www.nat.org.uk/media/Files/Publications/Boys_Who_Like_Boys.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">survey</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of men who have sex with men (MSM), pornography was the most common source for finding out about ‘enjoyable sex’ and respondents ‘were more likely to rate pornography as helpful or very helpful, than unhelpful or very unhelpful’.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In any event, I think that the debate about whether porn constitutes </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">speech </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is largely made redundant by the issue of government incompetence and value pluralism. The far more important question is whether we pornography causes harm. There are two lines of research that are worth examining: the impact of pornography on sexual violence and the impact on sexism. In terms of making these claims, the big dog is Catherine MacKinnon (1996) in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only Words </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she states that</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sooner or later, in one way or another, the consumers want to live out the pornography further in three dimensions. Sooner or later, in one way or another they do. It makes them want to; they feel they can get away with it, they do... As pornography consumers, teachers may become epistemically incapable of seeing their women students as their potential equals... Doctors may molest anesthetized women, enjoy watching and inflicting pain during child birth (p.19). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The message of pornography, is ‘addressed directly to the penis, delivered through an erection, and taken out on women in the real world’ (p.21). I will return to the act-speech theory below. MacKinnon states that the empirical literature is on her side (p.37) – but is it? Ferguson and Heartley’s (2009) meta-analyses on the of experimental studies ‘conclude that results are generally mixed and the type of research methodology used in the study often greatly affects the outcome.’ The experimental literature ‘reveal that effects appear negligible, temporary and difficult to generalize to the real world.’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As with pornography, it is better to look at the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">real world </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">effects literature. One line of studies looks to self-report questionnaires to assess this. Bonino et al (2006) carried out a cross-sectional study (n = 804) on the basis of self-report questionnaires investigating link between exposure to pornography and self-reported sexual harassment and rape. They found that</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="231px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/UFz4RJVlK6Id8i0MGDWy-wflAoCWC9wsxC6UsaUtmuYiaRF68tn_NUFQILs2GSnl4i-eDYFCHYemAcV2xKxn2qMwYcX5Y2iZuF42JfR6lCuAcVAMvroYAKEIfhTtnjhZVeZdle-GTXnY7vaZ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="515px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...reading pornographic comics and magazines significantly increased the likelihood of having sexually harassed a peer or having forced somebody to have sex, while viewing pornographic films or videos increased the likelihood of being a victim of sexual violence. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So it’s not like MacKinnon is making up the idea that there are some studies that support her argument. But again, is this study representative of the literature? Ferguson and Heartley look at the literature on pornography consumption and rape rates. My reading is that the literature, if anything, suggests that porn has a negative impact on rapes:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scott further found that prevalence of adult entertainment venues such as strip clubs and book stores were not correlated with rape rates but circulation rates of neutral magazines (e.g., Field and Stream) did correlate with rape rates... [Looking into porn consumption and rape rates in West Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the U.S] revealed that increases in pornography consumption were associated with constant or decreased rape rates in each of the countries except the United States.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="343px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/h2xo7Gjs8AkeOT734YP9UZHZeQXeH-5wjZx64LG5HE_H-6xyS1X9JY6HbTULHd43VSqz5Np8QtGnqFhcN94CfAPSkXpOFSTZD315yT4Kc-iEYH2FdgfZ1Fj9Jc-oElGsq-xWDDr9f7JisLEG" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="329px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[But Ferguson’s own data shows even] rape rates [in the U.S] are negatively related to increases in pornography releases. Increasing availability of pornography in other words is associated with declining rape rates. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those interested, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Field and Stream </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a magazine about fishing, hunting and other outdoor activities. This is representative of the literature. The question of whether porn contributes to sexist ideas of women, the perpetuation of rape myths etc., though is not directly addressed by these studies. It is suggestive that it does not have an effect but no more than that. Garos et al (2004) found 'a positive correlation between pornography use and benevolent sexism, such that participants who used pornography more frequently displayed more benevolent sexism'. It is very easy to find studies that conflict with this. Diamond (2009) notes the following: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Padget et al. 1989] compared the attitudes toward women in a sample of patrons of an adult movie theater with a college sample of men and women. Their findings essentially and significantly showed the patrons of an adult movie theater had more favorable attitudes toward women than either male or female college students... [Reiss (1984)] reported on six different National Opinion Research Center annual General Social Surveys that found that those men and women who had seen an X-rated movie in the past year were more gender equal than those who had not seen any. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Embedded image permalink" height="307px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/rD1puNB2BmUjVLNp3H3BQHNp5CHHUsrTU2MaktEPrwP9aVFt1H6xwlWfN2pqwd8Cl4_mJybusSkNUwIs_mmdNmoBRngIV58xD-u6Bar0e7dYyHv9oIJEhlfJb7Fs7zPa6teBJscpRN5v6LiN" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="334px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Interestingly, a recent study found that porn-consumers are more likely to have egalitarian views but less likely to identify as a feminist (see table above from Kohot et al (2015)). I am unsure what is representative of the research but it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">seems </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to be mixed with no definitive answer (see Layden (undated) for the literature show positive correlations, Diamond (2009) for negative correlations). Hald et al (2013) describe the literature as ‘equivocal’ and say it ‘does not fully allow for casual conclusions’. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.5 Sexist Speech: Crash Bandicoot Making Rape Jokes in a Crowded Theatre</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sexist Humour</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s just a joke” so goes the common refrain. The point that many on the left make – and that mostly goes unanswered because free speech advocates are too focused on normative discussions – is that it’s not just a joke. It has real world effects. Take jokes about rape or sexist jokes – what does the literature tell us? Thomae and Viki (2013) who look at whether exposure to sexist jokes vs non-sexist jokes has an impact on rape proclivity. They find:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="269px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/JyUmu9fe8YOxATboPS8vOVl7eAs9wqlnQJrloFEf2pPqiW52C1OKTiDh37ZVxMu9vY_ocmAKCJjEqR2FV1lYX0yGZmgR-uZSrlTTnoTGF80SyVBs5HJ8D66MAWuI5b1cvRdQxK7NfQCjlV_X" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="442px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ….the relationship between HS [hostile sexism, which was measured prior to exposure] and rape proclivity was significant in the sexist joke condition, β = .51, t = 4.04, p < .001. This relationship was also significant in the neutral joke condition, but was weaker than in the sexist joke condition, β = .31, t = 2.47, p=.017. These results are in line with our hypotheses: exposure to sexist jokes appears to strengthen the relationship between HS and rape proclivity.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure, it only affects those who are already sexist – but it’s not ridiculous to suggest we should try to reduce the amount of sexist results as a result, right? Again, I happen to disagree with this conclusion but the point is this is not a straight forward normative question. Empirically, this study isn’t strong: n = 96 men from the University of Kent. It might be true. It might not be. The things that cause men to rape seem to have a broader origin than their environment so its likely that it does not. Take Långström et al (2015) who find that 'genetic factors (40%) and non-shared environmental factors (58%) explained the liability to offend sexually more than shared environmental influences (2%).'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ford et al (2001) suggest another way sexist humour may have a negative effect: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(1) for men high in hostile sexism, exposure to sexist humor creates a perceived social norm of tolerance of sexism relative to exposure to nonhumorous sexist communication or neutral humor, and (2) due to this ‘relaxed’ normative standard in the context of sexist humor, men high in hostile sexism anticipated feeling less self-directed negative affect upon imagining that they had behaved in a sexist manner.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of this is tautological: hearing something get approved makes you think its.. approved. But do we want all ideas approved? The argument from a free speech advocate (in fact, it’s an argument I made in Part 1!) is that if you give air to an idea, you can expose it. But what if that’s not the case? You can bleat on about ‘exposing ideas’ and free speech being great but you haven’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">evidenced </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">anything. And there’s a slightly persuasive reason why this may not be the case for sexist jokes. Here’s an extract from the Thomae and Viki study:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a humorous communication activates a conversational rule of levity, resulting in a non-serious mind-set on the part of the receiver, which prevents messages from being interpreted critically. By switching to a non-serious mind-set, the recipient accepts the local norm implied by the humor. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Video Games, Again</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t care about GamerGate. It doesn’t show anything about society, the ‘left’, men, feminists – nothing. It’s boring. My cursory glance at the literature leads me to conclude that the most popular video games are, on average, sexist. For example, Burgess et al (2007) looked at 250 video game covers and found that over two thirds of the female characters (compared to 10% of male characters) were represented in stereotyped gender roles or the subject of physical objectification. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m more interested in the literature of what the effect of video games on sexism is. Anita Sarkissian’s series on video games and sexism is probably the most well known exposition of the view that is has a negative impact. I find that people either give Sarkissian too much credit or not enough. One of her most prominent critics is the Youtuber Thunderfoot. Thunderfoot doesn’t really seem to accept the nuance in Sarkissian’s videos. Here is what she says: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Likewise engaging with these games is not going to magically transform players into raging sexists. We typically don’t have a monkey-see monkey-do, direct cause and effect relationship with the media we consume. Cultural influence works in much more subtle and complicated ways, however media narratives do have a powerful cultivation effect helping to shape cultural attitudes and opinions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sarkissian is caricatured as saying that video games make people sexist, this is clearly not the case. But the reason I think people give her too much credit is because this nuance is frequently lost. Here is what she says elsewhere in her video series:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.. the negative impacts of sexual objectification have been studied extensively over the years and the effects on people of all genders are quite clear and very serious. Research has consistently found that exposure to these types of images negatively impacts perceptions and beliefs about real world women and reinforces harmful myths about sexual violence.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can very easily read these statements as not contradicting each other but I think its incredibly slippery. Apologies for the cross-referencing, but this is precisely the problem with the Eustonite response to my post about Islamism. “I’m not saying x causes y, but x creates a culture in which y can thrive or it creates the “mood music” for y” – this is the refrain of the some feminists clamouring for censorship, Eustonites who have a deep desire to make Islamism relevant and, to my mind, people making meaningless claims. While we’re here, take Sarah Ditum’s recent </span><a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2015/11/becky-watts-murder-shows-world-violence-against-women-porn-just-one-more" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Statesmen</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">article: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is not a question of whether pornography “caused” Matthews and Hoare to commit their crime. What matters is this: in a world sodden with violence against women, pornography is one more form of it. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh right, cool, I get it. There’s no causal claims being made. It’s just that pornography is one example of sexism. I got it. That seems like a reasonable claim. And yet, in the same article that utters that this is not about causation (or even correlation), you will get this: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Through [pornography], men and women alike </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">learn</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what women are supposed to be for: something to fuck, something to use, something to hurt if you’d like to, and something to dispose of when you’re finished. Matthews and Hoare dismembered Becky Watts with a circular saw. [List of rapists and murderers].. And this </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pattern </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does not apply only to confirmed criminals and obvious monsters… </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And this is how porn operates: first through the eyes, and then in the mind, and then back through the body, against other bodies</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What?! You just said you weren’t making a causal claim! Sarah Ditum is either making a meaningless argument (if we are saying there is no causal impact) or being inconsistent. Moving on to what the literature actually says, for someone who prides themselves in being a scientist, Thunderfoot doesn’t cite any research in support of his position that video games do not lead to violence/sexism. Anita Sarkissian </span><a href="http://feministfrequency.com/2014/06/16/women-as-background-decoration-tropes-vs-women/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does provide</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> studies which support her claims. Yao et al (2010) took a group of individuals (n = 74) some of which played games with high sexual content and others with a control game. They then carried out a likelihood-to-sexually-harass scale and found:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A simple one-way ANOVA of participants’ LSH [likelihood to sexual harass] scores revealed a significant effect F (2. 74)=5.97, p<.05). Specifically, players of Leisure Suit Larry reported a significantly greater tendency to sexually harass (M=105.37, SD=20.25) than did players of the Sims (∆M=22.50, p<.05) and PacMan II (∆M= 14.30, p<.05)... [This] provides strong empirical evidence that a sexually oriented video game with themes of female “objectification” may prime thoughts related to sex, encourage men to view women as sex objects, and increase the likelihood of self-reported tendencies to behave inappropriately toward women in social situations.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another interesting study is Dill et al (2008). Their study has a similarly low n (n = 181, 120 of which were female). There were two groups: one (their Sterotype group) subjected to a Powerpoint of images of women from GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball 2, BMX XXX, Saint’s Row, Resident Evil and Gears of War etc. The other was subjected to a Powerpoint of both male and female senators (the control group). They find:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Sexual harassment judgments as a function of media content exposure ..." height="262px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/neJfkUZ2J2xUhC0vc-Q85nb4B0fUeWSLOiMNKalCEhQrElYhic0ys_PUj-HEDaQ4vcpepQGx08yuVHA_0p0OCKqy9oRZfhXl7U9qQdKDybA3T1KDjTOzHr6IYpK1S8Hukj-G8hXW4P1Tq88T" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="369px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tolerance for sexual harassment was greatest for males in the Stereotypical group (M = 41.0), followed by males in the control group (M = 47.64), and females in the control group (M = 48.47). The group with the least tolerant attitudes towards sexual harassment were the females in the Stereotypical group (M = 49.8)... [In particular] men showed a greater tolerance for sexual harassment of a young woman by an older man (her professor)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The authors suggest that the reason that women subjected to the stereotype condition have lower sexual harassment judgments is because they become galvanised after seeing sexist depictions. The idea, then, that Sarkissian is pulling her arguments out of thin air should be roundly rejected. That said, as I was reading through these studies issues of ecological validity entered my mind. We have already seen that in the context of porn and video games that the experimental literature doesn’t tell us a great deal about the way the world actually is because of the short term effects. I know of one (kind of alright) study that looks beyond this and finds video game use predicts benevolent sexism (Stermer and Burkey (2012)).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the whole idea is grounded in cultivation theory (i.e., the idea that media shapes cultural attitudes). The literature above on video games and porn should make us doubt it. A meta-analysis on 5,799 separate findings from 97 studies of cultivation analysis ‘reports that the average correlation across all those findings is .10 and that the average partial correlation is .09... This means television exposure predicts only about 1% of the variation in cultivation indicators’ (quoted in Potter (2014)). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The paragraph above was drafted as the final paragraph to this section – and it bothered me because I couldn’t provide a real-world-effects study that gave us a better answer – until I came across Breuer et al (2015). Breur et al note that all of the previous literature (much of it cited above) does point to ‘second order effects’ (i.e., sexism) but that:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[…they] assessed only the short-term effects of adolescents or college students... the longitudinal studies on violence have been limited to periods of no more than 1 month, and all of the studies in that area have relied on self-selected or convenience samples composed mostly of adolescents or college students.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, they undertook a 3 year longitudinal study to examine the effects of video game use on sexism. Their results, like the literature in relation to video games and porn, contradict the experimental findings above: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="278px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XMlUIYa5rDZj569Jn3SGUgJvGmJ6EVnJh6n2CqeTjJmr9k7a6syssPir-gzkSOKSTixoVLH84c7UT0ZuP082iFGAZAxLNfDD7rLlVUtguMU9--F1FudPsm6N05q2ZKdV7Dw6zZeJx6m-GnPP" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="572px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…no cross-sectional association between sexist attitudes and overall video game use for both men and women. On the longitudinal level, the only statistically significant finding was a negative association between video game use at time 1 and sexist attitudes at time 2 for males ( p = 0.027). However, the size of this effect (b = –0.08) can be considered negligible. All other longitudinal associations were both small and nonsignificant (b < 0.13).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fortunately, my approach to free speech does not require me to make definitive statements about any of this literature (for reasons that will be apparent in Part 3). It appears the experimental literature mostly agrees with Sarkissian but the empirical literature otherwise is in its early stages with contrary results. I’m sure depending on which side of the issue you’re on, you’ll cherry pick. I would note the literature above should not allow you to be confident in any view. Breur et al is the first study of its kind and I’m sure there will be a lot more which goes in either direction. If I had to express a view, it would be one that took into account all the literature in this post which suggests little effect. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.6 Race Related Speech: Hollywood, Skokie and Umugandas in Rwanda </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I really enjoyed Spike Lee’s film ‘Bamboozled.’ The protagonist of the film is a black American who works as a producer in a U.S television network. In an attempt to shock his boss, he proposes a ‘New Millennium Minstrel Show’ where two individuals, Mantan and SleepN’Eat, live on a watermelon plantation. The two individuals are black but also in black face. The excerpt below is from </span><a href="http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Bamboozled.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the script</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of the film, and starts with an exclamation from Mantan in the pilot of the new show: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mantan</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Cousins, I want all of you to go to your windows. Go to your windows and yell. Yell, I'm tired of the drugs, the crack babies born out of wedlock to crack head aids infested parents. I'm tired of the inflated welfare rolls while good wholesome Americans bring less and less of their paycheck home every two weeks... Aren't you tired of these basketball-dunking, football-running, hop-hip rapping ebonic-speaking sex offenders who got ten kids from ten different Ho's?... Go to your windows and yell out, scream with all the life you can muster up inside your assaulted, bruised and battered bodies:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I’m sick and tired of niggers and I’m not going to take it anymore! </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[emphasis in original]</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the ‘New Millennium Minstrel’ show was on our TVs – would it have a negative societal or individual impact? This subsection is divided into four parts: the effect of racist media depictions on (i) the individual, (ii) on wider societal attitudes and (iii) violence. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Effect on the minority group</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first study looks at the impact that a racist statement might have on an individual. I should say at the outset that n = 50 black Americans and 46 white American, so over-reliance on this study is misjudged but it is, at least, the beginning of the conversation. Lyle (2015) looks at the effects of a racist statement on black peoples’ political efficiency (‘the self-assessment of one’s personal capacity for politics’) and race-specific collective self-esteem (used a proxy for ‘privately regarded their racial group and activate beliefs about public regard for their racial group). The racist statements that the participants of the study were given was either made by an ‘ordinary American’ or a ‘prominent political figure.’ Lyle found: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">... when the anti-Black message was attributed to an ordinary American, it did not have statistically significant main or interaction effects on either self-esteem measure for African–Americans... however, when the anti-Black message was attributed to a political figure, it was significantly associated with lower private R-CSE among African–Americans</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="182px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/MdjDm8bsWJut0CBfMwDaEzD82lGukXchSaYy1vrkACe5OjC7Az6Qkx3uabzQoo0KirK8Z35ISDdEjqhtTxbLb_7LoKoyW1npyOhGM_Fj9jYRRNmCJfgLPvgqR70MKKScfIKcQF427GW9cZYV" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="535px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...the anti-Black political message also had a significant effect on internal political efficacy among African–Americans... African–Americans exposed to the anti-Black political message reported feeling significantly less competent to participate in politics than those in the control group.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what if its just more than feelings of alienation? Mullen et al (2004) look at the impact of ‘ethnophaulisms’ (in essence, hate speech) on suicides in European immigrant populations. The dataset was taken from Allen (1984) which is a ‘compilation of more than 1000 terms used in hate speech.’ These were then rated according to their negativity: 1 being very negative and 7 being very positive. So, for example, ‘dumb Polack’ would score negatively whereas ‘taffy’ would rate relatively mildly. A low valence score indicates ' extreme negativity in cognitive representation’. Mullen et al regress these scores against suicides in immigrant populations in the U.S. and find that:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="322px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/4iBatUSujnqd3yM2uVsIEpNtX4wRm1kiKoyZBNS0v37sXmeinHL8fC2W8wO4_q5eNdhbRmzZTugjBcby4dm6m6paqyvCFAYx0po-w40yYpwXGM2GCADfSu7QlcsXWMc7JCJlxArs-vkfc9sM" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…after partialing out the variability due to origin suicide rates and ethnophaulism complexity, ethnophaulism valence was a significant independent predictor of immigrant suicide rates, β = -0.431, t (6) = 2.464, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">p</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> = .0244…the suicide rates for ethnic immigrant groups in the United States were significantly predicted by the negativity of the ethnophaulisms used to refer to those ethnic immigrant groups.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="302px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/DMA9NokGib4Zn5cMCMJ-Gak1RAQ6SI2LrTSGD_TdjQLfWpeS5t-dgUxbR24eIYf4zZ6Z9eQ-9opk0WqtrL1_0kGpFxnrWpSXo4J9myrY1ujwERvTdast4_MKWJJiqR6A9qHYrHAcqgPWf2Vg" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="433px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Moreover,] even after taking into account ethnic immigrant group size and the suicide rates for those ethnic immigrant groups in their countries of origin, the suicide rates for ethnic immigrant groups in the United States were significantly predicted by the negativity of the ethnophaulisms used to refer to those ethnic immigrant groups in hate speech.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As stated, this study is looking at the negativity / valence of the language toward immigrant groups. It does not tell us about how much this language is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">used</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which is unfortunate but if we take valence as a proxy for use (admittedly, a moderate leap), perhaps its plausible. Here’s another interesting study: Gubler and Kalmoe (2015) who find that ‘that mild “fighting” words (e.g., “battle,” “fight”) combined with a reference to the outgroup provoke significantly greater support for policies that harm the outgroup among some citizens, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>even when the intended use of violent words is clearly rhetorical</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.’ The graph below shows the effect applies even more to those who are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pre-diposed to racism. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="281px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/fObTmGrQQjw-s4cpOY4XLO9tMmbToUj9neQT2q_ubarkiUQElYqs0fOSoo_1gvKA53xM2nFEMf9ihO82crnE1z83WE6uGdXpuCxPQ7VTxORHz4piQQYPJZJYy-zf8ABvcoMvR-w8w6ucDya2" style="border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="543px;" /></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Effect on the majority group</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tukachinsky et al (2015) is another interesting study that looks at the 345 most viewed U.S. television shows spanning the years 1987 to 2009. They look at how ethnic minorities are presents in these shows and then look at how good those qualities are at predicting white attitudes toward Black people and Latinos. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overall, all ethnic minority characters tended to be presented as highly positive, but Blacks were slightly more positive than Latinos... The majority of Black (76.7%) and Latino (74.1%) but less than a half (47.1%) of Asian characters were likable. Comparisons of means of characters’ likability suggest that on average, Asian characters were presented as significantly less likable (M = 2.47, SD = .51) than Blacks (M = 2.75, SD = .47) and Latinos (M = 2.74, SD = .44)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="503px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/aDvYHCOsKtNjTyAFi8irluK4X5FiH-WEeejtc7HA7dx2O0-kDU8Ogs909mr4yv5XlOwVeGaFaewUGxOANPaa3EGNn5eyDsiauWBeocH5Z3opB9Zqg7ltNz8QF8VuxSPIwJ04a84M5v-YMXuP" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="445px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Model 1 reveals that the number of highly professional and social Latinos characters had a significant positive effect on Whites’ attitudes toward Latinos. The number of Latino characters and the number of hyper-sexual Latino characters were associated with more negative attitudes toward Latinos (however this result did not reach conventional levels of significance [p = .08], possibly owing to the small N at the media representation level). The number of good and liked Latinos characters was not found to have a significant effect on attitudes toward Latinos, when controlling for all other variables.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Model 2 examined the media’s contribution to public attitudes toward Blacks. The model revealed that both the prevalence of Black characters (i.e., the overall number of Black characters), and Black characters’ professional and social status had a positive and significant effect on attitudes toward Blacks. The number of good and liked Black characters and the number of hypersexual Black characters significantly reduced the support toward Blacks</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One clear finding is that hypersexual depictions of Latinos and Black people have a negative impact on how favourable people felt toward said group. But another element of the results is quite strange: why would the overall number of Black characters have a positive impact but the numbers of good/liked black characters reduce</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">support toward black people? The results seem counter-intuitive, especially for those who complain about the lack of ethnic minority representation: what if likeable black people on TV </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">make things worse</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? The authors provide one possibility: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...to promote overall positive attitudes toward the outgroup, a likable media persona need also be perceived as typical of the group... It is conceivable that many of ¨ the positive and likable characters in this study were deemed nonrepresentative of Latinos and Blacks as a whole... For example, in the case of The Cosby Show, Jhally and Lewis (1992) suggest that many White viewers felt that the Huxtables were characteristically “White.” If this is the case, it appears that in some instances, the race/ethnicity of minority characters... is almost incidental</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Other studies look at the representation of Blacks in (real) crime segments in news broadcasts. Essentially exposure to representations of Blacks committing crime leads to the view that black people are violent – and this seems to be a pretty consistent finding (Dixon (2015)). This is a free speech issue because if we want to avoid the consequence of people holding the belief that black people are violent – these studies can easily be used to argue we should censor coverage of Black crime. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Violence</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Rwanda, there was (and is) a kind of community service in the form of ‘Umugandas.’ The etymology of the word can be traced back to the Nguni proverb ‘</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’ which means ‘a person is a person through other persons’ – isn’t that lovely? What it means in practical terms is that on every Saturday, every able citizen is required to do some form of community work: sweep the streets, paint a church, plant a tree etc. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By way of background, the Rwandan genocide entailed the slaughter of over 800,000 Tutsis by the Hutu majority. Amusingly, many on the fringes of the left like to deny that the Tutsis were the victims of a genocide. John Pilger, for example, endorsed the </span><a href="http://jonestream.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/denying-rwanda-response-to-herman.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">denialist</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> account by Herman and Peterson’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Politics of Genocide</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (and Chomsky wrote the foreword to it, though is reluctant to endorse it). But anyway, for our purposes, its worth exploring the use of umugandas in the period prior to the Rwandan genocide. Here is how Uwimbabazi and Lawrence (2013) summarise it: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Umuganda in the post-colonial period is best understood in the context of the mythical peasant, with the ideology that only the Hutus were the real peasants of Rwanda’... This ideology also explained who was a true munya-Rwandan, which was in turn used against the Tutsi, who were not known as cultivators but aliens pastoralist... Hatred that led to divisions was increasingly planted under the stream of development during umuganda</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Umuganda then turned into a means of promoting oppression and exclusion among Rwandans. This was done through colonial legacy of ethnic construction. For instance, in 1994 the idea of umuganda was used and served as a means of mass mobilisation during the genocide… Those in power argued then that only one particular group of people, the Hutus, had the right to exist, and other groups, Tutsis, were targeted for extermination in the name of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">umuganda</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In essence, ‘learning from the peasant ideology… and the everyday propaganda during </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">umuganda </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">had also motivated people to see their fellow ba-Tutsi as enemies’ in the run up the genocide. When the genocide finally hit, umugandas were used more directly in the genocide: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the genocide, umuganda did not involve planting trees but ‘clearing out the weeds’ – a phrase used by the genocidaires to mean the killing of Tutsis. Chopping up men was referred to as ‘bush clearing’ and slaughtering women and children as ‘pulling out the roots of the bad weeds’... The slogan, ‘clearing bushes and removing bad weeds’, were familiar terms used in the course of ordinary agricultural labour undertaken in umuganda.</span></div>
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<a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/04/tyler-cowens-three-laws.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cowen’s Second Law</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> really holds up because we have a study on this! Bonnier et al (2015), in a study that can be seen as semi-fuck you to Putnam, they investigate whether attendance at umugandas is related to violence being carried out. They do this by measuring attendance by the impact of rainfall: they ‘expect the meetings to be less enjoyable when it rains and furthermore to be cancelled altogether in the case of heavy rain.’ They look at the period 1990-1994 for umuganda attendance and then the civilian participation rate in genocide by reference to court records. They find that: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="346px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/E9EQ5yeNrVIrhD3N1waXmyPTlswpUtfrUQvfIeISfs1-r-pzF7rM9J035cORgCXUYVZN_ZZFfm7KYsjGAp8RiP0KQPzFesKVS5ypXaGp6WMeuvVzNn56HnAEeJzdmptjskJbxmWjf_ZcHM1H" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="321px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…results indicate a negative relationship between Umuganda intensity and civilian participation in genocide: one additional rainy Saturday is associated with a 5 percent decrease in the civilian participation rate… If we assume a one-to-one relationship between the number of rainy Saturdays and the number of canceled Umuganda meetings, then an additional canceled meeting reduces the average civilian participation rate by 5.4 percent (interpreted at the mean number of civilian perpetrators per Hutu, which is 7.7 percent).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One more Saturday with rainfall above 10mm corresponds to a 0.41 percentage point reduction in the civilian participation rate. Those who wish to stop curtail certain forms of hate speech might very easily rely on studies like this. But there is an even better study which they can rely on in doing so: RTLM was the radio station in Rwanda and much like the umugandas: referring to Tutsis as cockroaches and dirty. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda contains many extracts of what RTLM was putting out: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prior to 6 April 1994: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have nothing against Tutsis, or Twas, or Hutus. I am a Hutu but I have nothing against Tutsis. But in this political situation I have to explain: “Beware, Tutsis want to take things from Hutus by force or tricks.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After 6 April 1996: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Good Lord is really just, these evildoers, these terrorists, these people with suicidal tendencies will end up being exterminated. When I remember the number of corpses that I saw lying around in Nyamirambo yesterday alone; they had come to defend their Major who had just been killed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yanagizawa-Drott (2014) attempts to measure the impact of RTLM radio coverage on actual deaths in the genocide:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="404px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/gxhOyoRSJkdFTk-XB08bWYBgAYuK-pZlUH9xYmLVsYJH7jm-l8vQC6_9HsP0Omr_53QM891f770VdRowMF9Nddksf7PC24_bcPxK5NlGfrReRQ-SNKrn_AZvPbOsde2LloE5Crf_R2jYt17g" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="601px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The estimates are significant at the five and one percent levels and imply that a one standard deviation increase in radio coverage increased participation in militia violence by 13–14 percent. RTLM broadcasts were also shown to have increased individual violence. The estimates (significant at the ten percent level) imply that a one standard deviation increase in the share of the village with radio reception increased individual violence by 10–11 percent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="308px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/hrkr6BEULVh7FjKmXTy2sgZpFgpsl1skBye3H05v-vIkh3ZzZHkZA-03tGCNz8naIy6xQkwLvrhfODWksqQEPrI-MYa8uXcXEMXDe2GHWugI_ALnlepATTlnQxkywOsu3Ro1QXA_PFAwEXEU" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="435px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Figure III [above] graphically illustrates results using a specification with dummy variables for various levels of RTLM reception. For militia violence… there is evidence of scale effects. For increases in radio coverage at low levels, the overall pattern indicates that there is no increase in participation, but once a critical level of coverage is reached there is a sharp increase in violence. By contrast, for individual violence there is no similar discernible pattern</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These results are bad enough but Yanagizawa-Drott goes on to measure potential ‘spillover’ effects from this violence. The idea is that RTLM would have catalysed some who would then go on to engage more people so that more violence would be committed. In measuring this, he finds that ‘a one standard deviation increase in the share of the population in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nearby</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> villages with radio reception (0.18) increases participation in militia violence by 47.6 percent.’ The total effects are significant: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="253px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rGjVwmcDXOuCnqlsBlbjj3_9wiN60qIBwB3iI9OaH12lseUpKGawpzK_GsVTPCaC1JcPT-3ilVUa4aRx7hyFYQRTwkUIVK-Dimwv3FaerETWY68tFzLM0oko4R8ue9YC_wDf2VL-U4icuePw" style="border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="601px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Focusing on the mean, the estimates imply that 9.9 percent (approximately 51,000 persons) of the total participation in genocidal violence was caused by the propaganda… The evidence also shows that spillovers were important, as only 7.7 percent of the militia violence is estimated to be due to direct effects. 22.3 percent of the militia violence can, therefore, be attributed to spillover effects.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The distinction between spillover effects and ‘direct’ effects might be key for some but I believe that would be a red herring: whether the speech comes through the radio (“direct”) or through an individual (“spillover”), in both cases, a link between speech and violence is being made. Other studies find much the same: Straus (2007), on the basis of interviews with 200 perpetrators, concludes: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">….radio alone cannot account for either the onset of most genocidal violence or the participation of most perpetrators. That said, [he] find[s] some evidence of conditional media effects. Radio catalyzed a small number of individuals and incidents of violence [and these] hard-liners achieved dominance and were able to persuade individuals to join attacks against Tutsi civilians. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To repeat again, I am not advocating any particular policy prescription in this Part. But one particular prescription worth considering is raised by Samantha Power’s brilliant </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Problem From Hell</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In it she states </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The county best equipped to prevent genocide broadcasting... was the United States. The United States could destroy the antenna... Pentagon planners understood that stopping the genocide required a military solution [though] it was clear that radio jamming would have been no panacea... In early May, the State Department Legal Adviser's Office issued a finding against radio hamming citing international broadcasting agreements and the American commitment to free speech. When Bushnell raised radio jamming yet again at a meeting, one Pentagon official chided her for naiveté: "Pru, radios don't kill people. People kill people!" (p.371-2). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a question that all free speech opponents and proponents must engage with: would you bomb or jam RTLM knowing what you know now about Yanagizawa-Drott (2014) and Straus (2007)? This is a far more interesting question rather than the replaying of the A Level question of “should offensive speech or hate speech be banned?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.7 Incitement, Obedience and Speech Act Theory: Eichmann to Jihadi Twitter </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The studies above about Rawanda are not necessarily studies about incitement. Rather, umugandas can be said to be a cultural priming mechanism. By contrast, Austin’s (1957) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How To Do Things With Words </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gives a good basis for discussing ‘incitement’ laws. His compartmentalisation of speech has been done over and over, so I will simply quote a recent exposition of it by Dawson (2015): </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Austin proposed a tripartite classification of speech acts. To perform a locutionary act is simply to say something with meaning. To say it with a particular force is to perform an illocutionary act: to make a statement, make a promise or ask a question and so on. The perlocutionary effects are the further effects of the illocutionary act on an audience. For example, saying ‘I am walking the dog’ has the illocutionary force of making a statement and may have the perlocutionary effect, if uttered as part of a mobile phone conversation, of reassuring someone of your safety. Saying ‘I promise to walk the dog’ has the illocutionary force of committing you to walk the dog and may have the perlocutionary effect of causing someone else to make a cup of coffee and relax.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hence, when we make contracts, we are not simply making locutionary statements of fact, we are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">doing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">something. This ties in with what is known as an ‘Austinian excertive’ which is ‘acts enact[s] permissibility facts and thereby determine what is permissible in a certain realm’ (McGowan (2004)). McGowan gives the example of a university chancellor stating that ‘no music will be played in dorms after 11pm.’ This ‘utterance has exercitive force because it takes away certain privileges’ and it can do this because the chancellor has authority. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There have been attempts to apply this line of argument to pornography. I believe this fails on empirical ground for reasons given above but also because, as McGowan has argued elsewhere, it simply does not meet the conditions of an excertive directive. This has been summarised wonderfully by </span><a href="http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/pornography-and-speech-acts-part-one.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John Danaher</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I should note, Langton is making the arguments in premises 1 to 9 and McGowan is making the critical arguments in premises 10 to 12:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RnhVmcIDEv4/UNNSjOO6wbI/AAAAAAAABpw/ZYrlH_LtF1w/s1600/Langton's+Argument+with+McGowan's+Critique.162.png" height="451px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/bMILeZ4vY4sQo7fHgKlQjyT5SaqONNtTbFzMhWqWTCXNw7jb_CkLZpaFwM6-ATv85VAaWMh0h5eVbNPMuclYtc923eu17URmS-OzqG9R4vgf285QAJMmwsLyyqijnk9fvnHJZrJ8-NV0T5lp" style="border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="602px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe some producers of pornography do intend to silence and subordinate women, but many may not. Even if they did have that intention, the consumers of pornography would probably not recognise it. This will most often be caused by the fact that the semantic content of pornography will be exceptionally opaque — not an efficient means to convey the intended exercitive. Finally, and perhaps most fatally, producers and distributors of pornography do not have the authority to enact permissibility conditions concerning heterosexual behaviour or women’s speech acts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, McGowan believes porn to be a conversation excertive but I will not be assessing that argument. But, what if there can be excertive directives given in the context of other acts? Incitement laws seek to address precisely this issue. Again, the full extent of my objection to these kind of laws will not be well justified and apparent until Part 3. That said, it’s worth looking at some of the literature on the issue. Milgram’s studies are so engrained into popular culture that I wont even need to provide a citation: a figure of authority gives individuals an instruction to keep electrocuting someone and 65% go all the way to 450 volts. This might be great evidence for a harmful example of an excertive directive but Haslam and Reicher (2012) provide a significant and caveat: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…close analysis of the experimental sessions shows that participants are attentive to the demands madeon them by the Learner as well as the Experimenter [38]. They are torn between two voices confronting them with irreconcilable moral imperatives, and the fact that they have to choose between them is a source of considerable anguish… </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ultimately, they tend to go along with the Experimenter if he justifies their actions in terms of the scientific benefits of the study</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More importantly, ‘it was only when they had internalized roles and rules as aspects of a system with which they identified that participants used them as a guide to action.’ This not simply a blind acceptance, brainwashing, one-way control that authority has. It requires you to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">accept </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">authority in the first place. Hence, their conclusion: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…the fundamental point is that tyranny does not flourish because perpetrators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This position, which I share, inevitably comes up against Hannah Arendt’s view of Eichmann (i.e., about the ‘banality of evil’). However, as a </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/books/book-portrays-eichmann-as-evil-but-not-banal.html?_r=0" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">review of a series of books notes, her line of argument does not seem withstand recent historiography: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ms. Stangneth’s book cites that document and a mountain of others to offer what some scholars say is the most definitive case yet that Eichmann, who was hanged in 1962, wasn’t the order-following functionary he claimed to be at his trial, but a fanatically dedicated National Socialist.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If previous researchers have seriously dented Arendt’s case, Ms. Stangneth “shatters” it, said Deborah E. Lipstadt, a historian at Emory University and the author of a 2011 book about the Eichmann trial.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The facts about Eichmann in Argentina have been dribbling out, “but she really puts flesh on the bones,” Dr. Lipstadt said. “This was not a guy who just happened to do a dirty job, but someone who played a crucial role and did it with wholehearted commitment.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This should also all tie in to recent discussions of people going to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. These people are not brainwashed, it is not speech nor directive that leads them to joining these groups. It’s accepting, after active engagement with ideas and social associations, the false ideas of ISIS. The converse view has rightly be derided as the ‘</span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/zoolander-terrorists-brainwashed-isis/393050/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zoolander Theory of Terrorism’</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…what scholarly research on terrorism overwhelmingly shows is that terrorists, in the main, are not only not crazy, but also not stupid. Furthermore, it shows that people who join terrorist organizations tend to do so because they believe they are defending what they see as a just cause. They join because they want to, and because they think that what they are doing is right and necessary.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I myself have written elsewhere about the idea that terrorists are not prone to mental illness but have some </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">acceptance </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">specific</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ideology. Many examples of the internet seemingly having a role in radicalisation seem to collapse once looked at.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [5] </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first study to note is Benson (2014). Benson looks comprehensively at the effect of the internet on transnational terrorism. He finds that ‘the areas where there are increases in terrorism are exactly the opposite locations expected if the Internet were actually driving the increase; rather being in Internet-wealthy areas, the increases occur in areas where the Internet is almost non-existent.’ He concludes ‘enough data has been collected to provide evidence that transnational terrorists have not reaped a windfall in capabilities because of the Internet.’ </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another study is von Behr et al (2013) which undertakes a literature overview and then applies it to through an idiosyncratic approach to 15 extremist individuals from the UK. Their headline findings include: ‘evidence does not necessarily support the suggestion that the internet accelerates radicalisation’; ‘evidence does not support the claim that the internet is replacing the need for individuals to meet in person during their radicalisation process’. So when people want to cut down on extremist material online, I think they’re missing the point. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.8 Epistemic Humility</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why have taken so much time writing out potential negatives of free speech? There are two reasons. First, people need to have a sense of humility when talking about this issue. Yes, free speech is good (see Part 1) but not its not a clean, cut good that should be spoken about without regard to the evidence. Even when talking about things like pornography, video games etc., there is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a lot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of research – and it doesn’t always support what you would’ve necessarily thought. I have given my reasons above for siding with positions which are more amenable to free speech but I have been unable to do this consistently in this Part. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scarily, Ben wrote a post on the day I finally got to this section which had the point I’m trying to make. He noted a new IMF study about inequality which contradicted his own view. This is what he said: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can say that the methodology of the IMF work is shoddy and that you should look at credible meta-analyses—but why should Elliott et al. [the author of the Guardian write up of the study] trust me when I’m going against far more credible people. And surely we cannot expect everyone to dissect the details of every paper when they make a judgement on the area… So while I might criticise the rather silly framing of this new ‘revelation’ I can hardly give full-throated criticism of the Guardian economics section line in general—</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">interpreting evidence is just too hard.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I disagree with only one part of this paragraph: we should expect everyone to dissect details of every paper. But aside from that, Ben is right: these issues are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hard</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Yes, free speech is important but its beyond arrogance to think that it’s a simple case of talking about ‘Enlightenment values’ and talking about free speech </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">per se</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I say this despite, in all likelihood, probably supporting less curtailment of free speech than even the most ardent of free speech advocates</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as will be seen in Part 3.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Talking about Charlie Hebdo, ‘offense’ and ‘blasphemy laws’ is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">too easy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In a debate with terrorists or fringe left people, that might be valuable. I can understand the desire to respond to the constant attacks on free speech with people like Will Self. But in a debate where people broadly agree that free speech is good, it means you’re not really testing your position if you ignore these complex issues. There is so much room for legitimate nuance. Talk about RTLM, the statistical differences in the studies on video game usage, umugandas and Becker’s model of discrimination. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The second reason is to draw attention to a theme should have arisen from the above sections: in relation to race and TV in arose in relation to the idea that likeable ethnic characters only had positive impacts where that individual thought the character was representative; in relation to incitement it arises because extremists fish out views on the internet they already agree with – and so on. What does this tell us? Here are a few excerpts from the studies above which point to the right direction. Ferguson (2014):</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Current “hypodermic needle” theories of mass media effects on behavior ultimately may imply simplistic modeling of behavior, focused too heavily on the development of automatic cognitive scripts (Ferguson & Dyck, 2012). Such theoretical models may, effectively, remove the user from the media experience except as a passive “victim” of a powerful, influential media… </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Different models, however posit] posit media as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fulfilling pre-existing motivational structures</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Thus, a particular form of media may have very different influences depending more on what individual consumers seek to achieve </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rather than on content specifically</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… User motivations determine what users watch and what influences they hope to experience from media. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hald et al looks at the mediating role of sexual arousal in the effect of pornography. The idea is that sexual arousal --> engagement of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">existing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sexist cognitions, attitudes and beliefs. Once you take into account sexual arousal, the effect of pornography on sexist attitudes becomes insignificant: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.... among low in agreeableness participants (i.e., the lower 33% in the distribution of agreeableness), the initial correlation between our initial variable (experimental exposure) and the outcome variable (hostile sexism) was .29 (p = .014; 95% CI: 1.59; 10.72), indicating a significant direct effect of experimental exposure to pornography on hostile sexism among low in agreeableness participants. When including sexual arousal as a mediator, the correlation between experimental exposure and hostile sexism, that is, the direct effect, dropped to –.10 and turned nonsignificant (p = .56).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="168px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/5jGlF6myeWUMEeww2ZzjsLUkligCwxosbPTp5MiSz3q6dwdGQNAEZEqWwL4jvus7U5Tq-1g8NCn8kqwIcGY-8Dbg3-0cI5SwlUx7P2Rb2sWin25-9AHvcJHY9g3eUaJXLZ67L0UBnv4fbwFj" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="419px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…affective activation (herein sexual arousal) may serve as an important mediator of significant exposure-attitudinal relationships and be central to the priming of ‘‘associative networks’’ of emotions, cognitions, and attitudes which in content or feeling tone correspond to the attitudes investigated (i.e., herein sexist attitudes)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...among some individuals, sexist cognitions and attitudes may partly have been learned through specific environments, scenarios, and role models on the basis of reinforcement and vicarious learning. These sexist cognitions and attitudes may, in sexual situations, be activated by sexual scripts if these are attuned to content or feeling tones sexist in nature. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pornography is of course significantly correlated with sexual arousal (.85) which is then significantly correlated with hostile sexism (.46). Therefore, the extent that the literature does find a link between porn and sexism, it may be finding something about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">us </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rather than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">porn</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I think the view that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">us </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">being sexist leads to uniformly sexist pornography is somewhat overstated, see a study that looks at the content of porn at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [6] but the broader point that appears supported by the above literature, is that its not content, but the content viewer where the problem resides. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I apologise for the constant references to Part 3 in this Part but I hope how my views all tie in, even with a model of affective engagement, will be apparent there. To re-emphasise: there really are no policy prescriptions here. To give policy prescriptions, we must undertake an assessment of the state – and the market – along with other normative positions and that brings us to the final part of this series. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><i>Endnotes</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[1] Gentzkow (2014) uses data from 1869 to 1928 to look at the effect of a party being in power over media output. What they find is that increases in Democratic representation actually decreases the Democrat share of circulation (though this is insignificant). The point is that the state does not drive media slant. Our newspapers aren’t serving the elites in the state. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Gentzkow, however, does find that the state does have an effect on media output in certain situations. Gentzkow uses ‘an index of commercial and political incentives to measure the effect of control of the state government in places with both relatively strong political incentives and relatively weak commercial incentives, and find no evidence of an effect of control of the state government in such places.’ Put simply, Gentzkow tries to measure situations where there is government capture. Even then, Gentzjow fails to find an effect on media output. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Gentzkow tests for when market incentives (i.e., losing buyers to other newspapers because you are seen to be too partistan ) and finds this doesn’t really change things. Market incentives work best where there is high demand for newspapers and a competitive market with many newspapers. In addition when political incentives are high, there is </span><span style="font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">still </span><span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">no effect. However, there are situations where low market incentives </span><span style="font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">and </span><span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">high political incentives, working together, can make a difference. This is precisely what happened in the Reconstruction period: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">The chaotic environment of the post–Civil War era provided unusually strong political incentives for Republican governments to support the entry and growth of Republican newspapers... Local advertising markets were limited. Roughly two-thirds of incumbent papers existing before the war had ceased publication by its end.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Market forces that might otherwise have restrained the desire to control the press for political aims were especially weak in the postbellum South, where newspapers faced low demand, high costs, and limited market competition… the evidence from the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction South shows that state governments did sometimes exert meaningful influence on the press, and suggests that such influence was at its height when political stakes were greatest and market forces weakest</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Before Chomskyites get too happy, Gentzkow applies this test to the 1932-2004 period and find ‘find no correlation between the party of the incumbent governor or congressional representative and the political slant of newspapers in 2005’ – i.e., the idea that governments, in the West, can control media output seems wrong. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[2] Justice Burger’s Opinion makes clear the reasons for thinking there is no distinction between political contributions and expenditure. He notes that </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Court dismisses the effect of the limitations on the second aspect of contributions: "[T]he transformation of contributions into political debate involves speech by someone other than the contributor." On this premise -- that contribution limitations restrict only the speech of "someone other than the contributor" -- rests the Court's justification for treating contributions differently from expenditures. The premise is demonstrably flawed; the contribution limitations will, in specific instances, limit exactly the same political activity that the expenditure ceilings limit, [n7] and at least one of the "expenditure" limitations the Court finds objectionable operates precisely like the "contribution" limitations [n8].</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Court's attempt to distinguish the communication inherent in political contributions from the speech aspects of political expenditures simply "will not wash." We do little but engage in word games unless we recognize that people -- candidates and contributors -- spend money on political activity because they wish to communicate ideas, and their constitutional interest in doing so is precisely the same whether they or someone else utters the words.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[n7] </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Suppose, for example, that a candidate's committee authorizes a celebrity or elder statesman to make a radio or television address on the candidate's behalf, for which the speaker himself plans to pay. As the Court recognizes, </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">ante</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"> at 24 n. 25, the Act defines this activity as a contribution and subjects it to the $1,000 limit on individual contributions and the $5,000 limit on contributions by political committees -- effectively preventing the speech over any substantial radio or television station. Whether the speech is considered an impermissible "contribution" or an allowable "expenditure" turns not on whether speech by "someone other than the contributor" is involved, but on whether the speech is "authorized" or not… </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[n8] The Court treats the Act's provisions limiting a candidate's spending from his personal resources as expenditure limits, as indeed the Act characterizes them, and holds them unconstitutional. As MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL points out, post at 287, by the Court’s logic, these provisions could as easily be treated as limits on contributions, since they limit what the candidate can give to his own campaign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Professor Powe makes the point that the distinction between contributions and expenditures on the basis that the former restrict </span><span style="font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">someone else’s </span><span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">speech is flawed because even expenditures, practically, do not involve the speech of the donator. As he notes, ‘In some circumstances an individual gives to a committee which in turn gives to professional or to a campaign treasury.. An individual choice to have a message with which he agrees prepared by professionals is no less speech. Proxy speech is simply a pejorative name for a political commercial. It is still speech’ (quoted in BeVier (1985)). BeVier also makes the following point which is quite apt:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Contributions by individuals to groups or to political committees, however, permit the pooling of resources. This amplifies the contributors' individual voices... "[e]ffective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association." [Accordingly,] Limits on political contributions obviously constrain the efforts of groups of individuals to increase the effectiveness of their advocacy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">I agree with Justice Burger that ‘freedom of association and freedom of expression were two peas from the same pod’ and so I think BeVier understates the power of her argument. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[3] </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">It is put in different terms in the Brief of the Appellant: </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">… those who contribute money to a candidate hope to further their political, social and economic views-just as those who engage in demonstrations and rallies, write books on political issues, organize like-minded citizens, draft and circulate petitions, buy advertisements, publish periodicals or newspapers, make speeches, sponsor seminars or teach-ins, or engage in litigation hope to further their political, social and economic views. Such activities are the hallmark-as well as the indispensable precondition-of a free society. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[4] Interestingly, Koplow goes through five cases studies to assess whether public opinion support is primarily based on ideological affinity or strategic considerations. For example, after the 1973 when there was an oil embargo, support for Israel was still high. Conversely, despite having little strategic impact, public opinion fell by 8-points during Cast Lead. Koplow’s conclusion from this is that the American public support Israel primarily on ideological grounds. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[5] As Gwern notes in his wonderful “</span><a href="http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Terrorism is not about Terror</span></a><span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">”:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Earlier ‘lone wolves’ like bombers Timothy McVeigh or Eric Robert Rudolph turn out on closer inspection to have ties, social & otherwise, to like-minded people; McVeigh lived with several other extremists and was taught his bomb-making skills by the Nichols, who also built the final bomb with him, while Rudolph remained on the run for several years in a community that wrote songs and sold t-shirts to praise him and was ultimately caught clean-shaven & wearing new sneakers. Lone wolves who genuinely had no contact with their confreres, such as Ted Kaczynski, are vanishingly rare exceptions among the dozens of thousands of terrorist attacks in the 20th century, and as rare exceptions, otherwise implausible explanations like mental disease account for them without trouble.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">As with porn and video games, it’s not surprising that terrorists use the internet: these things are all ubiquitous. For this reason, studies that look into the video game/porn use of criminals are largely irrelevant without a comparison of how much the general population uses it; and more specifically, what proportion of those who use them end up committing violence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">[6] As mentioned, it is a fair argument to say that if the problem is with </span><span style="font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">us </span><span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">then it should also come about in what we produce. Accordingly, it’s worth noting the literature on the prevalence of sexism in porn. This can be measured by looking at objectification, power relations and violence. Objectification, for our purposes can be subdivided into instrumentality and dehumanisation. The former entails the idea that a person’s use is defined by how much they gratify someone else. The latter entails removing agency from an individual. Klassen and Peter (2014) try to measure for these. I think the table is easy enough to understand so only include their conclusion alongside it: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="218px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/7vQpqHU9a9RhlOTpqzfAso4KkS4bvLGLQe5PwzVa3JyPdu7E2MuUW3BtUz8bYc8qpJowcprUsTJOPZK9FZ0O8UbjiQW75Eu4wPG0z_woaS8fveBJd_DNxLjNtcEiBSRlmtX7yF9uzO03FvtF" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="520px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">...regarding objectification in mainstream pornographic Internet videos, women were more likely to be instrumentalized than men, as indicated by a strong focus on women’s sexual body parts as well as on sex acts and orgasms in which men rather than women gained sexual pleasure. However, there was no evidence of a general dehumanization of women. Notably, men were more likely to be dehumanized than women in that men’s faces were rarely shown. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">In terms of power, Klaasen and Peter find that ‘the distribution of power between men and women was about equal in the hierarchal positions, referring to social and professional roles, in which they were depicted’ but ‘power differences became prevalent in the context of sexual activities as men were more likely depicted as dominant and women as submissive.’ The following results are also worth noting:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img height="172px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/m8IbrsKCOii1T2f8aAFFJWIZqG-2Dkv0YTeIXyVdoGJGtc7tEgz34LYk-S9QPtNyZcHtVILXcaIMUWd3aYlslEOLZAC_jx_tJXYedXw-4Oe1EMKKXOzVsCSt2K4F-vYqnmKIY78nroUPkByb" style="border: currentColor; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="495px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">... men and women were equally likely depicted as not initially wanting to engage in sexual activity. Similarly, both men and women were almost never depicted as intoxicated while engaging in sex. Manipulation into sex was rare as well, but when it happened women were more likely to be manipulated into having sex than men</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">The mechanisms of direct social learning (i.e., normalising not obtaining consent) other than by manipulation and indirect social learning (objectifying women so as to remove agency from them) will need to be rethought for those who wish to argue that there is link between pornography and sexism. </span></div>
</span><br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-15968081103035924792015-08-22T06:45:00.001-07:002015-08-23T02:35:54.441-07:00The West, Black Knights and the Political Economy of Regime Persistence <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 72pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You know… we've got a much easier job now than we should have had fifty years ago. If we'd had to modernise a country then it would have meant constitutional monarchy, bicameral legislature, proportional representation, women's suffrage, independent judicature, freedom of the press, referendums…"</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 72pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"What is all that?" asked the Emperor.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 72pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Just a few ideas that have ceased to be modern.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 72pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><i>- </i></b>Evelyn Waugh, Black Mischief</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those who like to spend their time criticising the West, our relationship with Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian countries provides them with endless ammunition. It’s not an unreasonable question: how can we claim to be for human rights, whilst at the same time providing countries with terrible human rights records financial, military and rhetorical support? Whilst not unreasonable, I think it’s overstated. This post is a purely consequentialist account of our relationship. If you believe in deontological or moralistic arguments for not allying with authoritarians, you may be right but I am not seeking to dispute that argument here. Note the following questions are different: </span></div>
<ol style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does the West’s relationship with authoritarian countries create better outcomes than would exist without the West’s relationship? </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the recent past, has the West’s relationship been a force for good?</span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first question is directly toward policy prescriptions without necessarily implying good outcomes (just better ones than the null condition). The second question would be harder to prove and is not my focus. My view is that the reason for human rights abuses and authoritarianism is predominantly an institutional issue that has domestic origins. The role that this leaves for Western machinations, accordingly, declines significantly. More interestingly, most of the literature (by no means all) suggests that it may have a neutral or positive effect which should veer us toward maintaining our links. The alternative to not being allies with Gulf states is far worse. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is an extremely long post, if you aren’t interested in the literature on institutional quirks in the Middle East, oil rents, foreign aid and democratisation then this is not a post for you. As usual, bibliography is below the endnotes. In this post, I have tried my best to draw attention to studies that disagree with my view. I am aware that this may make my argument appear weak. I also know that arguing that we should have strong relationships with authoritarian countries </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">because we care about human rights</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is controversial and a difficult argument to make. And that’s a good thing, I’m not really sure how far my argument goes. In the last post I referred to Cowen’s Second Law, but </span><a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/04/tyler-cowens-three-laws.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cowen’s First Law</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is just as important: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is something wrong with everything (by which [Cowen] mean[s] there are few decisive or knockdown articles or arguments, and furthermore until you have found the major flaws in an argument, you do not understand it).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just as a side note before this post starts: I will be addressing some criticisms of my last post in the near future. I consider most of them to be weak hence the weak incentive of replying but, that being said, I have been surprised and pleased with the quality of response. I was expecting to rile up some of my favourite bloggers and they duly obliged so please do read their responses (Jamie’s </span><a href="http://jacobinism.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/tomorrow-belongs-to-us.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, David’s </span><a href="http://daviddpaxton.com/2015/08/06/charlie-and-the-jihadi-factory/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and some critical comments from Anthony Cooper </span><a href="http://anthonycooper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/conveyor-belts-and-suicide-belts.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). Who says people on the internet can’t be nice when disagreeing? </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. The Limited Role of the West </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1.1 The Institutional Origins of Authoritarianism </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To explain authoritarianism, human rights abuses and the lack of democracy in the Middle East, one must start with an institutional framework that explains weak civil society. As I have detailed before, the people across the Middle East want an illiberal form of democracy – why have they not achieved their aims? Bear in mind that the success of civil society in non-democratic countries is generally high, from <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-empirics-of-free-speech-and.html">The Empirics of Free Speech, Part 1</a>: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chenoweth and Stephan (2008) look at ‘data on 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006.’ They find that ‘in the face of regime crackdowns, nonviolent campaigns are more than six times likelier to achieve full success than violent campaigns that also faced regime repression.’ Their data show that no non-violent campaign.. that garnered the participation of 3.5% of the population failed to reach its goal. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Accordingly, an explanation that accounts for the failure to achieve democratic status must necessarily relate to the weakness of civil society.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It is strong civil society that reaches its goals. And it is here that we find not only the origins of lack of democracy but its persistence. Kuran (2013) builds on his work on Islamic economic institutions and shows how Islamic institutions (not people or culture) have inhibited the rise of a civil society. The most significant of these is the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">waqf</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> – this is an institution which provides public services (like schools and water). This was a form of trust which was funded by a private individual’s assets. It allowed the individual to protect their assets without giving it to the government (see Table 1 in Kuran (2015)). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Kuran states, ‘the waqf served as the delivery vehicle for functions met in the West generally through corporations’. The reason the waqf matters is because a waqf could not participate in politics, could not align with other waqfs and was not accountable to its users. As Kuran (2015) notes in a more recent article: ‘the Islamic waqf promoted neither broad political participation nor transparency in governance’: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Complainants] had to prove that the deed [setting the waqf up] was being violated. Because information concerning the waqf’s finances and actions were not public knowledge, beneficiary-launched lawsuits against caretakers were rare. Out of 1544 waqf-related lawsuits in a seventeenth-century Istanbul sample, only six entailed an accusation of caretaker mismanagement.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every waqf defined a group of beneficiaries who formed a potential political entity. Whether they developed a group identity was not assured. The users of an inn on a trade route could remain mutual strangers for years. The rules of the waqf did nothing to enhance group consciousness among co-beneficiaries without reason to interact anyway.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One indication of the powerlessness of waqf beneficiaries lies in the tenure of caretakers. In the Anatolian town of Sivas, 1902 waqf caretakers were replaced between 1700 and 1850. No fewer than 74 percent of the replacements followed a death in office. In the remaining cases, the successor was typically the retiring caretaker’s son... </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Leaving waqf beneficiaries ignorant about management promoted stability by keeping waqfs from becoming foci of discontent. The passivity expected of beneficiaries limited mass political activity. It also reduced the capacity of the masses to react effectively to economic downturns, military defeats, and other such misfortunes. In the absence of pre-existing consumer organizations and lacking experience in organized collective action, disgruntled subjects had to start organizing from scratch.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Waqfs did not form political coalitions: where Europe had guilds across cities campaigning against taxes, the waqfs in the Middle East were impotent. Even at the very establishment of the waqf, there had to be a single property owner – and this meant that individuals could not pool their resources together. Compare this with corporations, trade unions, universities and guilds which can take part in politics and were accountable to its customers and its stakeholders. And the absence of these bodies matters: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Democratic rights got established because of epic struggles driven by groups organized, usually as corporations, within universities, as cities, as religious orders, as unions, or as merchant associations. Such groups demanded rights. They articulated requests. They developed blueprints for alternative orders. They stimulated intellectual life (Kuran 2013)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="305px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/WGGm10_0WkxvKLeLY86X1zf1H7iZ7V9Q1mDXn_hO8q_DHnZi2a5a1UNpYU5L1fEmGdtrxkiqRwZDa0nvLKGTlxAoub2s5ZoNEiUbjVZPt5JhjbIBvSwaeFLO-MP99Da16EtixZ3LkrFole2F" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="381px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The horizontal axis represents the organization’s discretion regarding asset management and service delivery. The vertical axis represents the share of its beneficiaries and officials who participate in decisions (Kuran 2015).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hence this absence of the corporation as an institution left ‘the Islamic world without politically influential social structures situated between the individual and the state’. There are more flexible waqf structures now (see Fig. 3 in Kuran (2015)) but as Kuran notes, the legacy endures. One mechanism is kinship ties. Because organisations could not form, people relied on their blood ties. This was part of the reason that commercial transaction were and still are (relatively) personal rather than the impersonal model generally followed in developed states. In any event, I think there’s a lot to be said for Kuran’s bottom line conclusion: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...the proximate factors that have made authoritarianism the Middle Eastern political norm rest on longstanding historical patterns. In the modern era oppressive coalitions have been able to establish entrenched autocracies because the region’s masses entered it with stunted political capabilities. These capabilities depend on the organizational skills, civic concerns, and expressive capabilities that individuals acquire as part of their socialization. They depend also on precedents regarding civic engagement. In both these respects, the Middle East has faced handicaps that have constrained, and still constrain, its political development.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tyler Cowen has said that Timur Kuran is one of the most important thinkers of our age. And I agree with him, Kuran is really underappreciated. The issue with Kuran, however, is his reliance on qualitative elements for his biggest quantitative claims. I find his arguments about waqfs very persuasive but it’s limited because of the dearth of data. That said, there is some research from Blaydes and Chaney (2013) that we can draw on in showing that Kuran is quantitatively correct. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="379px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/3tcZ8URP3yESBxcX1VWyzDB_7jiLj4cnxBJWUgl5DnlnsLU1tRiEkK1l0GCOipMJgEOr40VYaGuw25d9vN7ohAjT-h8_gj30NDTi-u8xt1dp_guZthuPeLAjgP-PjTEma0RQehx_XVEx6CND" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="551px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blaydes and Chaney are trying to explain the divergence between the length of time that a ruler was in power (see above). Their model is, crudely, something like this: in Europe, especially following the fall of the Roman Empire, the feudal system that existed allowed for constraints to be put on the ruling monarch by barons. It’s not exactly the same as corporations and guilds etc., but it is similar to the idea that non-state groups are vital to the control of the executive. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlamagne was unable to extract rents from his population to fund an army and so he set up a feudal system in which he gained troops from barons. This has to major effects: first, some landowners pooled their land (to avoid the need for themselves to fight) and second, the need for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mounted </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">troops meant wealthy individuals were required to ensure horses could be funded. These wealth individuals were compensated with land grants and other privileges (i.e., the start of constraints on power). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can clearly see the mechanisms by which this led to executive constraints: first, because the monarch would have to cede privileges and secondly, because in allowing for barons to set up their own armies, men and weapons, he was creating a formidable enemy against himself (should he ever go against the barons). In the Middle East, however, there wasn’t such a decentralisation of power which meant that there wasn’t a need to negotiate (and hence short leadership duration as a result of power plays). This was because of the use of slave armies (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mamluks</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) in the Islamic world which creates a significant difference: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…while European rulers were negotiating with the local gentry to raise armies for matters of defence, Islamic ruler bypassed local elites by creating highly skilled armies of foreigners who had no ties to the existing gentry and swore allegiance directly to the sultan. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="364px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/CWWloohjazYcWtoKyU6c01LqCM--UqsZEOC37og_N2mhekNs5Ah9WJjbIPcwf0GSqpLtsc1iFBhq9TPh6DnPZVfBKVfX3mstcw6mkHOEbRNECFwucIqOF4TYXiFl2b93a76qlZe95hCmj-pu" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="573px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The theoretical logic behind our historical narrative is straightforward: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">decentralising power increases the cost of an unsuccessful revolt for the monarch’s rivals. In other words, armed local elites were able to extract a better “soft contract” from their monarch.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [This has the implication that] the introduction of the feudal institution led to increase in ruler stability. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blaydes and Chaney have the empirical support for what they’re saying. They look at the Carolingian dynasty. As the Carolingian dynasty came into power, the feudal institutions did too. Accordingly, there should be a break in the trend of decreased executive constraints (and hence less negotiation and hence more revolts). In the graph below, the vertical line represents the year 790 AD (the mid-point of Charlamagne’s reign). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="207px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/iVStMDXOambxKvvzkDh5hO4BryeIzoXZ2YDbVDE4oOMtbvvRY6TE4Dzkrv4gF8KgGZTtN1DMXR3mTcvtmax8PAM4IRuL5KCa_CIJTlwonwqS9eysKykI1xXB3soG8KWDPskkw0LBo6R2uLUm" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="601px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can see that leadership duration trends clearly changed after that mid-point. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To make it clear why all of this relevant: Kuran is suggesting that the institutional set up did not allow for a vibrant civil society, a strong opposition force to absolutist power. This has importance even today and Blaydes and Chaney’s paper support that broad argument through the use of different institutional factors: in the Middle East there was less negotiation, less executive constraints and hence short ruler duration. Given its importance, I will return to the issue of civil society below but the issue with Kuran’s view is that doesn’t necessarily take into the full set of variation in the Islamic world in terms of authoritarianism or human rights abuses. Turkey is not the same as Saudi Arabia which is not the same as Indonesia. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The institution of slave armies, already eluded to, does however also provide another forceful mechanism which, along with waqfs show why the origins of authoritarianism are so deep and entrenched that it leaves less need to require another force (Western support) to be used as an explanation. Chaney (2012) is a fascinating piece of research which finds that the way an area was incorporated into the Islamic empire has an impact on democracy </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">today</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those countries which were incorporated in the Ottoman period (where slave armies were not used) or by natural conversion, there was a need to acquiesce to local elites and not crush civil society. This opposite was the case for Arab conquest and the use of slave armies: smash civil society and dominate. Chaney finds that ‘the percentage of a country’s landmass that was conquered by Arab armies following the death of the prophet Muhammad statistically accounts for this deficit.’ </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="291px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/gRLZ6B8Kbqfxj_6Q17a8XtUSeRqQy7ADebHavysmaObHeqIs_7_27CYM2t6fMUiqKcrwcVuwhGuq1ympEE5wWRhqWRXjOAMAsAOe8ukVThCsHf2cAlA7gZcrIFysyxltQUPIxOwBGnvr5x6x" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="467px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hence, Chaney’s conclusion that ‘these historic control structures have left a legacy of weak civil societies where political power is concentrated today in the hands of military and religious leaders that work to perpetuate the status quo.’</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The final study I would refer to is the Sarkissian (2012) who finds that ‘Once GRI [government regulation of religion] is added in model 2 [testing the relationship between Muslim-majority countries and democracy], the coefficient is reduced to −2.39 and loses its significance.’ I wrote about the implications of this in The Empirics of Free Speech, Part 1: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can explain the democracy gap between the Middle East and the West by accounting for the extent to which a state has free speech curtailed.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The point that Sarkissian is making is that laws which curtail free speech are used against political dissenters. Its why, for example, Muslims are more likely to be targeted rather than non-Muslims in laws against proselytizing. For reasons that I have gone into elsewhere, Islamic institutions are often the only vestige of civil society left in the Middle East. This leads to a fear of ‘competition and threats to [autocrat’s] power, [and then] repressive governments restrict the religious arena in order to forestall the rise of political opposition.’ </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1.2 Dame Mas Gasolina</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If these authoritarian states can fund their oppressive security apparatus without us, then it further limits the role of the West. There is some literature that would make this line of argument persuasive. For example Anders and Alasken (2013) find that ‘a 1 percentage point increase in the value of oil production in GDP is associated with an average increase in the duration of the current political leadership of 1.1 percent.’ Ulfelder (2007) also finds the same relationship: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… autocracies that derive a larger share of their gross national income from mineral depletion are substantially less likely to transition to democracy in any given year [and] during the past three decades at least, resource wealth has played a significant role in helping to sustain authoritarian rule in numerous countries that have never attempted democracy and in delaying a return to democracy in some countries that have</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="298px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/sJBHDWTxRPp9CcKc2GGBuodW97KwhMEOBBVTn4AdOS6Rs62QjFagJi0yGG8jxEXJZk51xQQ8ILUF_htOedN4e_Da7SgAapbRs3xxCqg75CR7GOQdeBL_mG7NpOr2D6UUg5TUKV8kHKS4Z3jR" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="435px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…. an autocracy that obtains just 15% of its gross national income from energy and mineral depletion is only about half as likely to transition to democracy, and a regime at my sample maximum on this measure—91.8% is only about one tenth as likely to transition as the median autocracy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The literature doesn’t always necessarily find the same results. Haber and Menaldo (2011) who find that there is no link between oil wealth and reduced democracy. Their dataset is the longest I’ve seen and they provide the following graphs (and many more for other countries) which are supposed to show there’s no relationship. What they look at (at least in the first half of the study) is oil revenues over time against polity scores. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="574px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/LqInOGgQkOfK4Lv17xdoaR8QcfOZpspwNTc0RmWJntSX3Z95tMkdu8OYRVMM3nzKj4Bq8N1i2sBcG-f-3kU4uowgndTBpjC0G28yjQS-aoinhzzrXXCYhlxbUbk6fBvUdwGaFvHGt9ldu974" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="590px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The issue with this study, however, is that dataset is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">too</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> long. This is usually a good thing, but the dataset starts in 1800 when no country produce economically significant amount of oil until the end of the Great War. Moreover, the rents were not always used by the states themselves. As Anderson and Ross (2012) note:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Until the late 1960s, most of the rents generated by oil production in non-Western countries were captured by a handful of large, vertically-integrated international oil companies – sometimes called “the Seven Sisters.” But in the 1970s, the industry was transformed by a wave of nationalizations and contract revisions that enabled the governments of host countries to seize control of these rents.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another issue they note with Haber and Menaldo is that for their 53 ‘resource reliant’ countries, they apply an ECM cointegration test, which involves a within country analysis over time. I literally have no idea what they were thinking: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Haber and Menaldo compare countries ‘treated’ with natural resource wealth to themselves over time, instead of comparing them to countries without resource wealth. Since they find that when countries are ‘treated’ with resource wealth, they do not become less democratic, they mistakenly infer that the treatment had no effect.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And when they look at the results from 1970 onwards Haber and Menaldo’s with this corrected, they find: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="366px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/i_M4foHlTB2ntCeDlEsearsDMKD62u5RHYj8fEFJIzWciSRoW4X89vkjbtlI1SoV_dvjAR9niPuHKwiFuybz7GTt0r_a4GcHYtiF5vf_HLJY_I9mcCW3GoSMp97z_0dO777qe3h78Si5vUc3" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="435px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notice that there are two differences between the two lines: the level of democracy is much lower in the oil states; and since around 1980, the gap between the two groups has widened…. Haber and Menaldo’s findings are significantly altered once we account for the historic changes of the 1970s.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="216px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/UZsyCF82vLRN2WsZ1cZVoqn2ZV35247Fo5GTVO4_Yir72gsrpFXynE56XhhPLKcGExEv7Hy8B36F7UuGkig-gafTkd_6PEcafZ0mf-6v64jfkn9jCS4P_YtmpsMIP7w4Gn_AEPxbkdNGoN1L" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="601px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beginning in 1976, the interaction term has a negative coefficient [i.e., oil revenue is negatively associated with democracy]; beginning in 1980, this coefficient becomes statistically significant; and beginning in 1982, the net effect of oil becomes statistically significant and negative, and remains so for all subsequent break points in the table</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wright et al (2015) find that ‘higher oil wealth increases autocratic regime survival’ but this not through deterring democratic forces but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">other </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">autocratic groups. This negates the argument that the West has a limited role because these states often have their own oil revenues they can utilise. I would, however, simply note that within countries differences don’t seem to me to indicate much. Levels will likely never go below an amount that fund an oppressive state and keep members loyal. Accordingly, I think the comparison levels between non-oil producing states and oil producing states (between country) is more relevant and hence Wright et al and Haber and Menaldo should not be given as much weight (Smith (2004)). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moreover, we have some fairly robust studies on specific mechanisms. Egorov et al (2009) find that oil-rich non-democracies have less free media than non-oil rich democracies (and oil rich democracies). The mechanism is important: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the absence of free media, incentives for lower-tier bureaucrats to provide sufficient effort and transmit necessary information to higher levels prove[s] inadequate… To induce high effort, the dictator needs some verifiable information on the bureaucrats ‘performance. The dictator can rely on special monitoring agencies, but these are vulnerable to collusion with the bureaucrats they monitor; preventing such collusion is costly. In the case of uncensored media, this collusion is ruled out by the free-rider problem and competition between decentralized media…</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a resource-rich country, the dictator is more interested in remaining in office (as rents are higher); moreover, he cares less for bureaucratic incentives because the resource rents can compensate for poor economic policies… </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I quite like this study because it doesn’t just look at oil prices, but oil reserves. It also tries to disentangle the effects of oil, democracy and media effects. The find that a oil does have a negative relationship with democracy, but they also provide evidence for their mechanism showing a link between oil reserves and media freedom in the next year: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whether we use oil reserves (regressions (1)–(4)) or oil production (regression (5)) or whether we use the full sample (regressions (1) and (5)) or split it into autocracies (regression (2), Polity2 is not positive in 1992), imperfect democracies (regression (3), Polity2 positive but not higher than 8), or democracies (regression (4), Polity2 above 8 in 1992), </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">oil abundance has a negative and significant effect on democracy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="374px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/MM1LBu0V0D2X0OQplHcq2odwFHUBJHAOMx0NJYrqKCQyIZ9R3h59Uf7Pc-jVrstrI_cFrosc4dmHzqbJBAZhK3bSfsxxyY9D98BaQPlLp7uzANHyALOPbVeYkE2hB8ee0h7XqDACVYd1Uwf9" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="601px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…in columns (6) and (7) of Table 3, we disentangle the effect of oil on democracy from the effect of oil on media freedom through the following two-stage procedure. In the first stage, we run media freedom on democracy, country fixed effects, and other control variables except for oil. Then we take the residuals, and estimate a regression for the residuals on oil, country fixed effects, and its other determinants and controls except for democracy. the second-stage regressions for the media freedom residuals capture the relationship between oil and media freedom. The results are also consistent with our theoretical predictions: both oil reserves (regression (6)) and oil production (regression (7)) affect media freedom residuals negatively and significantly.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s also noteworthy that in a meta-analysis of 120 studies, Ahmadov (2015) finds that ‘all means indicate that there is a negative effect of oil on political regime’ and ‘confidence and credibility intervals confirm this nontrivial, negative partial correlation and also rule out the possibility of a positive and no association.’ Interestingly Ahmadov then divides up all the studies into regions being assessed and finds: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="190px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/KmdDw2kxsST0H1Jh2fcKXuuOGA7-cxmiNhvl2aPA8RqbxD2F0_wGBtYLDCrkwFNK74WUaR-0TOqNiQKN-XykHhJcbfhAkaDyVjszyZ-9YrHR0vOLWn18E-Fta_a5dBe7hrC6tMGFJab_OdWS" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="602px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The coefficient of MENA is negative, indicating that when estimates are derived using data that cover this region, the results tend to be more negative… The coefficient of Latin America, on the other hand, is positive.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why would there be a regional difference? Thad Dunning (2008) in his book, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">argues that natural resources lead to democracy in some states (particularly in South American countries) but not for the rest of the world. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crude Democracy </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a pretty fun application of typical game theory. Here’s how he starts the model: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="270px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/nZANKowB7CEGFaBPgG8UHMjdPLZl3IM4jwtmOXhA43-Xf2f1kY2QrzX3PeOh57FpejJ3zc0h_M0TqqpB8wjLAvvSLcBu-MlbkVMM3wwA5s-rk8djVwuTM766DNbSZo4nvYp-JaMZw0koCQAy" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="400px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the first move of this game, a relatively poor democratic majority sets economic policy. In the second move of the game, a set of relatively rich elites decides whether to stage a coup. I assume that there is some exogenous cost (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">φH</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) to staging a coup that is independent of economic interests (such as the risk that a coup fails, as mentioned above). In deciding whether to stage a coup, elites weigh the payoff to authoritarianism and the utility (or disutility) of democracy against this coup cost</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note, that as Dunning goes on to explain: it doesn’t matter if there isn’t actually an existing democracy for the model to apply. The point is that oil resources have conflicting effects on the decision of these elites. Argument for elites acting in favour of a coup would be (i) increased rents from taking over the oil wealth themselves an (ii) stopping the poor majority from taxing the elites. Against the coup there are converse factors (e.g. the rents mean that the state can pay off the poor majority without an effect on the elites). Which pressures ultimately win, Dunning says, depend on the wider context:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine first country A, where the resource sector is a predominant force in the total economy: the ratio of resource rents to gross domestic product (GDP) is extremely high, so resource rents are very nearly the only economic “game in town.” Moreover, to the extent there is any economic activity in the private sector, income and assets (such as access to capital, land, and so on) in this sector are distributed relatively equally. This country is “resource-dependent” as well as resource-abundant... Moreover, inequality of private wealth or income provides little in the way of a potentially salient dimension of political conflict.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...now consider country B. Here, the resource sector may be an important part of the total economy, but it is not preponderant: the ratio of resource rents to GDP is substantially lower than in country A, as there is important private economic activity outside of the resource sector. Furthermore, suppose that in this country there is also substantial inequality of assets or income in the private sector</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dunning’s model would suggest that there would be a stronger democratic impulse in country B rather than country A. Looking at his Figure 1.2 (below), you can see that resource dependency leads to broadly net authoritarian effects and he, accordingly, puts Gulf states in this category. The final thing worth exploring is his distinction between “equal / unequal private sector”. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="320px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/p3IEkmEhtpvU2vLG0h9iXgI562VTH-407hCBkQ6F_pfr2DcVx0IYbQdhCQlDTPsLEDxkHScnS8Hq29j-UkU0YOrT-d0DOAEl-ZkFTDfg_oYhgoyHqzNdpdNOHZrqSOrSULHfwZMaqr-XkTtu" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="385px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It not until Chapter 3 that he tells you what he’s on about: he believes inequality increases the chance of social conflict because ‘inequality gives elites more to lose from redistributive taxation and therefore heightens the future cost of living under democracy.’ Hence, where there is inequality, even in non-resource dependent states, there may be “intermediate cases”. And this is where Dunning loses me: the idea that inequality and “poor masses” desire for distribution is a cause of democratic breakdown. Those familiar with Acemoglu and Robinson’s work can’t help but see this as a throwback to their </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Economic Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Acemoglu and Robinson’s] framework predicts that in highly unequal societies, democratic policies should be highly redistributive but then abruptly come to an end with a coup that reverts back to much less redistributive policies… In democracy, the elites are unhappy because of the high degree of redistribution and, in consequence, may undertake coups against the democratic regime (p.38, 222)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the idea that (economic) inequality leads to democratic breakdown, to my mind, seems incredibly weak as per Slater et al (2014): </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cross-sectional time series data from 139 countries between 1972 and 2007 show that the taxation of income, profits, and capital gains—which effectively proxies for both wealth redistribution and state capacity—is if anything negatively correlated with military coups against democratic regimes. Our quantitative analysis also shows that the democratic breakdowns that follow such coups do not seem to result in any systematic reduction of redistribution.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…democratic breakdown in the post-World War II era is best understood as the product of postcolonial state weakness. On the militarized side of the state apparatus, officers typically overthrow democracy for reasons of their own, not in support of particular economic classes. On the postcolonial state’s civilian side, administrative incapacity means that recurrent crises of governability will repeatedly tempt and enable military intervention to restore political stability</span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="539px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/YQk-OqQT322GrvkFopBq3reyMSdQSV4cJOyS3dKOBDvpE8to38R1zLyO6E3S4dkxNpUbJdJ98sAx8yvag1W5WDm7As5oNw73AprYfLCrnA3T_fRVcwZ_GZObghUIntaaY2pLXhDo4CXhOPQC" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="601px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The coefficient on direct taxes implies that increasing direct tax collection by one percentage point would be expected to decrease the rate of successful coups by a factor of 0.85 (p=0.01). To clarify the result further, if the same specification is used in an OLS model with robust standard errors clustered by country, a one-percentage-point increase in direct taxes is associated with a 4.4 percent decrease in the probability of a regime-changing coup (p=0.08)… successful coups (that do not necessarily change the regime) and attempted coups are negatively correlated with direct taxes. Increasing tax collection by one point decreases the rate of successful coups by a factor of 0.88 and attempted coups by a factor of 0.90.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dunning’s model, then, is flawed. But I think his idea that it has different effects over different regions is right. We have already discussed the role of civil society – which could be relevant to this question. Interestingly Ahmadov himself says the institutional framework matters. Significantly, for our purposes, institutions set up the British Empire are not related: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… institutional contexts alter the oil–democracy link, thus circumscribing the negative effect of oil on democracy to developing countries. These results speak to an emerging debate that puts institutions at the forefront of explaining why resource curse takes place in some countries but not others… While our results are largely suggestive because of data and methodological limitations, they nonetheless indicate that a conditioning effect of institutions may lie more in a broader set of political and economic institutions associated with OECD membership, less so in previous political regime, but not institutions associated with British colonial past</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pseduo doesn’t like the generality of the above: he thinks the ‘institutional origins of authoritarianism’ and oil rents is broad. I agree that it is broad, but I’m not putting forward a general theory: just one that shows prevalence of authoritarianism across the Middle East. Maybe I’m being too broad about the Middle East? Maybe. But I have tried to distinguish between specific types (non-slave vs. slave). Nonetheless, when Pseduo says something he’s probably right so just to add a few more distinctions, I’ve drafted the few paragraphs below. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have a series of studies which tries to explain the differences between Middle Eastern countries.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Loyalist regimes (commonly in the form of hereditary regimes) compared with republican regimes provide one such important difference. Brownlee et al (2013) try to explain why there was such a ‘modest harvest’ in the Arab Spring. By which they mean, only some countries appear to have had regime change in this period. They conclude:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="208px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/NlPLBGeZQJT8zDr-h-K6AZJ9uMj5fMLRmly-3a06nUZygFsnEA6m1Ys190a27QMoj-LZHMHSbfnGXCgRo0b0xSoPr12om918R1xaDC9jOd4Gy6T6U_UnyFZHzs2ZdV0zZvo5oYCii2vEDk9Y" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="525px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…the success of a domestic campaign to oust the ruler was structurally preconditioned by two variables: oil wealth (which endows the ruler with enough material resources to forestall or contain challenges) and the precedent of hereditary succession (which indicates the heightened loyalty of coercive agents to the executive). We find that only regimes that lacked major oil revenue </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> had not established hereditary succession succumbed relatively quickly and nonviolently to domestic uprisings.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="246px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/RLRs0KLRGvyKuWuwDLpx-aUy58bsepImZI8dK752aaxyEY8qvlTHvW1HYZQNOpLjZNGAf6Bpag1d4xWIQmxzb42i0b-dd_oWc8g9OxVU8iZZJ373VCrkX978IlyCWVw5hdt4zg4yRDlC6aLo" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="484px;" /></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the better studies is Bank, Richter and Sunik (2013). They use fsQCA (fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis) to analyse all monarchies existent in the Middle East between 1945 and 2012 which is unlike any other study referenced in this post. If you do not know how fsQCA works, I’d recommend reading about it before reading these paragraphs (see </span><a href="http://impactready.org/using-fuzzy-set-qualitative-comparative-analysis-fsqca-case-study/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for a short primer). They look at the following 5 factors that could lead to regime persistence:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(A) Strategic external support by the leading Western powers, the US, the UK and France (esupport), relates to the geostrategic dimension of monarchical survival.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(B) Rent revenues (rents) flowing into state coffers due to the export of natural resources such as oil and natural gas are at the core of political economic explanations for monarchical survival.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(C) Family participation (family) in political decision-making.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(D) The monarch’s claim to legitimate rule (leg-claim) – based on historical and/or religious premises – is a central aspect of the political legitimation from above.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(E) Hard repression, which is sometimes, but not regularly, used to quell opposition within and outside of the monarchical regime.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their first finding is that none of these factors is necessary for survival, nor is anyone of them sufficient. Rather there are seven pathways for survival:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="338px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/ibYAiqr4Sw2HV8o-d5OLb__mlNVfujHYcs_b-BAyGdFyeZYAEChNgIMCiyKw67ILk6qXmY-mkCrTqiZG8oX2VGL93gKLWA21yZAjYG61lmsSioWD1Vg_J-ekVhs2SXyQX62h8Fozmnvn9dVG" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="548px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">….the first covers the classical linchpin monarchies of Jordan and Morocco. It highlights the importance of the historical-religious claim to legitimate rule despite the absence of high rents and family participation. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The last two pathways (6 and 7) explain the survival of all of the Gulf monarchies (with the exception of Oman).</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A combination of high rent revenues and the participation of family members in political decision-making without using hard repression are of key importance in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. A distinct pathway (7) exclusively for Saudi Arabia illustrates the specificity of this kingdom: Rent revenues and family participation are accompanied with a strong claim to legitimate rule.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My takeaway from the study is that external support just really isn’t important in most cases but it also goes some way to address Pseudo’s criticism that my analysis is too broad and doesn’t tell us about differences </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">between </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Middle Eastern states: there are different pathways to regime persistence. I would emphasise not straying too far from the institutional analysis for the region as the region as a whole is backward on most measures of human rights and polity. Accordingly, whilst specificity can tell us more about the range, it doesn’t explain why it’s such they </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have such low scores – which is why I’m more interested in the overall, broader claims. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where does all this leave us? As stated, we should veer away from studies like Wright et al and Haber and Menaldo. There does seem to be a resource curse. The mechanism is through reinforcing the oppressive state and loyalty of key individuals. I believe the literature is not uniformly consistent because it’s comparing countries with different institutional frameworks and degrees of loyalty. I don’t buy Dunning’s idea about inequality but can see merit in the idea that resource dependency is correlated with authoritarianism – but for different reasons. I have outlined above that civil society is historically and continues to be weak in the Middle East. This dependence on oil means that economic survival is not premised on a vibrant private sector, and there is therefore less of a need for it. And, accordingly, the legacy of weak civil society continues. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It would be interesting to test this idea by measuring oil wealth/dependency against measures of civil society to see whether this idea holds out. The closest I’ve come across is Gandhi and Przeworski (2006) who argue the need for cooperation (to avoid rebellion) with non-governmental groups is lower when oil rents are high. They find that the presence of oil lead to fewer political parties and organisations (see Table 3, the relevant coefficient is -0.5045). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a mesh of politics and economics here: if oil was not there, there would be a need for decentralised groups, corporations etc. Because oil </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> there, there is a strong state. Historical Islamic institutions have laid the ground work for weak civil society. All of these factors interact: Kuran / Chaney et al + Ufelder + Brownlee et al + Salter et al. When these factors are taken together, the role of the West in propping up Middle Eastern regimes or being at all relevant in their operations starts to fade. Crudely, it should make you feel less guilty about our relationship with authoritarians: the institutional framework along with oil rents means their heinous acts would occur without us. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. The Relationship </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can account for the extent to which these countries are authoritarian in ways that don’t rely on Western influence. Nonetheless is might be argued that whilst the West does not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cause </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the authoritarianism, it “helps” them stay propped up with the provision of arms, financial aid and the like. I am sceptical of this claim for a number of reasons leaving aside the slipperiness of “helps” but it’s worth exploring the role of our actions, in a bit more detail. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2.1 Benefits</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Levitsky and Way (2010) in their book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">provide a pretty good starting point for discussion of the benefits of being friends with authoritarian regimes. Their book is a rich qualitative study of 35 countries which became, what they call, ‘competitive authoritarian’ states in the early 1990s. These regimes are not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fully </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">authoritarian but take the form of a state like Russia where there is a guide of democratic behaviour. These regimes typically have clear political inequality and mass human rights violations. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The aim of their study is to study what determined whether these states became democratic / broadly liberal in 2008. This is their argument in brief:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">... [authoritarian] incumbents’ capacity to hold onto power – and the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes more generally – hinges primarily on two factors: (1) linkage to the West, or the density of ties (economic, political, diplomatic, social, and organizational) and cross-border flows (of capital, goods and services, people, and information) between particular countries and the United States and the EU; and (2) incumbents’ organizational power, or the scope and cohesion of state and governing-party structures (p.23)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More particularly, Levitsky and Way talk about Western linkage and leverage. Western leverage is high where a state ‘lacks bargaining power and are heavily affected by Western punitive action’ (p.41). Western linkage is defined as economic (trade or credit), intergovernmental (bilateral economic and military ties), technocratic (country’s elite being educated in the West), social (flow of people between borders), information (flows of Western ideas) and civil society linkage (Western NGOs) (p.43-4). Linkage works via three mechanisms: </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: lower-roman; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it [i.e., linkage] heightened the international reverberation caused by autocratic abuse [because linkage] increases the probability that... Western governments will take action in response to reported abuse;</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: lower-roman; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it created domestic constituencies for democratic norm-abiding behaviour [in the form of personal, financial and professional ties to the West and] international isolation triggered by flawed elections, human rights abuses [etc.] would put these ties and consequently, valued markets, investment flows, grants, jobs prospects and reputations – at risk; and</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: lower-roman; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it reshaped the domestic distribution of power and resource strengthening democratic and opposition forces and weakening and isolating autocrats [because] ties to Westerns governments... may provide critical resources to opposition and prodemocracy movements helping to level the playing field against autocratic governments (p.44-48, 70). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="165px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/IImhMrc4vwo2XOW8usdRDgz6KP8V8NX8zav6UAPEiUdksYsQdanYRYBRBnnvsp1gT59oEBNGhO7UkNk-J9sxolB4XFjeVvWZ7EKytBUdoPV1ZOwWJhvfy6gOlRWELkpLn7AVv0LrUKb5_3nj" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="489px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For countries where linkage and leverage is high, their model predict ‘external democratizing pressure is consistent and intense’ and ‘autocracies are less likely to survive’ (p.53). You cans ee what their model predictions in Table 2.1 above and Figure 2.2 below. Organisational power is essentially ‘state coercive capacity’ – the ability of the state to crush dissent. Levitsky and Way at times downplay the role of civil society but it seems to me their arguments (see point iii above) rely on it heavily. More importantly, state coercive capacity is simply the opposite side of the conflict between civil society and oppressive state structures. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="288px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/uOujdGtwbF02jRp-h5AGKqvXKyf4nNmkdP5VxQEN-lvLmjNbd6DlQsQtbhIDdjSbdn2BXj8dJqMN5xY8sLqEY3SCpuMDnF6cxZ00c9JD444geLDgHokJgMgvRokpoIYMeLGInALm8TTzXeWA" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="377px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As you can see, even where organisation power is high, linkage can still have significant democratising effects. Western leverage matters less than linkage but it’s still significant. Importantly, ‘only where ties to the West are extensive on all (or nearly all) dimensions – as opposed to being concentrated in one or two dimensions’ do these effects really come out (p.50). How does their model perform for their 35 countries? Remarkably well: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/qYMCo8B_Kfv3mlrdoYtt0lCJWqwu67A2s9jyVEQCmFUMnSo4CqYK9ff2alb9Vk9Z1mAKwr401NhrgSmIkjfN_8FIhYewUJOAtrX55FIegGHSdZoDZB7uf4BnDi5iF08poatnxWHD_W1ALz0A" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…[their] theory correctly predicts regime outcomes in 28 of 35 cases. Among the seven nonmatches, six are “near misses,” in that our theory accounts for key aspects of regime evolution and outcomes are close to those predicted by our theory. Only one case – Ghana – falls entirely outside our theoretical framework (p.340; note I’ve cut the table significantly because its so long, Table 8.1 is on p.342) </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This gives us a reason to pursue further ties with authoritarians. I know what you’re thinking: the issue with Levitsky and Way is that they do not consider any purely Middle Eastern authoritarian countries. But I think what they have to say applies to them as well. In 2011, the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">noticed something that not many others did: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even as the United States poured billions of dollars into foreign military programs and anti-terrorism campaigns, a small core of American government-financed organizations were promoting democracy in authoritarian Arab states… But as American officials and others look back at the uprisings of the Arab Spring, they are seeing that the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For someone who believes that weak civil societies perpetuate authoritarianism, U.S. and other Western programmes that promote democracy seem to be getting at the heart of the issue. This is directly relevant to Levitsky and Way’s third limb quoted above. And fortunately, we have a couple of studies. First, Scott and Steele (2011) find that </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…countries receiving democracy aid experienced greater improvement in their Polity scores from 1988 to 2003 (5.54 points) than those who did not (2.40 points). This difference is statistically significant at the .01 level. Hence, the descriptive data provide initial—if limited—evidence that democracy aid is associated with progress toward democracy, with recipients outpacing non-recipients by more than twice the rate of improvement.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="191px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/wwzwNPTnMJqQb_tAsVIdDW2QdUNP3BlhoHRcRh_MFAvKX7ZdqPVgYlDy0DuBS-yI7V1Y4vFcsmGBZ6kgZLbdcb67f_c3KrRtaaQNntWYSqdl18oYBslebtxRiol245ORP3-OKi7CgNAmfXZn" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="546px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…even after controlling for a general trend (time, or year, which is statistically significant and positively related to democracy aid allocations), democratization is significantly and positively related to the allocation of democracy aid… In substantive terms, a change of 1 in the Polity score is related to a small, but statistically significant increment in democracy aid (about $50,000).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of their mechanisms is what they call ‘agent empowerment’ which entails helping set up a vibrant civil society. I should note that Scott and Steele acknowledge that ‘studies examining specific democracy aid… offer mixed results’ but that ‘in general, [they are] more supportive of the fundamental aid-democratization linkage’ (see in particular Finkel et al (2006), Schmitter (2008) and Finkel et al (2008)). Bush’s ‘Freedom Agenda’ wasn’t just about democracy aid, it was broader. Gilley (2013) essay in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Political Science Quarterly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is instructive: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From 2001 to 2008, the policies of the Bush administrations in support of democracy in the Middle East involved four dimensions: rhetorical, diplomatic, material, and structural [e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan regime change]… [In particular] Bush increased the dollar amount per year spent on democracy in the Middle East by a factor of four and doubled its proportion of overall U.S. democracy assistance spending… Structurally, the Freedom Agenda included attempts to support local actors in building functioning democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the U.S. occupations of those countries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="340px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wkZvMmSOnpBMfv6VtEjQVO9HVQKNj50R6GWQroXPCuQbbUdbH5vhmCgiRlYzrxwtu1i4FoUrHWLOmERLpP3fWUtylICq-cMdv4JrwoNqci4wJVY1KNgWO2cHnVNKU4Qb0OzSku6Blv0_3wDx" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="484px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…the countries most vulnerable to Freedom Agenda effects did indeed experience greater democratic gains in this period. The main outliers from this pattern are Jordan (below predicted) and Libya (above predicted).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In relation to the material and structural support, Gilley finds that ‘for the most part, the spending seems to have had the expected small but positive effects.’ More importantly, Gilley provides qualitative evidence for the other mechanisms. Some of them are dubious (for example, the U.S. was instrumental in the National Democratic Initiative in Bahrain but its probably a stretch to say they are linked to any reforms) and some seem sensible (for example, the U.S. support for the Damascus Declaration for Democratic National Change in Syria). More interestingly, Gilley argues that:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… it is probably fair to say that the diffusion effects of democracy building in Iraq and Afghanistan on the movements were negative overall. The manner of the Iraq invasion in particular and the missteps in the reconstruction effort, according to Gamal Selim’s careful analysis, “resulted in the discrediting of the Iraqi political experience among mainstream Arab political and civil society forces as a potential model to be emulated or diffused.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I disagree: I think its clear that the regimes that exist in those countries are infinitely better than the previous regimes. I’m not going to address this because that goes more toward hard power than soft power analysis that I’m focussing on here. That said, the mechanism which Gilley states argues that there was an unexpected democratic effect isn’t limited to just Afghanistan and Iraq: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…vocal regime critics gained a new and unexpected voice. In particular, by sparking nationalist sentiments, the wars, like the rhetoric, discredited authoritarian regimes that had long claimed to defend the Arab world against U.S. imperialism, creating a new discourse of strength through democracy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="241px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ZfzSWr5tl2OZIQLFKgRnbprjXPM-gC7MeoZxykXZiWKvPI8jxyFWTRluHDQwU5bHpOICW-pFm1CRfLfzSy1rr7RYi411Y0Ll1f0WxYb3Ywxqf-CB4Fi34-m7GnipaRTZbt-wYfpkSg5xqMsl" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="510px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s for these reason that he claims the structural changes had a number of effect: some positive and some negative (see Table 3 above). I think Gilley’s study has a number of limitations (the lack of quantitative data being one) and I don’t really buy the ‘deligitimation’ mechanism described above. Briefly, I think the evidence for it is quite weak (see, for example, Bush and Jamal (2014) who find that American endorsement of women in politics has no average effect on popular support for women's representation) and doesn’t seem to correspond with support for democracy in the Arab world (see my review of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Missing Martyrs</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). That said, it does show how Levitsky and Way-type scenarios arises in the Middle East. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But it’s not just programmes like this that lead to a positive effect. Scott Ritter (2015) in his book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Iron Cage of Liberalism </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">provides evidence for the first Levitsky and Way limb described above. Ritter’s argument is that ‘friendly international relations between the authoritarian regimes in Iran, Tunisia, and Egypt and their Western patrons’ leads to a insincere use of liberal ideals which then ‘constrains authoritarian regimes and their Western allies by holding them accountable to liberal expectations’ (p.18-19). </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This, in turn, means that non-violent revolutions work because the regimes cannot suppress the people. The idea is that there is an ‘iterative, relation process’ by which (1) the authoritarian regimes, (2) the West and (3) the opposition forces in a society coalesce to create an ‘iron cage of liberalism.’ The West pressures its allies to reform any authoritarian bents that the regime has. The authoritarian regimes respond by espousing democratic ideals without making substantive changes. Ritter refers to this as a ‘façade democracy’ which is a weak attempt to accept liberal, democratic norms. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Opposition forces are strengthened directly by the West funding civil society programmes and the regimes allowing for modicums of reform which allow the emergence of a civil society. By espousing such ideas, citizens also judged their rulers by standards which they obviously fell short of and then accordingly had to offer more. It is these reinforcing mechanisms that lead to the iron cage, and therefore successful non-violent revolutions:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result of their close ties to the West, the shah, Ben Ali, and Mubarak eventually found themselves trapped by the liberal discourse they had adopted precisely in order to promulgate their relationships with the democratic world. When large crowds of nonviolent protesters materialized [the regimes were] unable to resort to violence [and] they were swept away by the empty hands of unarmed revolutionaries (p.214). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So far all I have talked about are effects on the overall status of the regime (i.e., our links help foster liberal / democratic norms). But there’s also other ways our links help. Swed and Weinreb (2015) argue that arms sales -> less repression. This is through two mechanisms: first, it creates a dependency on us and second (and more persuasive) ‘the acquisition of complex military hardware facilitates the diffusion of western ideologies regarding the role of the military in the state, and regarding when, how and against whom state-sponsored military activity can legitimately be used.’ </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="218px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/geQfplLTreF_DppIAr3rUSSf8Tk7twuvtjVwo4vq4NRIunlfQynzKz-lILYMFwUYGHHOlttoMAbDmgaOhfTdcFO2PnoYrw_EkO4g2kwNCkwKhNSykNLqdeRHDoqN4xa991xr10mOHGbI0hG6" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="326px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[There is a] relationship between increasingly complex weapon systems (right-side axis), opportunities for collaboration (left-side axis), and overall levels of interpersonal interaction. That is, even the sale of small arms may generate some military coordination. But sophisticated weapons create a wider array of opportunities for interaction. With every purchase of a complex weapons system, instructors, operators, advisers, and other experts are employed to closely chaperone and guide recipients…</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… even where narrow technical training has nothing to with the military’s political role or responses to civil unrest, it is hard to imagine that a wider array of ideas about professional standards, from matters of general military doctrine and strategy to professionalization and ideal civilian-military relationship, do not also diffuse.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Swed and Weinreb go through both qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. Their former shows that the ‘behavior of the military elite [i.e., repression] in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria after Arab Spring demonstrations began is strongly associated with two empirical indicators of military westernization [i.e, the two mechanisms following Westernisation of the military described above].’ This is pretty self-explanatory and I wont be elaborating on it. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their quantitative analysis, however, is more interesting. They look at 2,523 cases of political unrest between 1996 and 2005. Their </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bottom line results</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> show that ‘the number of deaths that result from government-initiated response to political unrest is significantly lower where the military is westernized. These differences are particularly notable in poorer settings, and were particularly strong in the pre-GWOT (1996–2000) era.’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="402px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/j0zLDqQ6wxrKd7xNsPfKfbTdmqzQus5uHg6C2WX8wj8X5JV2nKcFv6WqjQDmQdwvGnCkbrwyc9Y9YWHaJqzquYM9V4QZouoUpOdyoCVJt6ubZKnqgzZOtcr1OTQv8zfX3jLEo0btFPOOwIAT" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="601px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Model 3 shows that among poor countries whose main combat aircraft, tanks and APCs in the pre-1991 era did not come from western countries, we see e1.85 (6.4) more deaths than in wealthier countries. But among poor countries whose main weapon systems in the pre-1991 era did come from western countries, we see e-3.03 (3.7%) the number of deaths.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2.2 First Aid: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The literature on foreign aid is a mine field. It’s utter chaos. Not only are there a lot of contradictory findings but there’s just so much of it, I will never comfortable with or attempt to read all of it. Hence, what follows are summaries I’ve taken from studies rather than actual studies. My main concern here is to find out whether aid we give has a negative, neutral or positive effect in terms of democratisation and human rights. But I just want to re-emphasise: democratisation is predominantly a domestic issue. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A wide consensus of the literature holds that criticality generally rests with internal rather than external factors, especially in regard to democratic consolidation (Gilley (2013))</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Above I discussed the effect of democracy aid, this subsection is about foreign aid generally. If I’m saying that oil rents are relevant to regime survival, surely foreign aid and assistance would work in the same way? This is plausible and, indeed, there are some studies to support the idea (see in particular Morrission (2009) who finds revenues, no matter where they come from, increase regime durability and Djankov et al (2008) which finds that foreign aid has a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">worse </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">impact than oil rents). But, as always, we should follow literatures not individual studies. Scott and Steele say</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…most studies of broad foreign aid or official development assistance (ODA) conclude that such assistance does not affect democratization (see Collins 2009)… For example, Knack’s (2004) extensive study of aid and democratization from 1975 to 2000 concluded that foreign aid was not a significant factor in democratic change… </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The aforementioned Ahmadov meta-analysis finds that foreign aid is not a significant cofounder on the oil rents variable. I would argue that given the domestic causes of authoritarianism, an unstable variable like foreign aid just doesn’t seem to have a positive or negative effect. But, Bader and Faust (2014) review all of the literature on the subject suggest that more recent studies find that it has a negative effect: </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…. more recent and more nuanced studies of the relation between foreign aid, political structures, and regime survival suggest that foreign aid has an amplification effect (Dutta, Leeson, and Williamson 2013). Accordingly, aid tends to stabilize and consolidate the type of regime it encounters. Foreign aid stabilizes autocratic structures in autocracies while helping to consolidate democratic governance in democracies. Moreover, foreign aid feeds patronage politics in autocracies, but not in democracies (Hodler and Raschky 2014). These findings suggest that foreign aid is politically captured by authoritarian governments, and indeed, makes autocratic survival more likely (Bueno de Mesquita and Smith 2010; Ahmed 2012).</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like I said, the literature on foreign aid is a mess. There are three studies that are referenced frequently to show that aid can entrench regimes: Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2010); Ahmed (2012) (see above extract) and Morrisson (2009) (which is quoted above). I think there are two fundamental flaws with this line of research. First, Bermeo (2011) shows that there is a distinction based on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">who </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is giving the aid. Many of the larger cross-sectional studies look at all foreign aid and look for democratisation. Bermeo shows that this is not the case: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="403px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Vxb5NfluPCCRGTyrnSI6RtgvYCei8XK7HViH9b7OzuP9RHIdb3C4aHtScA07EQEscXp-Z3rR1yCP21Zl_I2qaKrLFlkqtZAo3fNxhIoeqT7T6oneVmDrB25DOtBImu8qvhrHMOrYoeDyOTPD" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="601px;" /></span></div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Model 2 separates aid from democratic and authoritarian sources as described above. The results provide strong support for H[ypothesis] 1: while increases in aid from democratic donors are associated with a greater likelihood of a democratic transition, the opposite is true for aid from authoritarian sources. Monte Carlo simulations show that, holding all other variables at their median, a change in the amount of democratic aid from its value at the 25th percentile to its value at the 75th percentile is associated with an increase in the likelihood of a democratic transition during a country year from a baseline of 2.15 to 3.12%, a 45% increase</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="318px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/qCfJqK1rM5z7QCZMbojBDVB1EQhK0M4_cr0E4PS6kAvQseb_jDLdP27IOlU6dY5KoMjU6iUI0meWtZo-UPbrplQJNgclLo6LDarjA-Blw3juwexxnXOzCtWwo849sLORTa3TXCHVWu1pw2oL" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="352px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second, is another study by Bermeo (2014). She notes that the relationship of aid and democratisation is heavily dependent on the type of aid. Fungible aid is much like oil in helping regime durability but non-fungible aid is not. Whether to give fungible or non-fungible aid is a decision made on the basis of strategic importance (high strategic importance -> fungible aid). In this study she is only looking at democratic donors and she does find there’s a difference: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The coefficient on aid is negative but not significant for the full period (Model 1) As Models 2 and 3 show, this masks heterogeneity across periods. During the cold war, more aid is associated with a decreased likelihood that a country experiences democratic change. The same is not true in the post-cold war, where the coefficient on aid is positive but not significant.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The idea is that in the pre-1991 period, aid decisions would have given more weight to strategic rather than purely democratic concerns. Interestingly, you’d think that these strategic concerns might arise again in the post-2001 period because of the War on Terror. Apparently not: ‘If the period is further restricted to the post-2001 “war on terror” time period… there is still no negative effect of foreign aid.’</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Bermeo asks something interesting: can states which have strategic importance to us, manipulate the composition of the aid? She looks at the top 5 states which obtain military aid (not included in foreign aid, fyi) and gives them an indicator score of 1: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The coefficients on the interaction term between aid per capita and strategic importance, Top 5*Aid are negative in both models and significant in the post-cold war period. The results are consistent with strategically important recipient governments using aid to prevent democratic change even in the post-cold war period.</span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bermeo then does something </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">even more </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">interesting: she re-runs the analysis on Morrison (2009), Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2010) and Ahmed (2012). I wont repeat each result but here’s her conclusion: </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The articles [i.e., the three listed above] revisited in this section claim that foreign aid operates in a similar manner to oil revenue or remittances and that it suppresses political change in authoritarian countries. In no case does a further examination of the results support the conclusion that aid prevents political change in the post-cold war, or that aid operates in a similar way to other forms of non-tax revenue.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gibson et al (2015) find that increased technical assistance from the West led to less patronage which, in turn, led to more liberal political concessions. As they show: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Embedded image permalink" height="328px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Lrbw36C6q4xiV9R_lsxpXSFmulqK-o3Pd78DbtMlFzmaWWwD-90iZjYOxaYvSxmR-NIxhbwygR3scAwu5Y7ceSGfbS5gwPTICOUoNx5jyKBT3uu5K6iyDRwGuQ6AM_KOgatkXeYp258byVm6" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="342px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[an] increase in technical assistance is associated with an increase incumbents’ level of concessions. Technical assistance as a share of GDP is a statistically significant predictor of political concessions across all the models... these results are consistent with the theory that technical assistance played a role in leaders’ decisions to liberalize politics in their country... an increase of 10 percentage points (0.1) in TA/GDP [technical assistance] would increase political concessions by nearly a full point (0.8).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Embedded image permalink" height="277px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/QFKN5bt6-1trr2qVgN1i66tBGNCb53FQHVyXS7eYmI-bsTghx_seI94s8fKk-pr7AzRAV6sy8jBF8tquWrPju5roGIEM5c5e19NYenfaLT2YAqWkpx9vHfrUT9C5Q4bkeFul5A6PpnMsxNdW" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="573px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">... an increase in technical assistance from its minimum to its maximum level decreases government expenditures from 19% of GDP to about 10% of GDP. Wages likewise decrease from about 7% of GDP to 1.5% of GDP [these are used as proxies for patronage]/</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All the above means I believe that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Western</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> foreign aid has either neutral or positive effects in most cases. There are, however, cases where it is negative and represents one step back. That said, per Bermeo, foreign aid from the West does not usually entrench states. But I would be open to reductions of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fungible</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> foreign aid to authoritarian regimes (but I’m not overly insistent on it). More importantly, this must all be weighed against the effect of what happens with the alternative - i.e., not only the loss of benefits above but also the effect of authoritarian donors (see section 3 below). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2.3 A Plea</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every time I’ve ever read a book about international affairs, even books not focussed on the issue of regime persistence or authoritarianism, there will be a reference to Eva Bellin’s essay ‘The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective’. It currently has 502 citations on Google Scholar. In the essay she starts by citing the work of the Skocpol who argues that the key to successful revolutions was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">state coercive capacity</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This is a fair point, one to which I have alluded to above. Bellin then asks what factors influence state coercive capacity? </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She lists four factors: fiscal health, institutionalisation of the security apparatus, the extent to which the regime faces high mobilisations of the population against it and: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…the robustness of the coercive apparatus is also shaped by successful maintenance of international support networks.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know a few international affairs academics read this blog so I have a question: why are you all quoting this? Why is this your main reference? What is your obsession with Bellin? It barely qualifies as a qualitative study, it’s almost entirely pure assertion. In her essay, she repeats the same assertions for the Middle East in two paragraphs with no real qualitative let alone quantitative evidence. Here are a few extracts: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With regard to international support, the region is exceptional for the unique position it enjoys in the international arena… the region is exceptional in that the cold war's end has not signaled great power retreat from patronage of authoritarianism, as in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere. Playing on the West's multiple security concerns has allowed authoritarian regimes in the region to retain international support.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No attempt is made to explain the mechanism, no attempt is made to provide an example of this international support. I make a plea: stop quoting Bellin (2004). There are actual studies, there are actual qualitative studies you can use rather than this unsubstantiated essay. Bellin (2012) gave an update to her oddly famous 2004 essay where she tried to see how well her theory stood up after the Arab Spring. This does contain qualitative elements worth quoting but even then, it’s really not that persuasive: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first two factors—fiscal health and maintenance of international support—are crucial to determining the coercive apparatus’ capacity, that is, the physical wherewithal to muster the men and materiel necessary to repress. 17</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Footnote 17 states: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though at times international support can prove important to sustaining the coercive apparatus’ will to repress as well. For example, during the Tahrir uprising in Egypt in January and February of 2011, clear signaling on the part of the United States that it would not look kindly on a decision by the Egyptian military to massacre civilians certainly chipped away at the Egyptian military’s will to repress.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, right. The next mention of international support networks: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No doubt international factors came into play in the military’s calculations as well. 36</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Footnote 36 states: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Throughout this period, the United States was communicating to the Egyptian military leadership, primarily via mil-to-mil contacts, that shooting on civilians would not be in the military’s institutional interests. The United States possessed significant persuasive powers, not only thanks to the $2 billion in military aid that it provided Egypt each year, but also thanks to the fact that the Egyptian military’s arsenal was entirely U.S. made. Consequently, the Egyptian military was entirely dependent on the United States for upgrades, spare parts, and training. To remake the Egyptian military would take years. In the meantime it had to listen carefully to the counsel of its primary supplier.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That is it. That is the extent of what she says on international support networks. You can guess what my second plea is: if your argument is that the West is propping up these regimes, don’t quote Bellin (2012) either. Which brings me to Jason Brownlee. I have quoted his studies a number of times in this post. Brownlee (2002) is better study to use (it only has 120 citations on Google Scholar). His is a rich qualitative study in which he looks, in depth, at Syria, Libya, Iraq and Tunisia and finds:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Tunisia, independence from a superpower patron left the regimes free to suppress domestic insurgencies. Of course, the converse does not always obtain. Dependence on external support does not necessarily constrain an authoritarian regime. Among Snyder’s cases of high dependence, Somoza García’s experience illustrates this point… [Samoza Garcia] received large amounts of support from the U.S. government, this aid helped him repress challengers, whereas in the latter cases external dependence impaired the leaders’ responses to crises</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By contrast, he goes on to say ‘the Iranian, Filipino, Cuban, Haitian, and later Nicaraguan regimes found themselves hampered by their reliance on American support.’ This support my general argument but Brownlee then says something counter to it as well: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Somoza García regime is not the only instance of a government enabled by the U.S. to suppress movements for political change. In the Middle East, for example, the current Saudi Arabian and Egyptian regimes receive large amounts of military and, in the case of Egypt, economic aid, with few political strings attached</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brownlee doesn’t provide anything substantive for this – but then, in 2012 he released </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Democracy Prevention: The Politics of the U.S.-Egyptian Alliance. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t consider the book particularly persuasive (Scott Ritter’s analysis is far more in line with what actually happened) but people should be quoting Brownlee (2002, 2007 and 2012), not Bellin. One of the fundamental problems with Brownlee’s analysis in the book is the failure to consider the counter-factual: what if the West didn’t have close relationships? And that brings us to the final section of this post. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Black and White Knights</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.1 The Russo-Chinese Devil You Don’t Know: The Alternative </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It should be clear that from the sections above that without our assistance, these authoritarian regimes would still exist and they would be significantly more repressive and illiberal. But the argument can go further: the alternative isn’t likely just a withdrawal of benefits but the entrance of what political scientists call ‘Black Knights’ (other authoritarian countries that assist them) with significant negative effects. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know I’m probably boring you but I want to be clear and consistent: these Black Knights are not a cause of regime persistence. Regime persistence is, again, rooted in domestic factors – but in the same way the West can create positive impacts, Black Knights can create negative impacts. The above study from Bermeo has already shown that aid from authoritarian countries leads to less likelihood of democratisation. But there is some literature to suggest it isn’t as bad: Bader (2015) looks at the effect of aid from China on regime persistence. The first point is: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As regimes differ in their domestic strategies of political survival, they vary in their ability to translate this type of assistance from China into their specific survival strategy.. party-based regimes are more vulnerable to domestic mass protest than other regimes: as party-based regimes often claim to serve the broader interest..</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…the type of external assistance that China provides is more useful to some types of regimes than others. More specifically, existing literature would suggest that party-based regimes have higher incentives to engage in performance-based legitimation strategies and are more able to translate China’s economic engagement into power preserving societal support than other types of regimes</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given that Chinese assistance is usually strongly tied, personal regimes, for example, which are strongly reliant on clientelist networks, may find it difficult to channel Chinese assistance selectively to their particular support group defined by familial, ethnical or clan ties.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bader finds: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="314px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/0-yVjxicU_Xe3k8y8EsXhBs4ybATwgrFmHqo3rrA_E_jRnKSrjMqlqqogr0zcPJi6sCDfibmAMhwrV2V3kcjNjW8uD9vL5os-5W1K18N4W5c5iLNNAzNghr_ceCudCKa5FYKpZDbF_NH1khp" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="414px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Figure 1 illustrates the effect of Chinese Economic cooperation for model 2 by plotting how the probability of collapse (Y-axis) changes with increasing amounts of Economic cooperation (X-axis) for party and non-party regimes. For non-party regimes (left graph), the slope of the function is increasing, while it is slightly decreasing for party-based regimes (right graph).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="327px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/__st1LoU8k7einIXxiHlyhkXkBRn7PzAxhV5XfZKyOVIW6287GxbkIMN2UyvjpWcgGzK50Or68XNo9NzOeYeTnqELEc0RE6s7fpdayR-gVaRzbZAoG1QIhZ9EENXqUTfCGrKmjyvpnNBiKH7" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="416px;" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…column 3 [of table not shown] estimates how Economic cooperation affects regime durability if only transitions to democracy are considered (as opposed to no regime transition). Interestingly, as column 3 indicates, the direction of the unconditioned effect of Economic cooperation on transition to democracy is positive – that is, increasing the risk for democratic transition. However, as Figure 3 shows, this effect is significant only for non-party regimes and only for Economic cooperation between 0.2 and 0.7 per cent of GDP.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So maybe it’s not certain for all regime types that Black Knights will disrupt democratisation. The argument I would put forward is that where the West is not operating, and Black Knights are, you don’t have the benefits described above. But I’m not inclined to accept there isn’t a negative effect (contra Bader). Elsewhere, Bader (2013) finds that a ‘1% increase in export dependence on China lowers a leader's hazard rate of losing power by 5% (1 − exp(−0.06)).’ Or take Russia’s behaviour: Babayan (2015) outlines a comprehensive review of Russia’s actions in its area:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…through economic sanctions, military threats, and even through such formal institutions as the Eurasian Union, Russia has contributed to the stagnation of democratization in its near abroad. It counteracted democracy promotion or, for that matter, any other Western policies, which it considered a threat to its geostrategic interests and ambitions for restoring its great power status.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Levitsky and Way state:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Western] leverage may be reduced by the existence of what Hufbauer et al. call “black knights,” or counter-hegemonic powers whose economic, military, and/or diplomatic support helps blunt the impact of U.S. or EU democratizing pressure.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #408181; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Russia, China, Japan, and France played this role at various times during the post–Cold War period, using economic, diplomatic, and other assistance to shore up authoritarian governments in neighboring (or, in the case of France, former colonial) states. Examples include Russia’s support for autocrats in Belarus and France’s support for autocrats in former colonies such as Cameroon and Gabon (p.41)</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Better is Vanderhill’s book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Promoting Authoritarianism Abroad </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2013) gives detailed qualitative analysis of how authoritarians can act as Black Knights. Her approach, fortunately, acknowledges local forces and shows international effects are not determinative. Rather, as per Western influence, can change incentives to behave in certain ways. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a lot of fairly persuasive literature which argues that Black Knights have a neutral effect. The latest issue of the journal </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Democratization </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a special issue filled with essays about the effects of Black Knights. Here is an extract from the introductory essay:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Western democracy promoters are likely to empower liberal groups in the target countries, while countervailing efforts by non-democratic regional powers will empower illiberal groups. The differential empowerment of domestic forces depends in turn on the leverage of the EU and the US powers as compared to that of illiberal regional powers in terms of credibility of commitment, legitimacy, and resources... the decisive struggle is being fought in the target country between pro-democratic and anti-democratic forces – and external actors cannot do much more than try to affect this domestic balance of power.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Way (2015) (the same Way of Levitsky and Way) recently published ‘The Limits of Autocracy Promotion’ in the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">European Journal of Political Research </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in which he concludes: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Russia has played a role in promoting secessionist conflicts in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. At the same time, a closer examination of Russian foreign policy and its impacts raises doubts about just how much the failure of democracy in the region can b blamed on Putin or previous Russian governments</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Way makes a few good points that are worth repeating. Black Knights do not promote authoritarianism in the way that the West attempts to promote democracy. It is not an ideological end, rather, Black Knights pursue their own interests which may not necessarily tack with regime type. I take this all as supporting the idea that democratisation is primarily a domestic issue: ‘much of the pressure and assistance has been directed at countries that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">already </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have quite weak democratic pre-requisites.’ </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is an interesting point that Russian activity may empower democratisation because it riles the population up (see Borzel (2015)). Nonetheless, counter-factuals in which Black Knights swoop in are vital: these authoritarians will simply get their arms from someone else, they will get their aid from someone else and they will continue to survive. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have already seen that the West constrains its allies. And before you all give me examples of Western allies committing human rights abuses, you’re missing the point: think of the alternative. I have provided evidence of a constraining effect. It might not be good enough to stop all abuses, but its better than not having that effect. I’m open to accepting that the role of Russia and China is similarly neutral (primarily because its a domestic issue). To repeat: my primary argument is that Black Knights are bad because they don’t bring the benefits the West does. My secondary argument is that Black Knights lead to negative outcomes (which is not as well supported). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.2 The Liberal, Democratic Devil You Know and Balance</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have outlined benefits of the relationship to the countries and their citizens already but engaging with these regimes has other benefits to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">us</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: (i) terrorism related; and (ii)) wider geopolitical concerns. To take the first, we have extensive security and intelligence cooperation with our Gulf allies. Our Prime Minister has openly said: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… you can be prime minister and say exactly what you think about every regime in the world and make great headlines, and give great speeches. But I think my first job is to try and keep this country safe from terrorism and if that means you have to build strong relationships sometimes with regimes you don't always agree with, that I think is part of the job and that is the way I do it… I can tell you one time since I've been prime minister, a piece of information that we have been given by that country has saved potentially hundreds of lives here in Britain.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a report prepared by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, we find this: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">British-Saudi collaboration has resulted in the foiling of AQAP terrorist attacks, which would have caused substantial destruction and loss of life, including the provision of information to protect British interests… The initial alert came from the Saudi authorities, who have been quick to provide information to protect British interests </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on many other occasions</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the part of the essay where I, unfortunately, cannot provide a study but ask you to use your own judgment. Do you think these are lies? Do you think an ally is more or less likely than a non-ally to share information with us about terrorism? You have no idea how frustrating I find it that we don’t have a study for this: I don’t trust my instinct (and without a study, I don’t know the extent), but you might trust yours. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By the way, it is no use say that that Saudi also </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">funds </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">terrorism. In respect of ISIS, al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Iraq, these are insignificant amounts. But even accepting the argument, you are not choosing between an alternative of (a) no terrorist support and (b) terrorist support. You are choosing between (a) terrorist support, and hindrance in form of intelligence and (b) terrorist support with no hindrance (i.e., no assistance to the West).</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second, we have vital geopolitical interests that are served by these alliances. Unfortunately this will require a post in and of itself. Briefly though, we can summarise the arguments from John Ikenberry. His book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Liberal Leviathan </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is required reading for everyone, the salient parts of which are summarised in ‘Don’t Come Home America’: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Historically, as Gilpin and other theorists of hegemonic order have shown, the background security and stability that the United States provided facilitated the creation of multilateral institutions for ongoing cooperation across policy areas... The United States’ extended system of security commitments creates a set of institutional relationships that foster political communication. Alliance institutions are in the first instance about security protection, but they are also mechanisms that provide a kind of “political architecture” that is useful beyond narrow issues of military affairs.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to make it very clear: I am not an ardent realist. Our geopolitical interest should be those which promote overall liberal democracy all over the world. Our alliances help preserve peace in the region (e.g. ensuring the Egypt-Israel peace treaty sticks or working to undermine Iran’s menacing activities across the region) an help foster a liberal world order. Even the spread of broadly ‘neo-liberal’ norms helps bring peace (see The Empirics of Free Spreech, Part 1). The benefits – to both us, the region, the people of these authoritarian countries – therefore demand that we maintain relationships.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.3 Limitations of the Argument </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s the Argument that should be reasonably well supported by the above: </span></div>
<ol style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These regimes will exists without us. They will commit human rights abuses without us. We do not cause or contribute in any critical way. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having a relationship with them allows us to tame them – even when we aren’t intending to – and leads to the following better outcomes: slightly more democratic, slightly more liberal, slightly less likely to kill protestors, significantly more helpful for our vital geopolitical ends. </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having no relationship with them not only leads to a withdrawal of benefits obtained from the relationship but opens space for Black Knights which have worse outcomes. </span></div>
</li>
</ol>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The West is simultaneously powerful and impotent: unless you have a good plan for regime change, your best bet is engagement. Obviously this argument has limits: when a regime is about to slaughter tens of thousands or people or commit a genocide, if you have a viable plan for humanitarian intervention, you should eliminate the regime. I supported breaking off our ties with Libya and destroying the regime in 2011, but I also supported engagement prior to that. There is no contradiction, only a balance. Make no mistake, I am not apologising for these regimes. They are authoritarian cess pits that must be eradicated. The only point, though, is about how to reach this goal. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“How many people need to die before you change your mind?” I’m really sorry, but I don’t know. I want maximum liberal democratic outcomes, sometimes that means war and sometimes that means reluctance peace. “ISIS and Saudi Arabia are pretty much the same.” Well, no not really but the most important difference between the two is that we have a viable military option to destroy ISIS. Present me a plan to destroy Saudi and I’ll support you. But right now, we have limited resources and we’re not even pursuing the right strategy for ISIS, so Saudi can wait. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A second limitation the argument has is that I am not arguing for us to treat Germany and Egypt in the same way. We should raise human rights concerns, we should condemn them and we should even think about short term sanctions or withdrawals of arms licenses to get the message through. I do not think this will make a difference materially (i.e., those arms licences withdrawals are irrelevant to guns being used to kill people), but over the long term may help shape behaviours. None of this, however, should be prioritised over maintaining relationships which, as shown, leads to positive outcomes. </span></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Counterfactual of no British empire may be worse than present. Counterfactual of British empire less dickish better than present.</p>— Rory! (@roreiy) <a href="https://twitter.com/roreiy/status/624940689462284292">July 25, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The above is a tweet from Rory following someone ridiculously, and quite frankly pathetically, saying that the British Empire was as bad as the Nazis. Before you all start talking to me about flying the flags at half-mast for Saudi royals and examples of callous disregard for human life on the part of the West, what Rory says about Empire, I believe about our relationship with these authoritarians. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think the West </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">usually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gets the balance </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mostly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">right. It condemns abuses of its allies, it tries to push for good outcomes and engages in the withdrawal of licenses. I often see people – Daniel Wickham comes to mind – who will never be happy with the level of condemnation or action (see </span><a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/451699753097908224?p=p" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this exchange</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). I usually avoid talking about people’s motivations because I do think its mostly irrelevant and most people have good intentions. But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s an anti-Western zeal, the conclusions of which aren’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">necessarily</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> unreasonable, behind a lot of condemnation. Maybe I’m wrong and this an expression of one my biases. I haven’t provided any evidence so that’s plausible. In any event, for the purposes of this post, I’m not interested in individual countries or examples: I am interested in a general strategy and general outcomes. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a third limitation in that there is a massive, gaping hole in the argument above: I am primarily a consequentialist. I care about outcomes. But what if promoting democratic, liberal civil society leads to bad (non-liberal, non-democratic) results? Take Egypt: let’s say Western support was part of the reason why Mubarak fell (for all the reasons laid out above). Is the situation better today than under Mubarak? It would be a difficult argument to make. And I don’t have an answer to this criticism. This post is simply to show that the same short-term argument that tries to make us feel guilty in the West is wrong in that same short term period. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The final point I want to make is a point of regret. I have tried to emphasise that these authoritarianism is primarily a domestic issue. But by talking about the West so much I have likely given the impression that we matter a lot. We do not. And that is why our relationship has to be this way. It’s far too easy to say our support for bad regimes is bad. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre-wrap;">It should be apparent that I support something close to the status quo because a lack of support for bad regimes may lead to worse regimes and worse outcomes. You can be a liberal, without being an ardent realist, and still not feel guilty or ashamed of what we do but still demand less dickish-ness.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P.S. If you managed to read all of this, please can I ask that if you have something to say, leave comments below or write a post. Drafting responses to tweets is infinitely more fruitless, marginally more inconvenient and significantly reduces the likelihood that people will see it. And I hate it. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Endnotes</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;"> As an interesting counterpoint to the idea that civil society matters for democratisation, consider Sahoo (2014). He documents how the Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, a Hindutva voluntary organization, was bad for democratisation. The Hindutva ideology is essentially a nationalist ideology that often acts at the expense of religious minorities. Sahoo looks at the voluntary organisation’s activities which it used to set up a civil society grouping. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The VKP ‘utilized its cultural programmes, such as Bhajan Mandlis (evening religious gatherings) and Bal Sanskar Kendras (childcare centres), to socialize the tribal community into Hindutva ideology.’ These programmes have contributed to the ‘spread of violence and demonization of religious minorities but also a serious undermining of cultural pluralism and democratic values of Indian society.’ It’s clear, then, that civil society does not </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cause </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">democracy. Rather, what matters is the type of group. The point about the Middle East is that there is no civil society, let alone a good or bad one. But as Sahoo states, we should not forget this vital factor: </span></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-e2177cd5-55a6-066b-8fd2-5e39f83a0fd9" style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-e2177cd5-55a6-066b-8fd2-5e39f83a0fd9"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… there are “uncivil” society groups that could undermine democratization and the functioning of democracy. The essential question is what type of civil society positively contributes to the democratization process. The choice is not between civil society and state, but rather between different types of civil society, their nature, and the interests that preside over them. If civil society is to contribute positively towards democratization it needs to be dominated by groups that have an interest in democratic civility and in pushing the state in a liberal democratic direction.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-e2177cd5-55a6-066b-8fd2-5e39f83a0fd9" style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[2] </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Blaydes and Chaney are not using leadership duration as a proxy for executive constraints, they provide evidence for the association between leadership duration and executive constraints. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Parliament</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">i </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is an indicator based on a dataset showing how often parliament would meet in a polity. You can see from the following table, Column 2 and 3, the results clearly show a positive relationship between Parliament</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">i </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and ruler stability: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[3] I sent a draft of this to Pseudoerasmus and he has some misgivings about the Chaney and Blaydes study. He said that whilst he agrees that slave armies ‘could have had something to do w[ith] the institutional evolution of core [I]slamic societies’ that ‘even if that's true, it's not exactly clear why modern Islamic societies suffer from this institutional persistence.’ It’s a good point which I’ve only partially explained above (i.e., that there’s a lower starting point for civil society). But, I think when you add in the factors below, you can account for the persistence. Pseduo also has some good arguments about decentralisation being bad for economic development in Europe. My only response is to say that Blaydes and Chaney probably have the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">broad-brush </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">correct and that’s all that matters for my argument. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="line-height: 17.2666664123535px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[4] </span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;">The first distinction that may explain different outcomes </span><i style="line-height: 107%;">between </i><span style="line-height: 107%;">Middle Eastern states I came
across years ago was Spinks et al (2008). They were looking at whether there
were difference in liberalisation between republics and monarchies in the
Middle East. The find that monarchies commit less personal integrity and civil
liberties violations, have more press freedom and HDI scores than republics in
the Middle East (see Table 2).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%;">The reason? Spink et al say it’s because ‘monarchical rule is
based fundamentally on legitimacy and tribal tradition, many of the incumbent
republican political systems were the result of coups.’ Accordingly,
‘monarchies base their legitimacy and power on tribal tradition, which appears
to structure monarchical politics in a manner more conducive to
liberalization.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: x-small; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I don’t buy it. In particular, I don’t buy the <i>mechanism</i>. Look at Saudi Arabia’s score
in Table 2 compared with any other republic. The authors say that Saudi Arabia’s
outlier status ‘does not necessarily disconfirm the differences that seem to
set monarchies apart’ – which is plausible, until you read Josua and Edel
(2015) who find that the distinction doesn’t hold up for regime repressive
response to the Arab Spring. Rather, as per Brownlee et al (discussed above),
hereditary regimes may have more loyalty when coupled with oil rents</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 14.2666664123535px;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5] <span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;">See also Fleck and Kelby (2010). They find ‘U.S. aid flows–for the poorest as well as other developing countries–increased with the War on Terror’ but that ‘ after rising for 35 years, the emphasis placed on need has been falling steadily for core aid recipients during the War on Terror.’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[6] </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Of course, you can say they wouldn’t withdrawal all assistance but even people who make this argument accept that ‘there would be damage to the quality and the timeliness of information provided to us’ (see House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Report). </span></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bibliography [To Be Updated]</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anders and Alaksen (2013), ‘Oil and Political Survival’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Journal of Development Economics</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2013), Vol. 100, Issue 1, 89</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bank et al, ‘Long-term monarchical survival in the Middle East: a configurational comparison, 1945–2012’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Democraization </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2013), Vol. 22, Issue 1, 179</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blaydes and Chaney, ‘The Feudal Revolution and Europe’s Rise: Political Divergence of the Christian West and the Muslim World before 1500 CE’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">American Political Science Review </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2013), 1</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chaney, ‘Democratic Change in the Arab World, Past and Present’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brookings Papers on Economic Activity</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2013), 1</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Djankov et al, ‘The Curse of Aid’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Journal of Economic Growth </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2008), Vol.13, 169</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dunning, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crude Democracy, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cambridge University Press (2008) </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Egorov et al, Why Resource-Poor Dictators Allow Freer Media: A Theory and Evidence from Panel Data</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, American Political Science Review</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2009), Vol. 103, Issue No. 4, 645</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fleck and Kilby, 'Changing aid regimes? U.S. foreign aid from the Cold War to the War on Terror', Journal of Development Economics (2010), Vol. 91, Issue 2, 185</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gibson et al, 'Did Aid Promote Democracy in Africa? The Role of Technical Assistance in Africa’s Transitions', World Development (2015), Vol. 68, 323</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Haber and Menaldo, Do Natural Resources Fuel Authoritarianism? A Reappraisal of the Resource Curse</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, American Political Science Review</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2011), 1</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kuran, ‘Legal Roots of Authoritarian Rule in the Middle East: Civic Legacies of the Islamic Waqf’ American Journal of Comparative Law (2015), Vol. 63</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.295; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ‘The Political Consequences of Islam's Economic Legacy’ </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.295; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Philosophy & Social Criticism</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6666666666667px; line-height: 1.295; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2013), Vol. 29, 345</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Levitsky and Way, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cambridge University Press (2012)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sahoo, ‘Civil society and democratization: a counter-case from India’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Democraization </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2014), Vol. 21, Issue 1, 480 </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Salter et al, ‘Economic Origins of Democratic Breakdown?’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perspective on Politics </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2014), Vol.12, Issue 2, 1</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Swed and Weinreb, Military westernization and state repression in the post-Cold War era, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social Science Research </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2015), Vol. 53, 270</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ulfelder, ‘Natural-Resource Wealth and the Survival of Autocracy’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Comparative Political Studies </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2007), Vol. 40, Issue No. 8, 995</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wright et al, ‘Oil and Autocratic Regime Survival’, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">British Journal of Political Science </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2015), Vol. 45, Issue 2, 287</span></div>
<br />
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-68255609413390469562015-07-23T15:17:00.001-07:002015-07-24T01:22:58.819-07:00Think Again: David Cameron, Conveyer Belts and Non-Violent Extremism<span id="docs-internal-guid-2e7d023c-bcf7-2e0c-3148-ac9f2eb3e077"></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-2e7d023c-bcf7-2e0c-3148-ac9f2eb3e077"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve given myself an hour [edit: ended up being 3] and no more to write this so to cut to the chase: I wanted to respond, in detail, as to why there is no causality between Islamism and terrorism. Eustonites are very fond of the idea and they have been clamouring around a heavily illiberal speech given by David Cameron – so I wanted to respond. As usual, bibliography is at the bottom. Here is what the Prime Minister said: </span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-2e7d023c-bcf7-2e0c-3148-ac9f2eb3e077"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">…</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you don’t have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Ideas which are hostile to basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality.</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-2e7d023c-bcf7-2e0c-3148-ac9f2eb3e077"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The root cause of the threat [of terrorism] we face is the extremist ideology itself… They [young people] are watching videos that eulogise ISIL as a pioneering state taking on the world, that makes celebrities of violent murderers… you don’t have to believe in barbaric violence to be drawn to the ideology. No-one becomes a terrorist from a standing start. It starts with a process of radicalisation. When you look in detail at the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences, it is clear that many of them were first influenced by what some would call non-violent extremists.</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-2e7d023c-bcf7-2e0c-3148-ac9f2eb3e077"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[We must confront] groups and organisations that may not advocate violence – but which do promote other parts of the extremist narrative</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… We must demand that people also condemn the wild conspiracy theories, the anti-Semitism, and the sectarianism too.</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-2e7d023c-bcf7-2e0c-3148-ac9f2eb3e077"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The basic idea is that non-violent Islamist ideology -> violent Islamist terrorism. It’s an idea referred to as the “conveyer-belt theory of terrorism” propounded by (mostly non-academic) bodies like the Quilliam Foundation. This isn’t an unreasonable view. Back in 2011, I wrote </span><a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/why-do-they-hate-us.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a post</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> advocating this idea on the basis of purported evidence provided by the Prevent review. Whilst it is not an unreasonable view, it is, as I have learnt, wrong. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before explaining why, let’s start with definitions: an Islamist believes in the political application of Islam. A violent Islamist believes in the violent application of Islam. This is the dividing line between non-violent and violent extremism. Both are problems that should be tackled but the Quilliam view treats them as part of the same problem. Both are ideologies - which is why the idea that this isn’t an “ideological” problem is wrong, what matters is </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">which </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ideology we’re talking about. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Specific Studies on the Relationship Between Islamism and Terrorism</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first study that we can refer to is Fair et al (2012) which explicitly looks at support for terrorism amongst three constituencies: (i) different degrees of practicing Muslims; (ii) Islamists (i.e., those who support political Islam); and (iii) jihadists (i.e., those who advocate a violent aspect of their ideology). To elicit whether people were Islamist, they were asked whether they supported Islamist political parties and the political implementation of Sharia. To gauge whether people were jihadists, they were asked the extent to which they supported non-state groups using violence. They found:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Supporters of [Islamist] parties were no more supportive of the militant groups than were those who supported avowedly secular parties (see column 3 of table 2) [and] even adherents of this more extreme form of sharia law are no more likely to support political violence than those who do not believe that sharia requires physical punishment (see column 4 of table 2). Further, regardless of their interpretation of sharia, respondents who thought that sharia should play a greater role in Pakistani law were no more likely to support militant groups than respondents who wanted a stricter separation of church and state (see column5).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hence, Fair et al conclude it ‘does not appear that Islamism… is related to support for militancy.’ For those interested in more support for my last post on the lack of link between Islam and terrorism, this study also finds that religious practice is unrelated to support for terrorism. Unsurprisingly, the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">specific </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">belief about violence (jihad) </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">related to support for terrorism. In some ways the result is unsurprising because its tautological: if you believe terrorism is justified, you support terrorism. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next, we have Furia and Lucase (2008) who find that Islamic “consciousness” of Muslims in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and UAE is unrelated to favorableness of Western countries. (In fact, somewhat interestingly, when you look at the results in Table 2 above, Islamism predicts </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">positive </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">attitudes toward France). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next, Fair and Shapiro (2009) which asked people how they thoughts about the Womens Protection Act (legislation that Islamists were opposed to), intervention in curriculum of Islamist schools and ‘Talibanisation.’ They find ‘support for Islamist politics did not translate into support for militant organizations in any clean way... support for militant organizations is not positively correlated with support for “talibanization”’. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are some nuances in the data but as should be clear from the table: ‘Overall, [their] results strongly suggest that support for Islamist politics does not predict support for Islamist militant organizations.’ David Cameron spoke about having an aversion to democracy as an extreme view. He’s right – but, again, there is no relationship between rejection of democracy and support for terrorism. The same study shows adding controls ‘removes most of the already tenuous relationship between support for democracy and support for militancy.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next, we have some studies which I don’t necessarily buy but mark the clear distinction between non-violent Islamists and violent Islamists. For example, Bartlett, Birdwell, and King... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...studied the biographies of 62 homegrown terrorists in Canada and Europe and compared young persons with similar political or religious convictions, of which one group was prepared to use violence whereas the other was not. What distinguished the violent from the nonviolent radicals was their longing for adventure, excitement, and a cool existence (quoted in Van San (2015)).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next we have Githens-Mazer and Lambert (2010). After a review of a number of recent examples of radicalised individuals, Githens-Mazer and Lambert conclude: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">… the mere presence of ideology, or even specific political attachment to an ideology, is not enough to explain why an individual commits a terrorist act... Approaches that emphasize specific forms of Islamic ideology or theology as causal ‘mood music’ for terrorism are, at best, existentializing red herrings that are prone to miss the point, no matter how politically faddish… [The idea that] the combination of Salafi or other specific political/theological Islamic outlooks with an Islamically inspired grievance that somehow generates Islamically inspired terrorism, also fails.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next we have a government review which comprehensively looked at the conveyer belt theory of terrorism. For those who want the whole thing, I made a freedom of information request back in 2011 and have the document (please contact me if you want it) but the salient parts are quoted by </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/andrew-gilligan/7908262/Hizb-ut-Tahrir-is-not-a-gateway-to-terrorism-claims-Whitehall-report.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Telegraph</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is sometimes argued that violent extremists have progressed to terrorism by way of a passing commitment to non-violent Islamist extremism, for example of a kind associated with al-Muhajiroun or Hizb ut Tahrir ... We do not believe that it is accurate to regard radicalisation in this country as a linear 'conveyor belt’ moving from grievance, through radicalisation, to violence … This thesis seems to both misread the radicalisation process and to give undue weight to ideological factors</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next, we have a line of papers which show there is no clear pathway to terrorism suggesting that the conveyer belt theory is false. MI5’s Behavioural Unit carried out an </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/20/uksecurity.terrorism1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">analysis</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> based on ‘based on hundreds of case studies by the security service.’ They conclude that ‘are a diverse collection of individuals, fitting no single demographic profile, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nor do they all follow a typical pathway</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to violent extremism’ (my emphasis). This research ‘also plays down the importance of radical extremist clerics.’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Again, this is all representative of the literature. Marc Sageman’s (2008) </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Leaderless Jihad </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(a study of 500 terrorists) concludes that you ‘cannot simply draw a line, put markers on it and gauge where people are along this path to see whether they are close to committing atrocities’ (p.72). This directly contradicts the conveyer belt model. And again from McCauley and Moskalenko (2010)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...these [differing] paths [to terrorism] do not include radical ideas or activism on the way to radical action, so the radicalization progression cannot be understood as an invariable set of steps or “stages” from sympathy to radicalism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And on and on the literature goes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Other Side</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So why did I believe in 2011 that Islamism did lead to terrorism? Or, in the Prime Minister’s vernacular it would create a culture in which terrorism could thrive? I’ve read over the old post again and again and I think the main reason was simply because I didn’t know the literature. Moreover, the Prevent Strategy stated ‘there is evidence to indicate that support for terrorism is associated with rejection of a cohesive, integrated, multi-faith society and of parliamentary democracy.’ But they don’t seem to provide it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was wrong to accept that so uncritically. Mea culpa. But in the spirit of epistemic humility, here’s something that could be used against me. There are two studies that could be used in support of the conveyer belt theory. The first is Silber and Bhatt (2007), otherwise known as the NYPD study. They claim there are 4 stages to radicalisation: Pre-radicalisation (being normal) -> Self-identification (exploration of Salafi Islam) -> Indoctrination (intensification of Salafi Islam) -> "Jihadisation" (they become terrorists / start planning for an attack). The study concludes ‘there is a remarkable consistency in the behaviors and trajectory of each of the plots [examined] across the stages.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The reasons I don’t buy this study are aptly summarised by Patel (2011): </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The NYPD Report uses limited data and employs faulty methodology. Not only does the report rely upon a handpicked sample to draw conclusions about a broader population, it does so based on just 10 case studies... Contrary to social science norms, the NYPD Report fails to consider whether the religious conduct and expressive activity that it characterizes as early signatures of radicalization occur with any more frequency among terrorists than among all American Muslims.107 Compounding this flaw, the innocuous nature of many of the signatures identified by the NYPD—such as growing a beard or becoming involved in community activities—means that they are likely to be found in a large segment of the American Muslim population.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next is Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman (2009) who look at 117 domestic, homegrown Islamist terrorists. This study is far more rigorous than the NYPD one and it has the wisdom to conclude there is no fixed profile of a terrorist. It does however state that there are six ‘manifestations’ that occur in terrorists. They say that the ‘six steps differ in prevalence’ but are frequent enough to be considered significant. These six steps can be subdivided in religious (e.g. only accepting one religious authority) and political awakenings (e.g. schisms between the West and Islam). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This has the same disadvantage as the last: we’re not comparing a control group of Islamists who may have the same thing. Moreover, as Patel notes, once you look into the data, the link becomes slightly more tenuous: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...only 17.1 percent of the sample exhibited low tolerance for perceived theological deviance and only 15.4 percent of the sample attempted to impose their religious beliefs on others. The relatively low correlation between religiosity and terrorism—in a study that seemed aimed at finding such a correlation—is a strong indication that conservative religious belief may play a lesser role in radicalization than one might assume.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The overarching reason to not give weight to these studies, as opposed to the ones quoted above is because I believe in the mantra ‘follow literatures, not studies.’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Other Things </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cameron’s speech is littered with illiberal policies and every single one rests on this idea that extremism and terrorism are linked. He could conceivably make the argument that extremism is bad per se and hence we should give Ofcom power to stop extremist channels. But he didn’t. He made an issue that should be dealt with in the market place of ideas and organic integration, an issue about people wanting to blow us all up. There’s a lot of other really weak stuff in the speech – even when Cameron is right: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So when people say “it’s because of the involvement in the Iraq War that people are attacking the West”, we should remind them: 9/11 – the biggest loss of life of British citizens in a terrorist attack – happened before the Iraq War.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At this point, its not even so much about what conclusions are reached: it’s about methodology. The simple response to Cameron is to say: yes, there was terrorism prior to Iraq but the point is that Iraq could have increased it. Now that’s false (for reasons I’ve expressed before: Western military policy reduces violence - </span><span style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #292929; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px;">(see </span><a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/five-myths-about-isis.html" style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #cc6600; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px; text-decoration: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #292929; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px;">, </span><a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html" style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #cc6600; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px; text-decoration: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #292929; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px;">, </span><a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html" style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #cc6600; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px; text-decoration: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #292929; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px;">, </span><a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/droning-on-amnesty-and-efficacy-of.html" style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #cc6600; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px; text-decoration: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #292929; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px;">, </span><a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/review-of-missing-martyrs-terrorism.html" style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #cc6600; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px; text-decoration: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #292929; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px;"> and the last study </span><a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/mr-thomas-gradgrind-facts-and-terrorism.html" style="background-color: #e9dfde; color: #cc6600; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.19px; line-height: 18.47px; text-decoration: none;">here</a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre-wrap;">) but don’t think you’ve refuted an argument on the basis of fairly lousy reasoning. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I feel like I’m banging the same drum here: </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">prove your statements</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I don’t really mind about the result you might reach as long as you’re using the right method. Evidently, I’m talking to 2011 me here as well. Here’s a good starting point: if there is so much as a whiff of an empirical claim and your post doesn’t contain a study, you </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">probably </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shouldn’t be blogging. If Rory can become mentally deranged looking at MTV VMA award nominations </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; line-height: 18.99px; white-space: pre-wrap;">statistics</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in <a href="http://www.roreiy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/who-does-mtv-hate-most.html">defense of Taylor Swift</a>, you can read some studies. Remember </span><a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/04/tyler-cowens-three-laws.html" style="line-height: 1.295; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cowen’s Second Law</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and assess whether your post is actually utilising the countless studies available. If it isn’t, you should be ashamed of yourself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">P.S.: The title is a play on the Twitter account that the State Department runs to try to get potential terrorists to ‘</span><a href="https://twitter.com/ThinkAgain_DOS" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Think Again, Turn Away</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bibliography </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fair et al, ‘Faith or Doctrine? Religion and Support for Political Violence’, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Public Opinion Quarterly </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2012), 1</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and Shapiro, ‘Why Support Islamist Militancy? Evidence From Pakistan’, Princeton Working Paper (2009) available at < </span><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~jns/papers/Shapiro_Fair_2009_Why_Support_Islamist_Militancy.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.princeton.edu/~jns/papers/Shapiro_Fair_2009_Why_Support_Islamist_Militancy.pdf</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Furia and Lucas, 'Arab Muslim Attitudes Toward the West: Cultural, Social, and Political Explanations', </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">International Interactions: Empirical and Theoretical Research in International Relations</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2008), Vol. 34, 184</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homegrown Terrorists In The U.S. And The U.K.: An Empirical Examination Of The Radicalization Process</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, FDD Press (paperback edition) (2009)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Githens-Mazer and Lambert, 'Why conventional wisdom on radicalization fails: the persistence of a failed discourse', </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">International Affairs</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 86: 4 (2010) 889–901</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">McCauley and Moskalenko, ‘Individual and group mechanisms of radicalization’ In L. Fenstermacher et al (eds.), </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Protecting the homeland from international and domestic security threats: Current multidisciplinary perspectives on root causes, the role of ideology, and programs for counter-radicalization and disengagement</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2010). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Patel, ‘Rethinking Radicalisation’, Brenan Centre for Justice (2011) available at <http://brennan.3cdn.net/f737600b433d98d25e_6pm6beukt.pdf></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sageman, </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Van San, 'Striving in the Way of God: Justifying Jihad by Young Belgian and Dutch Muslims', </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Studies in Conflict & Terrorism</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.66px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (2015), Vol. 38, Issue 5, 328</span></div>
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</span><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-52550708650354475012015-05-16T04:43:00.002-07:002016-06-08T01:58:38.940-07:00The Empirics of Free Speech and Realistic Idealism: Part I<div class="SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">King’s College London recently hosted a lecture given by their Professor of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Public Policy and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Political </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Economy</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, Mark Pennington. In that lec</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ture, he expressed a methodology which is both empirically and normatively sound for constructing and limiting political institutions</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">talk was about the ‘project of political economy’ and more specifically, ‘realistic idealism’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> which</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">rejects</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> a narrow focus on questions of efficiency because it recognises that policy prescriptions that take no account of moral constraints are not worthy of serious consideration. Equally however, it recognises that those forms of ethical or moral theorising that ignore real world practicalities of economics and politics are not worthy of consideration either.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">It draws on the work of economists, politi</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">cal scientists and philosophers [...and] </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">recognises the importance of certain constraints that reflect the human condition</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Much of the debate</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> on freedom of speech</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> has been done over and over and I my main aim </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">is</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> not to go over recent controversies (although I will touch on them in the final part).</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Whether ‘offensive’ words should be censored </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">is Very</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Boring Discussion #1. Whether Charlie </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Hebdo</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> is racist is Very Boring Discussion #2. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I want, rather, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">to go back to the basics </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and apply the above methodology to free speech: what does the empirical literature tell us about</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> political/</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">economic realities</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and the human condition in relation to</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> the rationale for</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> free speech? </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This is an area which I am not as comfortable talking about as terrorism and international affairs so please do refer me any literature not cited here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I am myself am not entirely persuaded by some of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> arguments I’m making, but I offer them to be refuted – or strengthened. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The length of this post is explained by two factors: f</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">irst, I do not want to leave</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> claim</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> – no m</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">atter how obvious – unsupported because it’s simply a bad methodology. A lot of what follows, unfortunately, many of you will already agree with.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Second, I am using this post as an opportunity to express my wider political and ideological views.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> I have tried to push as much of the post into endnotes where they don’t affect the main argument made here or are relatively undisputed.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> However, my primary interest is the talking about studies so cutting down hasn’t gotten me that far.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I’d like t</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">o thank the Hated Sam Bowman,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Ben </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Southwood</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and Pseudoerasmus</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> for giving me comments on this post prior to publication. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">They</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> have (differing) disagreements with this post but were open to reading it. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This post will likely be in three parts – most of which have now been written. The bibliography will be in the final part as I’ve been putting it together as I go along alphabetically and can’t be bothered to subdivide. I will make the entire thing available as a PDF at the end as well. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{81}" paraid="1792293237" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">By way of summary, here is the argument I’m putting forward: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<li class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{86}" paraid="1819630820" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-family: "segoe ui" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The argument that a market place of ideas works to help individuals find the truth is </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">not empirically robust. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<li class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{92}" paraid="231502756" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-family: "segoe ui" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The argument that a market place of ideas works to help </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">progress </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">in human, political and social development over long periods of time is valid. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<li class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{96}" paraid="1280732515" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-family: "segoe ui" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The argument that certain kinds of speech are harmful is overstated by some but by no means entirely invalid. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<li class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{102}" paraid="1317766212" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-family: "segoe ui" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">There are </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">normative positions we should adhere to that have a radical impact on free speech and public policy. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<li class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{108}" paraid="1412189744" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-family: "segoe ui" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The argument from infallibility</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, coupled with the incompetence of the state,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> is the strongest argument in favour of free speech. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<li class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{112}" paraid="1577961254" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-family: "segoe ui" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The language that is used by both free speech advocates and detractors is misguided. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{117}" paraid="720214960" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{117}" paraid="720214960" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">1. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Dead Dogmas: Because Screw You, That’s </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Why</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{125}" paraid="671929828" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{125}" paraid="671929828" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In line wi</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">th his utilitarian background</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, Mill’s justifications for free speech were</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, at the very core,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> c</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">onsequentialist:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{128}" paraid="1303472102" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{128}" paraid="1303472102" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{135}" paraid="587898523" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{135}" paraid="587898523" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I am sure everyone is aware of this idea: the market place of ideas produces truth and progress. There are a number of w</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ays this claim can be assessed – and we can assess them by talking about Mill’s more specific rationales. The first is that truths are held as ‘dead dogmas’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> i.e., ‘as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against, argument.’ The</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> way to challenge these beliefs</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> is to allow for the market place of ideas to operate. It’s worth noting that Mill is not saying that this will work on everyone: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{146}" paraid="1843234036" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{146}" paraid="1843234036" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to the evils of religious</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> or philosophical sectarianism... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest discussion, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">But it is not on the impassioned partisan, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The most famous study in this area is by Lord et al (1979). They presented individuals who disagreed/agreed with the death penalty with evidence that contradicted their view. (Amusingly, the subjects of the study were offered a choice of ten cards that supposedly had a different view/study but the cards all</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> said the same thing). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">graph below shows results for the subjects who received the pro</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">deterrence</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> study </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">first and the anti</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">-deterrence</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> card second.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the first scenarios, both </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">opponents</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and proponents became more likely to support the death penalty. But once further details were given, the opponents of the death penalty became more entrenched in their oppositionist position. In the second scenario</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, despite being</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> given anti-deterrent </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">card, opponents</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> became even more entrenched in their positions. The question </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">as to which side of the debate</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> is right</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> isn’t really the issue here. Rather, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">its</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the idea </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">that free speech may not allow people to hear both s</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ides so that they can find the t</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ruth. Interestingly, this study </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">is not a unique finding. A more recent example comes from </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Nisbet</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> et al (2015). This study used more issues than Lord et al and divided the subjects into ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives.’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> They found:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">...</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">conservatives had significantly greater motivated resistance to persuasion than liberals in the conservative-dissonant condition, whereas liberals reported significantly greater resistance than conservatives in the liberal-dissonant condition. Interestingly, in each condition, both conservatives and liberals resisted dissonant science messages more than their counterparts in the ideologically neutral condition regardless of their ideology</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Beyond controls, institutional trust</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [in the scientific community]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> was lower in both the conservative</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">dissonant (climate change/evolution) condition, and the liberal-dissonant (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">fracking</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">/ nuclear power) condition as compared to the ideologically neutral condition. In other words, there is a net drop in trust of the scientific communication around politically contentious science in both contexts compared with the more neutral science topics</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">...</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Biases, then, may actually work to undermine the logic of the ‘dead dogma’ rationale. However, a number of caveats have to be added to this line of research. First, the ecological validity of these </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">studies remains a very high concern: these people are being tested in a situation where their preferences have already </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">stated may not really match how they generally act in the world. Second, Mill acknowledged that the argument was for ‘disinterested’ parties. It is an empirical question to the extent there is an undecided segment in relation to each particular issue. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{225}" paraid="958531212" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Third, I have argued in the context of Iraq and WMD that you can be </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">reasonable </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">despite being </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">wrong</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. This is not a relativistic argument but one about the nature of reasoning</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and the complexity of the world around us</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. When assessing these studies and indeed, the subjects in them, we must always be conscious of what this means for political economy and free speech.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> In particular, pluralism need not descend into relativism</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This might sound abstract but </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I will return to this point below. Fourth, and linked to the first two points: an argument can still be made for </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">progress </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">generally over longer periods of time even if it cannot be made for individuals. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{7eadfba8-8406-4736-83e2-effa5cbb860d}{234}" paraid="224590082" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">2.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Pinkerian</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Progress</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">: Civilisation </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> the Spirit of the Age</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Of course for Mill, free speech was not just important in challenging the dead dogmas of individuals. When Mill was nineteen years old, he had adapted his father’s ideas about free speech in an essay, ‘Law of Libel and Liberty of the Press’ in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Westminster Review</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. His father, James Mill had written </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">that ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">when all opinions, true and false, are equally declared, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the assent of the greater number</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, when their interests are not opposed to them, may always be expected to be given to the true.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’ Mill in his Westminster Review had changed the argument somewhat: ‘truth, if it has fair play, always ends in triumph over error, and becomes the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">opinion of the world</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.’ </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">There are two possible interpretations of this. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Himmelfarb</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (1974) says that James Mill ‘expected only the greater number would give asset to the truth, John Mill was confident that the opinion of the world [i.e., an even greater amount] would coincide with the truth’ (p.35). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I think this interpretation is mistaken: Mill is not making a quantitative claim here. In </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">On Liberty </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Mil</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">l states in the third chapter:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">T</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">he spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people; and the spirit of liberty, in so far as it resists such attempts, may ally itself locally and temporarily with the opponents of improvement; but </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Mill’s argument is then that </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">over time </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">free expression can is the driving mechanism of progress. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the examples that follow below, I will be trying to give evidence about the link between said example of progress and free speech but there will also be a more general </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">causal arg</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ument </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">at the end of this section. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">If you think I’m ignoring genetics, institutional factors or material causal factors in these examples, please humour me for now. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">2.1</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Political Freedom</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The increasing amount of liberal democracy in the world is a trend that has been fairly well documented. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Mueller (2014) wrote an article in which he looked over the empirical record since </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The End of History </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">had been written. As he notes: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">[Note:</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> chart taken from Pinker (2011</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">) to illustrate the wider trends]</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Overall, according to Freedom House measures, the percentage of countries that are electoral democracies rose from 41 when Fukuyama’s article was published in 1989 to 61 in 2012, while the percentage deemed fully free (a high bar) rose less impressively from 37 to 46</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">An even more recent study somewhat mitigates this rise of democracy by noting that in the last few years there hasn’t been as much improvement recently. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Levitsky</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and Way (2015)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> look at the several measures of democracy and find: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">According to leading democracy indices such as Freedom House and Polity, then, the world is more democratic today than it was in 2000 (and considerably more democratic than it was in 1990 or any year prior to that). Even if we take the mid- 2000s—often cited as the beginning of the democratic recession—as our starting point, three of the four indices show either no change or a slight improvement.12 Only Freedom House shows a decline between 2005 and 2013, and that decline (from .63 to .62) is extremely modest.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{45577354-4b17-4f9a-860f-418c40e30a40}{58}" paraid="1134600487" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">To move on to the causal link between the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">progress</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> we’ve made in terms of liberal democracy and free speech, Mueller is </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">probably</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> right when he says that</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Democracy’s rise has, it seems, essentially been the result of a 200‐year competition of ideas, rather than the necessary or incidental consequence of</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">grander changes in social, cultural, economic, or historic patterns. It has triumphed because the idea that democracy is a superior form of government, ably executed and skilfully promoted—or marketed—at one point in the world’s history, has increasingly managed to catch on.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">By way of an elaboration I </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">want to briefly talk about two</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> books. The first is</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Leon </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Aron’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Roads to a Temple: </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Truth, Memory, Ideas and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. I have reviewed this book elsewhere but the core idea is that f</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">reedom of speech allowed</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> ‘every institution – political economic and social – to be subjected to trial by truth and conscience’ (p.51). It is following this process of self-discovery and criticism that surveys showed ‘solid majorities favour some key features of liberal capitalism’ (p.32-3).</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> It then when people accept ‘alternatives to the current view’ does a ‘pre-revolutionary situation... become a revolutionary crises’ (p.20). </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The second is</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Bernard </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bailyn’s</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Ideological Origins of the American Revolution </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">which focuses on the pamphlets that were ‘the literature of the Revolution’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and ‘convey[</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ed</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">] scorn, anger</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> indignation’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> that were ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">probings</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, speculations, theories’ which ‘were not mere mental gymnastics’ but were they provided the ‘grounds of resistance.’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">(p.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">8, p.18, p.231).</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bailyn</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> shows</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> that the</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> American</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Revolution was </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">above</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> all an ideological, constitutional, political struggle...</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [and]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> intellectual developments in the decade before Independence led to radical idealisation and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">conceptualisation</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> of the previous century and half of American </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">experience, and that it was this intimate relationship between Revolutionary thought</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [as expressed in the pamphlets]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and the circumstances of life in the eighteenth-century that endowed the Revolution with its peculiar force</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">p.x</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">-xi</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">). </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">These two books are not quirky </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">artefacts of the historical record</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.[1]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Chenoweth and Stephan (2008) look at ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">data on 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.’ They find that ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">in the face of regime crackdowns, nonviolent campaigns are more than six times likelier to achieve full success than violent campaigns that also faced regime repression</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.’ </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Their data show that no non-violent campaign (i.e., an exercise of free speech) that garnered the participation of 3.5% of the population failed to reach its goal. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Free speech</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, then,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> is vit</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">al to</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> denying authority le</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">gitimacy</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, and then finally removing the regime</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.[</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">6</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">] </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">We can </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">also </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">see this by looking at how curtailing free speech is vital to maintaining autocracy. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">One of the most interesting studies I’ve </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">read </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">recently is </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Guriev</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Treisman</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2015). They </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">posit the following model:</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The new-style dictators can brutally crush separatist rebellions and deploy paramilitaries against unarmed protesters. But compared to previous regimes, they use violence sparingly. They prefer the ankle bracelet to the Gulag. Maintaining power, for them, is less a matter of terrorizing victims than of manipulating beliefs about the world.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The way that beliefs are manipulated is through bribing informed elites (which could send out messages to the populace about the incompetence of the dictator) or controlling the outflow of information either by censoring</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> existing media</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> or by putting out his own propaganda. The study notes that to do these things requires increased taxation which thereby reduces the wealth of individuals and thereby exac</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">erbated his incompetence score. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">By manipulating information</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (i.e., curbing free speech)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, the citizenry cannot conclude that the dictator is incompetent and therefore cannot overthrow him.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">‘The most fundamental failure of totalitarianism was</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [and is]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> its failure to control thought’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">(Fukuyama (1992), p.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">29).</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{45577354-4b17-4f9a-860f-418c40e30a40}{194}" paraid="59567440" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sarkissian</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2012) is another fascinating study which tries to explain the lack of democracy in the Middle East by looking at </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">government regulation of religion (GRI). This is defined as ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the restrictions placed on the practice, profession, or selection of religion by the official laws, policies, or administrative actions of the state</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’ (hence the relevance to this post about free speech). Does the level of GRI explain the democratic </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">deficit</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> in the Middle East? First, they found there clearly was a difference in levels of GRI: ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the average GRI for non-Muslim countries in 2005 is 2.36 out of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">10,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> it is 6.42 for Muslim-majority countries</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Second, they ran </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">multivariate analyses – the key finding of which is:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{45577354-4b17-4f9a-860f-418c40e30a40}{203}" paraid="134246701" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Model 2 adds GRI to the previous model, showing that when government regulation of religion is considered among the determinants of democracy, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the variable for Muslim majority countries is no longer statistically significant</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... I</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">n Model 1, the coefficient for Islam is −5.1. Once GRI is added in model 2, the coefficient is reduced to −2.39 and loses its significance.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{45577354-4b17-4f9a-860f-418c40e30a40}{219}" paraid="548204551" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{45577354-4b17-4f9a-860f-418c40e30a40}{219}" paraid="548204551" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">You can explain the democracy gap between the Middle East and the West by accounting for the extent to which a state has free speech curtailed. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The point that </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sarkissian</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> is making is t</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">hat laws which curtail free speech</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> are used against political dissenters. Its why, for example, Muslims are more likely to be targeted rather than no</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">n</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">-Muslims in laws against proselytizing. For reasons that I have gone into elsewhere, Islamic institutions are often the only vestige of civil society left in the Middle East. This leads to a fear of ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">competition and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">threats to [autocrat’s]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> power,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [and then]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> repressive governments restrict the religious arena in order to forestall the rise of political opposition</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.’ </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{45577354-4b17-4f9a-860f-418c40e30a40}{233}" paraid="16012711" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I should note that the internet should not be confused with free speech. Rod and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Weidmann</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2015) note that authoritarian regimes are more likely to introduce internet access to their populations (see table above)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">: an</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> increase of ten points in Press censorship predicts</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> an increase of up to </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">0.33% in Internet penetration</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. In addition, internet access does not have any link with democratisation</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">within the low penetration group there are 11 movements towards democracy in nine countries and zero movements towards autocracy.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">while there are no movements towards autocracy in the low penetration set of countries, there are eight episodes of autocratic regime change in six countrie</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">s in the high penetration group... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">there are almost twice as many countries (nine vs. five) experiencing movements towards democracy</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">in the low penetration group as in the high penetration group</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The reason behind this is because </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the internet is suppressed and used as a tool of repression. The authors of the study used Saudi Arabia as a case study to explain their data. I’m sure most people know the kind of controls that the Saudi have: you need a permit to post a YouTube video, there are block pages (which, even if you wanted to use a proxy to get around, citizens are still deterred). The idea of seeing the internet as part of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">liberation </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">technology is one that </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">depends entirely on the institutional framework. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">2.3</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Violence</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">There has been a decline in violence over long periods of time – not just in terms of tribal cultures vs. modern cultures, but also in recent history. This is a point that I think is</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> rather well settled</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">There is d</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">eclining inter-state conflict</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and d</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">eclining intra-state conflict, not just in terms of numbers of conflicts but in terms of battlefield deaths: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Pinker summarises the huge declines and progress we hav</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">e made in a recent article in </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The Guardian:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Research institutes in Oslo and Uppsala compiled datasets of global battle deaths since 1946, and their plots showed an unmistakable downward trend. The per-capita death rate fell more than tenfold between the peak of the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">second world war</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and the Korean war, and then plunged an additional hundredfold by the mid-2000s.... Other datasets show steep declines in genocides and other mass killings. The declines are precipitous enough that they don’t depend on precise body counts: the estimates could be off by 25%, 100%, or 250% and the decline would still be there.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Am I saying that these historic declines are all because of free speech? </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Absolutely not.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> The</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> trend seems to be so well established that those who seek to undermine the trend look to non-human causes of the decline. The most popular of which is the improvement of medical science</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> – </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ands</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">its</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> actually not totally baseless</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Fazal</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2014) looks at this argument in more detail in relation to battle deaths. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Fazal</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> is arguing that there hasn’t really been a decline in </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">violence, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">simply that military medicine means fewer people are added to the body count. The way that he measures this is through wounded-t</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">o-kill ratios (i.e.,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> the amount of the attacked actually dying). An increase</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> in the ratio</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> means that fewer people ar</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">e dying even if the same </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">number </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">are</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> attacked – and that’s exactly what he finds: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">But </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Fazal</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> can’t actually explain </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">all of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> decline. In an ideal world, he would use the data above and ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">regress some function of time as well as the wounded-to-killed ratio on battle deaths</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’ – but the data is so sparse he can’t do that. What he does do though is to look at the decline in fatalities vs. the decline in casualties. If the decline in battle deaths is being driven by medical improvements, we would expect to see no decline in casualties, and a decrease in fatalities. Except we don’t: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Clearly, the improvements in </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">modern medicine can explain some</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> of the decline. But it can’t explain it all</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. I can do no better than </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Pinker’s</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> ‘</span><a class="Hyperlink SCX123133235" href="http://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-about-better-angels-our-nature-why-violence-has-declined" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCX123133235" style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">FAQ</span></span></a><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">First, before the late 19th and early 20th century, most medicine was quackery, and doctors killed as many patients as they saved, yet many of the declines I document occurred before that time. Second, many forms of violent crime move up and down in tandem—for example, rapes and robberies went up in the 1960s and down in the 1990s, just like homicides—so it’s unlikely that any of these trends simply consist in a constant amount of violence which has been reallocated from deaths to injuries thanks to quick-acting EMTs. Third, while medical technologies have improved, so have weapon technologies. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{0df6c265-7655-4fb3-8162-c2e6fb1fc7de}{84}" paraid="472741042" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Fourth, advances in medicine can only move the numbers around for the statistical sliver consisting of the victims of violence who are injured so severely that they would have died with even with the primitive medical care in the past, but not so severely that would have died even with the advanced medical care of the present. Yet many of the declines are from scorched-earth campaigns of violence in which no amount of medical care could have </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">reduced the death tolls to current levels—Mongol invasions, deliberate sieges of cities (in which doctors, even if they were around, would not have been allowed in), over-the-top frontal assaults into machine-gun fire, Dresden, Hiroshima, carpet-bombings, the deliberate killing or starvation of prisoners of war.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{0df6c265-7655-4fb3-8162-c2e6fb1fc7de}{103}" paraid="1520193340" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">(See below on health for why this is also linked to free speech). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">And obviously, aside from medical technology improvements, there are many other causes. It is beyond the scope of this post (and my current understanding) to even attempt to explain the historic decline. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">But I think free speech does explain some of the decline. I think this for two reasons.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">First, in terms of direct mechanisms</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> free speech allows the spread </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">of norms which eschew violence – especially for more violent countries. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Burbacj</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> a</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">n</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">d </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Fettweis</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2014)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> much like everyone else above </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">notes</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> a decline in battle</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> deaths and conflict intensity but their data focuses on Africa: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">On the whole, however, Africa is less war-torn than at any time in the past, which runs contrary to widespread perceptions that exist even among foreign policy experts.... the evidence suggests that despite neo-Malthusians fears, by most measures life on the continent is improving. War is becoming less of a threat to the life of the average African than emerging </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">middleincome</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> threats like traffic accidents or diabetes. Nor have realist fears of predatory wars and wholesale remaking of the map of Africa come to pass.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Whats more interesting, however, is </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">one of the reasons they give for the decline. The mechanism they describe relies on the free flow of information: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Every modern state is part of an interconnected international society, where ideas and norms spread with unprecedented rapidity... Twenty-first-century Africa exists in a complex, globalizing society whose members have been slowly abandoning the recourse to warfare. Its leaders and its people would not be unaffected by such powerful global trends.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{0df6c265-7655-4fb3-8162-c2e6fb1fc7de}{123}" paraid="1812525339" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">[These trends, in the form of] </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">conflict resolution norms in the global north affect decisions in the south. Success breeds imitation; the behaviour of prestigious states will be copied... It would be hard for Africa to remain immune from a fundamental transformation in beliefs regarding warfare in broader international society, particularly with modern </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">communications reducing isolation. It is difficult for leaders to credibly claim war is a useful, necessary option when the notion is rejected elsewhere.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{0df6c265-7655-4fb3-8162-c2e6fb1fc7de}{134}" paraid="726626340" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">M</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">oving onto the indirect reasons: as argued above, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">free speech helps degrade the legitimacy and remove non-democratic regimes.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Non-democratic regimes are simply more violent to their own populations, to other populations and more prone to civil war. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Before I get on to the empirical literature for these claims, take a look at this graph from Pinker (2011) on </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the rates of deaths in genocides</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and mass killings</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (p.407): </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{0df6c265-7655-4fb3-8162-c2e6fb1fc7de}{148}" paraid="362250550" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The first thing to </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">note is the unsurprising fact</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> that these regimes are not liberal democracies. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In fact most</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> of the spikes emanate from non</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">-democratic, totalitarian communists like Mao or Stalin. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Imagine what the death toll would have been if these regimes had been removed by the power of free speech. I'm not interested in the histories of particular dynasties,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> I’m interested in trends</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and interestingly there is a consistent finding: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{0df6c265-7655-4fb3-8162-c2e6fb1fc7de}{152}" paraid="1118800289" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">For thirty years, quantitative research has supported this relationship. Repeatedly, democratic political systems have been found to decrease political bans, censorship, torture, disappearances, and mass killing, doing so in a linear fashion across diverse measurements, methodologies, time periods, countries, and contexts From this work, one could conclude that with every step toward democracy, the likelihood of state-related civil peace is enhanced</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. (Davenport and Armstrong (2004))</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Davenport (2012) notes that ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">all investigations over the last 40 years</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [show]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> dem</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ocracy has decreased repression’ but there is one</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">controversy that exists within this work concerns exactly when along the spectrum of democratic governance this influence ‘kicks in’.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> See </span><a class="Hyperlink SCX123133235" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100626025601/http:/filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/the-influence-of-democracy-on-human-rights/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCX123133235" style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">here</span></span></a><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> for the three models. I would note that the most well supported are the linear model (more democracy, less repression) and the threshold model (reach a threshold of democracy, less repression).</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Davenport and Armstrong (2004) </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">undertake an analysis of</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> 147 countries from 1976 to 1996 and they find: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Across databases and methodological approaches, our statistical investigation leads us to conclude that there is a threshold of domestic democratic peace. Below certain values, the level of democracy has no </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">discernable</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> impact on human rights violations, but after a threshold has been passed (varying in accordance to which measure one is considering), democra</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">cy decreases state repression. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The mechanism I’m suggesting is free speech --> democracy --> less violence. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The same trend exists in terms of inter-state violence. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The literature on the mechanisms for this </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">trend</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> is somewhat divided. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The usual mechanism expressed in the literature is the idea that the electorate is not prone to support wars and democratica</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">lly elected leaders act in accordance with that desire lest they be removed from office. Far more interesting, however, is the mechanism put forward by </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tomz</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and Weeks (2013)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. They suggest that ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">shared democracy pacifies the public primarily by changing perceptions of threat and morality, not by raising expectations of costs or failure.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’ </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">[The perception of threat felt by democracies toward other democracies is lower because] democracies expect other democracies to externalize peaceful norms in the same way and therefore trust that they will not be attacked by other democracies</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... [The moral argument is based on] people in democracies...</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> feel</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">[</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ing</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> morally reluctant to overturn policies that the citizens of other democracies have chosen freely</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This is probably the most obvious way that free speech helps. The scientific method is based on </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the idea of peer review helping us obtain the Truth, a Truth that has a real world impact (see </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Fazal</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> above). Advances in medical science require the principle of free speech</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> to operate</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. In </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The Great Escape: Health, Wealth and the Origins on Inequality, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Deaton (2013) charts the improvements we’ve had in health outcomes across the world: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... in the fifteen year period from 1950-55 to </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">1965-70, the “less developed regions” of the world saw an increase in life expectancy of more than ten </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">years</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, from 42 to 53 years. By 2005-10, this increased by another thirteen years, to 66 years... [For sub-Saharan Africa,] the gap between it </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">an</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Northern Europe has narrowed, from 31.9 years in the 1950s to 26.5 years (p.107-8). </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">There have, of course, been declines: HIV/AIDs and Mao’s famine are two notable declines in the graph above. The graph actually understates the impact of Mao’s policies as a number of accounts show that life expectancy fell from 50 in 1958 to below 30 in 1960 (p.39).</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (Incidentally, I wo</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">uld really like to write a review</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> of</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><a class="Hyperlink SCX123133235" href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Unknown-Cultural-Revolution-Chinese/dp/1583671803" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCX123133235" style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Unknown Cultural Revolution</span></span></a><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">which tries</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, hilariously, to sanitise Mao’s record but nobody cares). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">W</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">hat is the cause of these</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> health</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> gains? One part of it is, as mentioned, the free flow of ideas. As Deaton notes: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The knowledge that cigarette smoking kills has saved millions of lives in the past fifty years... That germs cause disease was new knowledge around 1900, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">an</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> professionals and educated people were the first to put that knowledge into practice... New ideas, new inventions, and new ways of doing things are the key to progress... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Scientific advance – of which germ theory is such a singular example – is one of the key forces leading to i</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">mprovements in human well being</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (p.7, 9</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, 100).</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">It has helped in other ways as well. There has been a historic decline in homicide around the world: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 5pt; line-height: 9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">[Graph from Pinker (2011), p.75]</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 5pt; line-height: 9px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">...</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the data confirm the notion, now hardly controversial among historians of crime, that homicide rates have declines in Europe over several centuries. Typical estimates referring to the later Middle Ages range between 20 and 40 homicides per 100,000, while respective data for the mid twentieth century</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> are between 0.5 and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">1 per 100,000... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> evidence is so consistent, the secular decline so regular, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">n</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">d the difference in levels so large, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">that it seems difficult to refut</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">e the conclusio</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">n of a real and notable decline (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Eisiner</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2001)). </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{516808f7-40b9-488f-94ba-53113af3e919}{38}" paraid="472143000" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">There was of course a rise between 1950 an 1990 but that has since been in free fall across the West. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Its</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> also worth bearing in mind that, as Eisner (2012) notes the ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">very low rates of homicide found across most of Europe during the late 1950s, when the period of sustained increase begins, should probably be seen as a rather exceptional phenomenon</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.’ Since 1990 there has been a significant decline. Much of this decline, in terms of overall trends, is attributable to medical advancements. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Harris et al (2002) suggest that if the medical technology in the 1990s was equivalent to what it was in the 1960s, the homicide rate could hav</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">e been up to three times higher (see also </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Fazal</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2014) above). </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> The improvements in technology require innovation which necessarily rely on free speech.</span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{516808f7-40b9-488f-94ba-53113af3e919}{44}" paraid="2041106328" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{516808f7-40b9-488f-94ba-53113af3e919}{44}" paraid="2041106328" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">2.4</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Economic Freedom and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Income Growth</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">More than any other area I am talking about in this </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">post,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> the literature on economic freedom is the least known. In particular, the trends of economic fr</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">eedom </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">are</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> not spoken about – particularly by those who prize it most.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Economic freedom is the idea that taxes, government interference, labour market regulations should be low and measures of free trade should be high. It is, in essence, an important element of a market economy.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Escsura</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2014) is the only study I know that looks at global trends of economic freedom. And he finds that 2007 is the peak of economic freedom: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The academic literature is</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> fairly</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> clear that economic freedom is good</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> for economic growth</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. De </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Haan</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> et al (2006) after reviewing the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">literature (see Table 5) state that ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">i</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">t is clear from these studies that EF seems to have a p</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ositive association with growth’ and ‘those studies that deal with the problems of model specification and sensitivity in a more rigorous way also find that there is a positive growth effect from EF.’ </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">My favourite study in this area is </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Zajenkowski</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> et al (2013)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. They look at the relationship between IQ and GDP per capita and how it is moderated by economic </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">freedom</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">That is, the relationship between GDP per capita and IQ is significantly affected by the level of</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">economic freedom a country has</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Economic freedom is not just good for </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">growth,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> it is also good for </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">labour market shares (Young and Lawson (2014)), poverty reduction (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Hasan</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> et al (2003)), lower unemployment and labour market participation (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Heller and Stephenson (2013)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, income</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Ashby and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Sobel</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2008))</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and on and on the list goes</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bjornskov</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2015) looks at how economically free countries fare against economically </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">unfree</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> countries in recessions. Given the studies above</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, his results are unsurprising: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun EmptyTextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"></span><span class="WACImageContainer BlobObject SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; cursor: default; display: inline-block; left: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 2px;"><img alt="Image" class="WACImage SCX123133235" src="https://word-edit.officeapps.live.com/we/ResReader.ashx?v=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000014&n=E2o39.img&rndm=80126956-bb63-45c5-868f-db9d684ef0b1&WOPIsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fwopi%2Edropbox%2Ecom%2Fwopi%2Ffiles%2F51ulOW1XmnQAAAAAAAAHkQ&access_token=AAAZwgDTNkqT1Jbak07Za5WSfgB%2DEQY94oGa0qM4S%2D9ST2WSi2I%2DMFiYL277ew4Qvbrt5t%5FivMZQmOvAlSJ1ieX%2DlKwwxb60flixqHUt7BJpzqdY80fNMJaeW6iyBQ3y%5FsJ%2DriMqw0S8VV93EU6ikTH4bec%2DohXSjqTIoufMGjgKFw&access_token_ttl=0&usid=81222327-f7e5-4458-9e7f-51c64fb1e850&build=16.0.3930.1010&waccluster=AM3" style="border: currentColor; height: auto; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" unselectable="on" /></span><span class="TextRun EmptyTextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"></span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Across these crisis episodes, it is evident that crises tend to be substantially deeper in countries with relatively little economic freedom than in countries with high freedom: the peak-to-trough ratio</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [i.e., </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the percent drop of real GDP per capita from its pre-crisis level to the last year</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> of the crisis]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> in the former is 10.3 percent while it is only 3.4 percent in the latter.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">An increase in economic freedom of ten points, or slightly less than a standard deviation, is associated with a decline in the peak-to-trough ratio of four percentage points, or half a standard deviation. This is associated with a reduced recovery time of approximately ten months</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The only </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">caveat</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> to att</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ach to these results is that there is some literature which holds some attributes of economic freedom (low regulation, low government interference, high level of protection property rights, low taxation) are more</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> or less important than others</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. In addition, there is a lot of publication bias (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Doucouliagos</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ulubasoglu</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2006)) </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">but </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the effect seems pretty well supported</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Justesen</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2007)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gurgul</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Lach</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">(2011)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, Compton et al (2011)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">). </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The rise of economic freedom to the highest point it has been since 1850 should not been seen apart from the decline of poverty and the rise of income. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">E</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">conomic growth</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, fostered by economic </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">freedom and innovation (see below)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> has led to a </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">phenomenal</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> amount of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">improvement in income</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> – even if we just look at the period from the 1960s to now, from Deaton (2013): </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Almost all of the darker circles</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [i.e., those that represent 2010]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> are above and to the right of the lighter circles</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [i.e., those that represent 1960]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">; since 1960, nearly all countries have become richer and their residents longer lived. This is perhaps the most important fact about wellbeing in the world since World War II: that things are getting better, that both the health and income parts of wellbeing have improved over time.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Aside from impacts on health, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">his translates into a pretty good trend of poverty reduction. My favourite study in this area – which shows both the link between economic growth/poverty </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">reduction[2]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">radical poverty reduction </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">itself</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">is </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Pinkovskiy</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Sala</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">i</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">-Martin</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2014)[3]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Africa is reducing poverty, and doing it much faster than we thought. The growth from the period 1992–2011, far from benefiting only the elites, has been sufficiently widely spread that African inequality, if anything, declined during this period... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the driving force that appears to explain the substantial reduction in poverty between 1992 and 2011 is economic growth</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the UK, the bottom quintile’s income rose 93% between 1977 and 2011 (ONS (2013) quoted in </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sowdon</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2015), p.67-8)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">UK median income is</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> same now</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> as that of richest 10% in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> 1960s. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The b</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ottom 10%</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> average income</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> is </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">same</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> now</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> as median in</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> 1960s.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the U.S., post-tax incomes of the bottom quintile have risen 48% in t</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">he period between 1979 and 2011 (CBO (2014)). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This understates the huge progress we’ve made in economic well being</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">You, oh average participant in the British economy, go through at least sixteen times [1,500 percent] more food and clothing and housing and education than an ancestors of yours did two or three centuries ago. [The material ease the average American has gained is] 1,700 percent, a factor of nearly eighteen [in the time between President Monroe and President Clinton] (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Bourgeois</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Dignity, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">McCloskey (2010), p.48-49). </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">However, as</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Piketty</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> notes in </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Capital </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">we should be cautious of using averages:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{516808f7-40b9-488f-94ba-53113af3e919}{253}" paraid="318456904" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">...the only way to accurately gauge the spectacular increase in standards of living since the Industrial Revolution is to look at income levels in today’s currency and compare these to price levels for the various goods and services</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> available in different periods... When family budgets and lifestyles change so radically and purchasing power varies so much from one good to another, it makes little sense to take averages... (Kindle Locations 1611-1612, 1646-1647)</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">He notes that for foodstuffs like milk, butter and eggs, there has been a </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">sixfold</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> increase in purchasing power whereas with meats there has only been a fourfold increase. ‘French purchasing power expressed in terms of oranges increased tenfold, and expressed in terms of bananas, twentyfold’ (Kindle Location 1630). Nonetheless, it still is indicative of how much we understate</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> the improvement in well-being – especially </span><a class="Hyperlink SCX123133235" href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/29/give-sam-walton-the-nobel-prize/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCX123133235" style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">because</span></span></a><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the things poor people want appear to be dropping in price faster than the stuff rich people want</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.’ </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The link between fre</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">e speech and economic growth can be made with a general argument that the ideas of free markets, economic </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">freedom</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> has won out. But it can also be made in terms of the importance of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">innovation to growth. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Innovation </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">requires a culture of innovation which ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">new and sometimes radical ideas were respected and encouraged, heterodoxy and contestability were valued, and n</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ovelty tested, compared, and diff</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">used if found to be superior by some criteria to what was there befor</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">e’ (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Mokyr</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, (2012) quoted in </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bénabou</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> et al (2015)).</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br />
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Rather than provide one of the boring studies that shows this proposition to be true, I want to look at </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bénabou</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> et al (2015). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bénabou</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> et al look at the links between </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">religion, politics and growth.[4]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">They find that ‘religiosity is signifi</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">cantly and negatively associated with innovation per capita</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [as measured by patents]’ (see, in particular</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> figures 2a-b 3a-b). They th</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">en propose the following model to explain </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">these result</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">If allowed to diffuse widely </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">[innovation]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> will produce, at the start of the second </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">subperiod</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, advances in practical knowledge and technology that rais</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">e TFP [total factor productivity] from </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">at</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> to at+1 = </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "cmr10" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">(1+</span><span class="UnsupportedObjectText BlobObject SCX123133235" style="background-color: #e1e3e6; cursor: default; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0px 2px; padding: 0px 6px; white-space: nowrap;" title="Sorry, Word Online can't display this item. To view and edit this object, please open this document in Microsoft Word.">[Equation]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "cmr10" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">at</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [i.e., TFP significantly increases] ... [Also] new scientifi</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">c </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">fi</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ndings that contradict the professed doctrine and sacred texts</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> sta</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">tements about the natural world... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">tend to shake and weaken the faith of religious </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">agents.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Not all innovations and knowledge will lead to ‘belief eroding’ (BR), some are ‘belief neutral’ (BN). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the following passage, ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">β₁</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">bt+1Gt+1</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’ refers to the utility that religious agents derive </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">from organised religion:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{6ab645a9-4fb3-4fd2-87ae-e315a516960f}{93}" paraid="1646783209" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{6ab645a9-4fb3-4fd2-87ae-e315a516960f}{93}" paraid="1646783209" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">If allowed to disseminate, a BR discovery will reduce the utility </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">β₁</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">bt+1Gt+1 of religious agents, through both its direct erosion of their faith and the ensuing reduction in</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Gt+1</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [i.e., belief in religious public good institutions like churches, spiritual assistance]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">: If this loss more than off</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">sets the gains to be reaped from higher TFP, the government, representing here the religi</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ous majority, may want to block, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">censor, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">deny, restrict access to, etc. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the new knowledge [but will have to set up an apparatus to do such things]. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The first period (on the left hand side referred to </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">as ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">t</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (even)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’) shows the options that religious agents have open to them. They have to choose to block or not block BR ideas (note that taxes will have to be levied prior to any block to establish the apparatus to stop new ideas). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">If a de</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">cision is taken to block, TFP at ‘at+1’ is ‘at’</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. By contrast, TFP rises where a decision is taken to not block. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The point is not that religion is necessarily bad for growth (that relies on a number of other factors) but </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">that religiosity can explain a state’s policy toward knowledge which can, in turn, explain </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">economic </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">growth.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Importantly, the environments for innovation that we create in the civilised states have an impact in uncivilised states. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">After the Cultural Revolution wiped out scientific and technological output in China, it took a great many years for China to return to producing a high number of heavily-cited academic papers </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and a high number of patents. As Freeman and Huang (2015) note that the ‘g</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">lobal mobility of people and ideas allowed China to reach the scientific and technological frontier much faster than if it had gone down a more parochial path.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’ The period in which China made a real great leap forward in science and technology was the period in which Chinese places at Western institutions rose dramatically too: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">And that is arguably not a coincidence. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I consider the link between innovation and economic growth</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> to be settled </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and will therefore not dwell on the subject </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">(see, for example Gordon (2014), </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Piketty</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2014) at </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Kindle Locations 1634-1635</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, and this </span><a class="Hyperlink SCX123133235" href="http://antonhowes.tumblr.com/post/117418827979/why-the-general-election-result-barely-matters" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCX123133235" style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">wonderful essay</span></span></a><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> from Anton</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In summary, two big determinants of economic growth (economic freedom and innovation) have in the case of the former spread because of free speech or, in the case of the latter, are inherently based on free speech. </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{6ab645a9-4fb3-4fd2-87ae-e315a516960f}{143}" paraid="468765955" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">2.5</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Civilisation</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{6ab645a9-4fb3-4fd2-87ae-e315a516960f}{163}" paraid="1973786075" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{6ab645a9-4fb3-4fd2-87ae-e315a516960f}{163}" paraid="1973786075" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">On Liberty</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> was published posthumously and so remains the final word of Mill. Many fringe left historians who provide </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ahistorical</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> accounts of Enlightenment think</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">er</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">s ignore the changes that Mill underwent in order to present him </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">some kind of authoritarian maniac. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The gist of one of these early essays,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Civilisation,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">is that ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">power passes more and more from individuals, and small knots of individuals, to masses: that the importance of the masses becomes constantly greater, that of individuals less</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.’ This isn’t much different from the tone of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">On Liberty </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">until</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> he uses this as an example: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This is a reading age; and precisely because it is so reading an age, any book which is the result of profound meditation is, perhaps, less likely to be duly and profitably read than at a </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">former period. The world reads too much and too quickly to read well. When books were few, to get through one was a work of time and labour: what was written with thought was read with </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">thought,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and with a desire to extract from it as much of the materials of knowledge as possible. But when almost every person who can spell, can and will write, what is to be done?</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Mill goes on to say that there are only two occupations in which the individual has power, and again, ‘regrets’ something that is an anathema to </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">On Liberty: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">[There are] </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">but two modes left in which an individual mind can hope to produce much direct effect upon the minds and destinies of his countrymen generally; as a member of parliament, or an editor of a London newspaper. In both these capacities much may still be </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">done by an individual, because... the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">number of participants in it does not admit of much increase. One of these monopolies will be opened to competition when the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">newspaper stamp is taken off... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and the influence of any one writer in helping to form that opinion necessarily</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> diminished. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This we might regret</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">(</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">my</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> emphasis)</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">It’s strange to read Mill saying that the </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">increase </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">in ideas will lead to bad outcomes. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">What is even more illiberal was Mill’s ‘remedy’ for this is purported issue. There could be no remedy ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">while the publi</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">c have no guidance beyond </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">booksellers’ advertisements</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">’ and so he proposed the following ‘resource’: </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">...t</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">he resource must in time </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">be,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> some organized co-operation among the leading intellects of the age, whereby works of first-rate merit, of whatever class, and of whatever tendency in point of opinion, might come forth with the stamp on them, from the first, of the approval of those wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ose names</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> would carry authority.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{6ab645a9-4fb3-4fd2-87ae-e315a516960f}{236}" paraid="1702841388" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">By the time of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">On Liberty, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">he dropped such illiberal ideas; and the evidence above shows that he was right to. We have seen an insurmountable amount of literature rise, and with it, we have not lost our ability to determine what is useful. We have made huge gains. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Above, I have tried to give specific mechanism for the progress that we have seen.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> There is</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> a</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">lso a</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> more general mechanism.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> Matt Ridley</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> in his </span><a class="Hyperlink SCX123133235" href="https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex/transcript?language=en" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCX123133235" style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ted</span></span></a><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">talk</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">notes that ‘ideas have sex’ and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">its</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> this ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">interchange of ideas, the meeting and mating of ideas between them, that is causing technological progress, incrementally, bit by bit</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.’ </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Zack Beauchamp </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">in</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> a wonderful review of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The Great Escape </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">(quoted above) for </span><a class="Hyperlink SCX123133235" href="http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/11/19/2924611/angus-deaton-comopolitanism-review/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCX123133235" style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ThinkProgress</span></span></a><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">makes a similar point:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{6ab645a9-4fb3-4fd2-87ae-e315a516960f}{239}" paraid="1657218505" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">...the new rationalism taught that “happiness could be pursued by using reason to challenge accepted ways of doing things, including obedience to the crown and the church, and by finding ways of improving one’s life, including both material possessions and health.”</span></span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">[This] suggests that there’s a third type of innovation, beyond those of science and </span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">business, that</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> propels humanity forward: moral advancement. Enlightenment politics were, after all, a product of Enlightenment morality. [For example, the] unanswerable moral challenge to monarchic privilege — “Who are you to rule us? Why are we not your equals?” — inspired the democratic, rights-respecting political systems</span></span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This moral advancement is relevant to many areas where we have progressed that I have not mentioned above. The decline of </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">racism</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, sexism and homophobia are all things which free speech </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">has been involved in. These are not merely generational chang</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">es but the result of an active</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> engagement of ideas. The rationality of man necessarily means that </span><a class="Hyperlink SCX123133235" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-pace-of-social-change/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="TextRun Underlined SCX123133235" style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">we mov</span></span><span class="TextRun Underlined SCX123133235" style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">e in the direction of progress</span></span></a><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br />
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This argument is not without weaknesses. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">MacDonald argues in </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The Invisible Hand of Peace </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">(which, I must admit, I have not read) that the extent to which a state engages in capitalist policies is a better predictor</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> of peacefu</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">lness</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">f th</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">e book is correct, </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">it shows </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">just one of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">mesh</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> of connections between </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the factors </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I’m talking about. The decline of violence is link to both improvements in technology (discussed above and below), democracy (above). Economic growth is impacted by democratic institutions</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> and health a</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">n</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">d vice versa. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Much to Sam and Ben’s chagrin, democ</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">racy leads to</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> high levels of</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> economic freedom:</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><br />
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Eqs</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (1) to (3)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [show]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> the effect of democratization on </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">[economic] </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">liberalization is positive and highly significant at the 1% level, while making an unstable transition has a significantly negative effect at the 5% level</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">... </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">a shift to democracy is on average associated with a 0.26 higher change in EFW</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> [measure of economic freedom]</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> after 5 years, a 0.30 higher change </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">after 10 years, and a 0.23 higher change after 15 years,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> relative to stable autocracies (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Rode and </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gwartney</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (2012)</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">). </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Note that the dependent variable in Table 3 is ΔEFW (changes in economic freedom). </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Economic growth,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> economic </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">freedom, democracy, health, technology and innovation - t</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">hese factors are all linked. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">This mesh of things probably weakens the argument I’m making somewhat: how much of the progress can we really ascribe to free speech when (</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="SpellingError SCX123133235" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-user-select: text; background-color: inherit; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">i</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">) there are so many other factors an</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">d</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> (ii) the progr</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">ess</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">-factors</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> I list are interlinked causal factors</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. That’s a fair point to which I don’t have a complete answer. I think</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> though, it doesn’t eliminate the role of free speech.</span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I hope to have shown the role that the free flow of information and ideas has for significant development and progress. </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">But simply because free speech can lead to good outcomes does not mean it is not also a cause of bad outcomes, which brings us onto </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the next part: the harm that free speech </span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB">leads to.</span><span class="TextRun SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span><span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
</div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX123133235" paraeid="{0c4b0353-7716-4433-a462-d0af74ba756a}{77}" paraid="1642969147" style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; background-color: transparent; font-size: 6pt; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b><i>Endnotes</i></b></span><br />
<span class="EOP SCX123133235" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span>
Fukuyama (1992) provides a more general history which shows the roles of
ideas: </span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">‘The
critical weakness that eventually toppled these strong states was in the last
analysis a failure of legitimacy—that is, a crisis on the level of ideas.
Legitimacy is not justice or right in an absolute sense; it is a relative
concept that exists in people's subjective perceptions. All regimes capable of
effective action must be based on some principle of legitimacy. A tyrant can
rule his children, old men, or perhaps his wife by force, if he is physically
stronger than they are, but he is not likely to be able to rule more than two
or three people in this fashion and certainly not a nation of millions... It is
clearly not the case that a regime needs to establish legitimate authority for
the greater part of its population in order to survive. There are numerous
contemporary examples of minority dictatorships that are actively hated by
large parts of their populations, but have succeeded in staying in power for
decades.... When we speak of a crisis of legitimacy in an authoritarian system,
then, we speak of a crisis within those elites whose cohesion is essential for
the regime to act effectively’ (p.15-16). </span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I think this emphasis on the
role of elites to the detriment of force is misplaced but that doesn’t change
his core argument that, in the spirit of both Aron and Bailyn, ‘there was a
remarkable consistency in the democratic transitions in Southern Europe, Latin
America... [With a couple of exceptions] there was not one single instance in
which the old regime was forced from power through violent upheaval or
revolution... [rather] it was ultimately made possible by a growing belief that
democracy was the only legitimate source of authority in the modern world’
(p.21). </span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span> As <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/07/poverty-measures?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/widthnotdepth"><i>The Economist</i></a><i> </i>noted: ‘Recent data from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development
Initiative show that the link between the MPI headcount and income per person
is just as robust as that between the extreme-poverty headcount and income per
person.... There is, unsurprisingly, a strong and negative association between
the extreme-poverty headcount and GDP per capita; as countries grow richer we expect
the incomes of the poorest to increase.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Pinkovskiy and Sala-i-Martin (2014)
is an interesting study because, it seems to me, that it poses problems from
all leading schools of thought regarding economic growth. In particular, note
that <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">All classes of countries, including
those with disadvantageous geography and history, experience reductions in
poverty. In particular, poverty fell for both landlocked as well as coastal
countries; for mineral-rich as well as mineralpoor countries; for countries with
favorable or with unfavorable agriculture; for countries regardless of colonial
origin; and for countries with below- or above-median slave exports per capita
during the African slave trade<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This paragraph poses problems for Jared Diamond;s
(geography), Acemoglu and Robinson’s(institutional) and typical human capital
accounts of economic paths. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">
Bénabou et al have a nice brief section on innovation cultures in the
Muslim world. As they note, the initial period of Islamic rule did not have any
major aversion to innovation and turned up a whole host of new knowledge. It
then started to wane, the printing press being one example: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">...printing </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">–especially in
Arabic and Turkish– was strongly opposed throug</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">hout the early-modern and modern periods. In 1515, Sultan
Selim I issued a decree under which the practice of printing would be
punishable by death. Printing only started in the Islamic World at the
beginning of the 19th century, partly due to the need for defensive
modernization against the West.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Incidentally, the authors of this study probably overstate the role of religion in establishing the printing press in the West. Kuran (2010) for example draws attention to the fact that the rise of impersonal business (i.e., business between individuals with no previous relationship) was more common in the West because of the institutional framework there. Accordingly, there was a need for the printing press in the West to track investments, losses and liabilities – a need that was satisfied by a printing press.</span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-42765736210645355902014-12-30T05:54:00.002-08:002015-01-03T05:38:15.366-08:00Rejecting Narratives: Data, Islam and Terrorism<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>The Year of the Monkey<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
(As always, footnotes and
bibliography are at the bottom of the post). Many of my friends in my
‘ideological camp’ do not <a href="http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/money-banking/voxplainer-on-scott-sumner-market-monetarism/">seem</a>
too pleased with the rise of <i>Vox</i>, <i>538</i> and <i>The Monkey Cage</i>. I applaud it as an open break from some of the
worst journalism we see. Op-ed writers will write streams about housing[1],
immigration[2], foreign policy; and not utilise a pool of peer reviewed, robust
empirical literature. <i>Vox and 538</i> are
reversing this trend. And I agree that they may sometimes <a href="http://updatedpriors.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/what-passes-for-wonkery-among-some.html?m=1">present</a> the
literature through their own ideological lens – but once people accept a form
of the scientific method, it’s very easy to have a conversation (and, of
course, make sounder judgements). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This divide between journalism
and the academic literature is not new. Back in 2010, <i>The Monkey Cage </i>was still a blog and, as always, they were writing
a constant stream of posts which debunked journalists unsubstantiated
‘narratives’ by using the empirical literature. A year later, they came out
with a constructive paper, the purpose of which was to help journalists. Often,
journalists will place great emphasis on a speech, a presidential debate,
gaffes etc – when the literature is fairly clear that this stuff doesn’t really
matter. In a somewhat comical response to Sides, Francis Wilkinson<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-28/political-scientists-are-killing-the-campaign-narrative-.html"> wrote</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
...the media's
capacity for creating self-serving, fanciful political narratives is more
constrained today than ever. An army of spoilsports -- many with Ph.Ds in
political science -- has established camp on the banks of the Web... Take John
Sides, a political scientist at George Washington who runs the annoyingly
excellent Monkey Cage blog. The guy is a total downer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br />
Every time
some reporter starts to have a little narrative fun, Sides gets all political
science-y on them... Look, I'm basically on the side of the
"narrative" guys. I enjoy making up half-baked theories and then
sending them downstream and seeing what happens.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Data driven journalism is clearly
a welcome response to this problem. On my side of the Atlantic, we haven’t
really seen a comparable change in our press. I’m not about to make any claims
about how many articles aren’t based on data (because I don’t have any data)
but what I can say is that the problem still exists. One example is Iona Craig who wrote a rather inaccurate, unsubstantiated article about Yemen. She made
claims about poverty, the views of Yemeni population and terrorism <i>without citing a single study </i>from a
pool of research not only on terrorism, but specifically about Yemen. And
rather than accept that the literature might have something to say on the
matter (it does, and it says the complete opposite of her anecdotes), she was
brazen enough to say that her personal experience trumped the literature, with
a dash of anti-intellectualism: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump">@anonmugwump</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielWickham93">@DanielWickham93</a> My 'research' is four years spent in the field in Yemen. That's more than any academic you'll ever meet.<br />
— Iona Craigأيونا كريج (@ionacraig) <a href="https://twitter.com/ionacraig/status/523861376645996544">October 19, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
No further comment is necessary
for such an ignorant and arrogant methodology. This long introduction is merely
to emphasise what I have been trying to do in my posts on this blog: draw
attention to the actual data, studies and research. My efforts have thus far
been targeted toward the “anti-imperialist” and anti-war corners. I have tried
to show that there is no link, association and causal relationship between
civilian casualties, “occupation”, the war on terrorism, poverty and terrorism.
The structuralist idea that it is external conditions that cause grievances
that lead to terrorism is simply not supported by the data. In fact, the use of
military force is actually associated with declines in terrorism (see <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/five-myths-about-isis.html">here</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">here</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">here</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/droning-on-amnesty-and-efficacy-of.html">here</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/review-of-missing-martyrs-terrorism.html">here</a> and the last study <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/mr-thomas-gradgrind-facts-and-terrorism.html">here</a>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I tweet new studies frequently
which add to what I call the emerging consensus against Robert Pape’s thesis. I
would urge everyone to beware of “<a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/12/beware-the-man-of-one-study/">The Man with One Study</a>” and carry out your
own investigations but what follows are recent studies that I think reinforce that
consensus and, in one or another, erodes the Greenwaldian thesis[3]:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><u style="text-indent: -18pt;">Berger, ‘What shapes Muslim public opinion on
political violence against the United States?’, <i>Journal of Peace Research</i>,
Volume 51, Issue No. 6 (2014)</u><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> – “...perceptions of controversial US
policies toward Israel, Middle Eastern oil, or the perceived attempt to weaken
and divide the Muslim world are not related to support for attacks on civilians
in the United States... Approval of attacks on US civilians is shaped, instead,
by negative views of US freedom of expression, culture, and people, disapproval
of the domestic political status quo and the notion of general US hostility
toward democracy in the Middle East” (see </span><a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/527955805027713024" style="text-indent: -18pt;">this table</a><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><u style="text-indent: -18pt;">Ahmad, ‘The Role of Social Networks in the
Recruitment of Youth in an Islamist Organization in Pakistan’, <i>Sociological Spectrum</i>, Volume 34, Issue
6 (2014)</u><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> – “Findings reveal that young people who joined this organization
did not necessarily do so because of their ideological affinity, political or
social grievances or because of macro-level events occurring in the national or
global arena, such as the U.S.-led war on terror” (see also </span><a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/541186620977057792" style="text-indent: -18pt;">this quote</a><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">).</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><u style="text-indent: -18pt;">Hultman et al, ‘United Nations Peacekeeping
and Civilian Protection in Civil War’, <i>American
Journal of Political Science</i>, Volume 57, Issue 4 (2014) –</u><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> “Using unique
monthly data on the number and type of UN personnel contributed to peacekeeping
operations, along with monthly data on civilian deaths from 1991 to 2008 in
armed conflicts in Africa, we find that as the UN commits more military and
police forces to a peacekeeping mission, fewer civilians are targeted with
violence. The effect is substantial—the analyses show that, on average,
deploying several thousand troops and several hundred police dramatically
reduces civilian killings” (see </span><a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/528899696249823232" style="text-indent: -18pt;">this table</a><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><u style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">D'Alessia, Stolzenberg and Dariano, ‘Does
Targeted Capture Reduce Terrorism?’, <i>Studies
in Conflict & Terrorism</i> Volume 37, Issue 10 (2014)</u><span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;"> – “Using
quarterly data and an interrupted times-series Auto Regressive Integrative
Moving Average (ARIMA) study design, we investigated the effect of Abimael
Guzmán's capture on the ability of the Shining Path to wage its war against the
Peruvian government. Maximum-likelihood results revealed that the frequency of
terrorist acts committed by the Shining Path dropped by 143 incidents per
quarter a short time after Guzmán was captured” (see </span><a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/529405338672705536" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">this table</a><span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">).</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
These studies are all from late
2014 – all have come out since my last post. The literature on the Greenwaldian
thesis is so clear that it really is like beating a horse that was killed years
ago. I could go on but I wanted to
direct my focus to another argument. At
its most extreme, it comes from the right but in lesser forms, you’ll find it
amongst many on the left: it’s the idea that terrorism has something to do with
religion, or more particularly that it has something to do with Islam. In many
ways, this narrative is as empirically weak as the anti-American blowback
narrative. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Milestones<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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I recently came across a “white
paper” put out by <a href="http://councilonglobalsecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Flawed-Science-Behind-US-CT-Strategy.pdf">Katharine C. Gorka</a> (the kind of person who likes to talk
about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East to the exclusion of
Muslims). In it, she rebukes every single U.S President since Reagan because
they have ‘tried to address the reality of terrorism against the United States
by Muslims who claim jihad as their justification, while at the same time
trying to avoid any direct condemnation of Islam in the context of that
terrorism.’ This is misguided, Gorka claims, because it is <i>Islam </i>that is what motivates these people.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The empirical literature does not
support the role that many, like Gorka, give to religion and Islam.[4] I will
be looking at the literature in three areas: (a) on the incidence of terrorism
(which will show there is nothing unique about Islam relating to terrorism); (b)
on the characteristics of terrorists (which will show there is no link between
religiosity and terrorism). In the next section, I will discuss three
conceptual issues to maintaining a link between Islam and terrorism. </div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>(a) On the incidence of terrorism <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Conrad and Milton (2013) give a
good starting point for looking at the literature. In their study, they note
that if there is a connection between Islam and terrorism, ‘then countries with
more adherents to Islam might experience and/or produce more terrorism than
countries with fewer followers of Islam.’ After controlling for a wide range of
variables, ‘Muslim states do not systematically produce more terrorism than
non-Muslim.’ The variables they control for, however, are less convincing in
terms of the more general research (this criticism is far too broad to detail
here). </div>
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<br /></div>
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Nonetheless, it aligns with much
of the data on terror threats <i>within </i>the
U.S and Europe. Loonwatch is rightly
derided for having content that is usually un-nuanced and hyperbolic – but they
do, in two posts, make particular good use of some official statistics. The <a href="http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/not-all-terrorists-are-muslims/">first</a>
relates to the FBI’s statistics which report that from 1980 to 2005, “Islamic
extremists” accounted for 6% of terrorist attacks. More recently, the New
America Foundation has produced some data on who is behind terrorist attacks in
the U.S. They find that Islamist terrorists have carried out four attacks killing
17 since 9/11 and right-wing terrorists have carried out eight attacks killing
9 people. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The <a href="http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/11/updated-europol-data-less-than-1-of-terrorist-attacks-by-muslims/">second</a>
Loonwatch post relates to Europol data which, for an extremely limited data set
finds that Islamist terrorists are responsible for less than a percentage of
terrorist attacks. These two posts need to be qualified. Firstly, the data is
intended to show that there is nothing unique about Muslim perpetrators and
terrorism. I am well aware that the risk from Islamist terrorism has grown on
U.S soil since 2001 – but the FBI statistic is still a significant data point.
Second, for reasons that I have outlined before regarding Al Qaeda being a form
of <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/enemies-of-peace-thunderous-peanuts.html">market state terrorism</a>, Islamist terrorism deserves more of our attention –
particularly in the UK where we do have separatist groups (which explains an
overwhelming bulk of the Europol results) and Islamist terrorism is the biggest
terror threat. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Thirdly, the data and research
under this head does not apply to the majority of terrorism around the world.
Given that I have said that Conrad and Milton study has significant drawbacks,
it is significant <a href="http://www.visionofhumanity.org/#/page/our-gti-findings">that</a> in ‘2013,
66% of all fatalities from claimed terrorist attacks were caused by four
terrorist groups: the Taliban, Boko Haram , ISIL and al-Qa’ida.’ This is partly
related to the previous caveat: Islamist terrorism is a form of ‘market state
terrorism’ and causes vast amounts of casualties. But these three
qualifications do not negate the point: there is clearly nothing unique to being Muslim and carrying out terrorist attacks (i.e, there are so many other groups that make up a significant amount of terrorism). </div>
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<br /></div>
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The most significant data point
on the incidence of terrorism is not the 66% figure, but the following from
Kurzman’s <i>The Missing Martyrs: </i>fewer
than 1 in 100,000 Muslims since 9/11 have been recruited by Islamist terrorists
(p.11). Those who wish to explain a causal role need to explain why that figure
is so low as to be insignificant. It’s a question I ask to blowback-advocates:
if foreign policy is the cause, why do we find rejection of Al Qaeda to be the
norm? Why, as the subtitle of Kurzman’s book asks, ‘are there so few Muslim
terrorists’? In the Ahmad (2014) study quoted above, he says the following: </div>
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<br /></div>
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There are
grievances to be found everywhere in the world, many of which never culminate
in the membership of a radical party or the formation of a social movements. If
there was a direct link between them, society would be swarming with countless
organisation and movements struggling for [resolution].</div>
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<br /></div>
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I would ask the reader to replace
‘grievances’ with ‘religion.’ Of course, someone could respond to all of the
above by saying ‘all that data shows is that terrorism is not unique to Muslims, that doesn’t mean
Islam or being Muslim does not play a causal role in carrying out terrorism.’ That is fair
(this subsection is really directed at more EDL types than Eustonite types).
Hence, we move on to the literature on the characteristics of terrorists and
their supporters. </div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>(b) Characteristics of terrorists<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
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The weakest form of evidence
that could be used is to ask what the terrorists themselves think about the
role of religion or foreign policy. Glenn Greenwald makes a habit of quoting
what terrorists say, followed by “See?!”. Of course, many who make the link
between Islam and terrorism will do the same thing. Of course, Greenwald will
never cite the literature which shows the opposite. For example, in a recent
study published in <i>Studies in Conflict
& Terrorism</i>, Botha had a small sample of al-Shabab terrorists who asked
why the joined the terrorist group. The results are summarised in the table
below: </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UVwLELX6KdA/VKKrYbrOYrI/AAAAAAAAAE4/BcQxZfBtXII/s1600/B1eSU5iIAAIZqaY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UVwLELX6KdA/VKKrYbrOYrI/AAAAAAAAAE4/BcQxZfBtXII/s1600/B1eSU5iIAAIZqaY.jpg" height="273" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
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</div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">Given recent events, I have seen
this quote from Zarqawi being used frequently:</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
I swear by God
that even if the Americans had not invaded out lands together with the Jews,
the Muslims would still be required <i>not </i>to
refrain from jihad but to go forth and seek the enemy until only God Almighty’s
shariah prevailed everywhere in the world (accurate translation from Hashim, <i>Middle East Policy, </i>Vol.1 Issue, No. 4)</div>
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<br /></div>
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In any event, just as we should
not use quotes about why people become terrorists, we shouldn’t use the Botha
study either. It’s steeped in social desirability biases and in any event, the
literature is mixed so doesn’t provide any answers. The literature on the
religiosity of terrorists, is, however consistent. Sageman (2008) in his sample
of 500 terrorists found that a ‘lack of religious literacy and education
appears to be a common feature among those that are drawn to [terrorist]
groups.’ MI5’s Behavioural Science Unit (2008) undertook a study ‘based on
hundreds of case studies by the security service’ to find the characteristics
of terrorists, they <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/20/uksecurity.terrorism1">found</a>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
...far from
being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not
practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually
be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly
religious households... </div>
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<br /></div>
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There is also support from
Nielson (2014) (a study that will be discussed further below). These aren’t
cherry picked studies, as Patel (2011) notes ‘overall, the available research
does not support the view that Islam drives terrorism or that observing the
Muslim faith—even a particularly stringent or conservative variety of that
faith—is a step on the path to violence.’ </div>
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<br /></div>
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Note that we find the same
results when we widen the pool to those who support terrorism. Berger (2014)
uses a vast amount of survey data from across the Muslim world to assess
Muslims’ views on terrorism, U.S culture and norms and their religiosity (it
was quoted above in the list of studies against the Greenwaldian thesis). Berger’s
(fourth) hypothesis was ‘among Muslim publics, support for political violence
against US civilians is associated with greater religiosity.’ What Berger found
was no clear relationship between Islam and support for terrorism: </div>
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</div>
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Udfb5k1BbGQ/VKKraHk1xMI/AAAAAAAAAFY/QDm_6sHvghY/s1600/image2B1OtAYRIMAASTd6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Udfb5k1BbGQ/VKKraHk1xMI/AAAAAAAAAFY/QDm_6sHvghY/s1600/image2B1OtAYRIMAASTd6.png" height="332" width="640" /></a></div>
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</div>
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</div>
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...earlier
findings about the pacifying role of religiosity in the Muslim world find
confirmation in the case of Egypt where those who claim to adhere to the
Islamic precept of five daily prayers (3.7%) are substantially less likely to
support terrorism against US civilians than those who did not (10.8%)... The
relationship is the reverse in Pakistan [where] the probability of a respondent
endorsing attacks on civilians in the United States increases from 4.3% if he
does not pray five times a day to 13.5% if he does. [There is a] lack of a pattern
in Indonesia.</div>
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<br /></div>
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If there was a link between
Islam, we would expect terrorists and their supporters to be the most
observant, pious and have the highest measures of religiosity. But we don’t.
This explains why you shouldn’t be surprised when you read that those heading off
for Syria <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2014/08/what-jihadists-who-bought-islam-dummies-amazon-tell-us-about-radicalisation">purchase</a>
‘Islam for Dummies’, the 9/11 highjackers <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/14/miami-club.htm">went</a>
to a strip club, Zarqawi was a pimp and Bin Laden’s computer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/world/asia/14binladen.html">had</a> a ‘considerable
quantity of pornographic videos.’ </div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Religion and Causation<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
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There will be those who are not
satisfied by the above. They may even engage in the following sophistry: <i>being a Muslim is not related to terrorism,
but Islam is. Islam does have an association/causal role in terror, but only
amongst Muslims who take their faith seriously. </i>Before moving on to the
conceptual issues with this argument, it’s worth noting how weak this argument
is through the Nielson (2014) study. Nielson looked at ‘27,124 fatwas,
articles, and books by 101 contemporary clerics’ and tried to measure the
characteristics that made them more likely to support ‘Jihadi ideology.’ In his
study is hidden this nifty graph:<br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pWSMb1GxaYg/VKKraekugUI/AAAAAAAAAFk/yxVr1qO62FY/s1600/image3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pWSMb1GxaYg/VKKraekugUI/AAAAAAAAAFk/yxVr1qO62FY/s1600/image3.png" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s very strange that the more
educated a cleric is about Islam, the less likely it is that he will support
‘Jihadi ideology.’ Nielson had previously found that ‘clerics with the best
academic connections had a 2-3% chance of becoming jihadist. This rose to 50%
for the badly networked.’ In fact we know that Quran readers are more likely to
support democracy (see <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/487618863568551937">this table</a>
from Hoffman and Jamal (2014)). </div>
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<br /></div>
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Leaving aside all of the this
literature, there is a conceptual issues about causation, agency and
responsibility. Many pride themselves on giving Middle Eastern Muslims <i>agency, </i>a concept that seems to have
been robbed of them by the prevalence of structuralist views. But the argument
about the connection between Islam and terrorism, seems to me to rob people of
agency as well. Here is Sam Harris talking about the connection between Islam
and certain behaviours (he is not necessarily talking about terrorism here): </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
I am never blaming
Islam for all the bad things Muslims have done in history. I am only blaming
Islam for the things that Muslims have done on the basis of the doctrine of Islam...
All I am asking for is honest conversation about the logical connection between ideas and
behaviour (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVl3BJoEoAU">38:16</a>). </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It should be apparent that one
thing that I have not sought to do in this post is to define what ‘Islam’ says
about terrorism. My own view is that Islam supports all manner of barbarity (in terms of the way it views women, gays, legitimate punishments) but
that a reasonable interpretation does not endorse terrorism. A mainstream
interpretation does not support terrorism. But this really isn’t an important
point: what Harris is doing is shifting <i>blame
</i>from the individual to a set of beliefs. This is a, at times, subtle but
definitely important change in emphasis for a number of reasons. No longer are
we blaming the individual who acted in a <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/torts-and-wrongs.html">free, informed and deliberate</a> manner
but we are focusing on a text. When you
take away from someone blame and responsibility for their decision, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/torts-and-wrongs.html">you rob them of agency</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I consider the principles at work
in a conversation about free speech to apply equally here. Currently in the U.S
there is a political controversy regarding ‘rhetoric’ and the extent to which
it is responsible for the death of two NYPD officers. “They have created an
atmosphere of severe, strong, anti-police hatred in certain communities” Rudy
Giuliani says “For that, they should be ashamed of themselves.” And it’s
nonsense. People are not there to be acted upon by elites or texts or Anjem
Choudary or Muhammed. They <i>choose </i>to
act in that way, and if they choose to act in that way after reading the book
and accepting it, the emphasis should be on their acceptance, not the book. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In response to Giuliani’s statements, Kevin Drum wrote a
pretty funny post on <a href="http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/12/lets-blame-conservatives-all-killings-theyre-responsible"><i>Mother Jones</i></a> listing various deaths
that the ‘right’ could be blamed for. He concluded with this: ‘Maybe lots of
people support lots of things, and we can't twist that generalized support into
blame for maniacs who decide to take up arms for their own demented reasons.’ I
would go further, Islam at its most heinous interpretation cannot be blamed for
the actions of its adherents. <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/torts-and-wrongs.html">That's what causation is about</a>. It can be criticised on rational grounds in the
abstract. This point is a rather moot one given the empirical literature
doesn’t allow people to make claims about the link between Islam and terrorism.
But even if the literature reversed overnight, this point would <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119898/bill-maher-ben-affleck-islam-debate-there-no-muslim-world?utm_content=buffer60c0c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">still
stand</a>:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Muslims may
act upon the organized collection of beliefs that comprise their faith... But
it’s not because those ideas sprang to life, jumped up out of the pages of the
Quran and into the minds of Muslims who were captive to their actions... Muslims
make conscious choices to act and when they do, for good or bad, that capacity
must not be diminished by fixating on lifeless doctrines.</div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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<b style="font-style: italic;"><u>Update (03/01/2015):</u> </b>I've been really pleased with the overwhelmingly positive response to this post. It's been shared, retweeted and viewed more than anything I've written. What's particularly pleasing is that it seems to have gained traction across the ideological divide. I'm glad the first section of this post summarised my views and gave further studies on the lack of a link between foreign policy and terrorism - it's usually people who rightly deny the link between Islam and terrorism that posit the blowback argument.<br />
<br />
On Harry's Place (and below here), there have been some criticisms of this post. I don't consider any of them strong (I would say that wouldn't I?) and only two of them are really worth responding to. The first relates to the data used in the section on the 'incidence of terrorism'. WetWork who calls me up on use of my statistics from the New America Foundation. WetWork is right to argue that New America Foundation under-estimates Islamist terrorism and I should have noted that. But I also should have <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/07/opinion/bergen-terrorism-wisconsin/">noted</a> that the data 'may well understate the toll of violence from right-wing extremists' too.<br />
<br />
But there is a broader point to make. This criticism is based on the premise that I am arguing that Islamist terrorism doesn't make up a disproportionate amount of terrorism. I am not. I explicitly acknowledge that 66% of the terrorism in the world is from four Islamist terrorist groups. I explicitly reject the Conrad and Milton study. I made explicit reference to what that subsection was doing and what it was not doing:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I will be looking at the literature in three areas: (a) on the incidence of terrorism (<b>which will show there is nothing unique about Islam relating to terrorism</b>)... Of course, someone could respond to all of the above by saying ‘all that data shows is that terrorism is not unique to Muslims, that doesn’t mean Islam or being Muslim does not play a causal role in carrying out terrorism.’ <b>That is fair</b> (<b>this subsection is really directed at more EDL types than Eustonite types</b>). Hence, we move on to the literature on the characteristics of terrorists and their supporters.</blockquote>
It's supposed to be a response to those who make the claim that 'not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.' <i>To that extent</i>, the New America Foundation, FBI statistics, the Conrad and Milton are useful. It's telling that WetWork doesn't criticise the FBI statistics. A commentor below, however, does criticise the FBI stats because it fails to take into account 'qualitative difference in crimes against property versus crimes against persons.' I agree, which is why I say 'for reasons that I have outlined before regarding Al Qaeda being a form of <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/enemies-of-peace-thunderous-peanuts.html">market state terrorism</a>, Islamist terrorism deserves more of our attention' - and in that sentence I linked to an old post of mine which states<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The substance of what Bobbitt says is important: they are global, decentralised and they cause a lot more deaths – and they intend to... And as crude as it is to suggest, larger or more frequent death tolls and attacks enhance the response to society in terms of consent. This is precisely why Islamist terrorism is such a threat: because of the intended fearful response it seeks.</blockquote>
Of course, I don't expect people to have read all the links I put in the post. But Anonymous' criticism suffers from the same fault of not realising the aim of that subsection: to show that terrorism is not unique to Muslims. The second criticism worth responding to comes from Lamia on Harry's Place. It's worth quoting the salient points in full:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mugwump is implictly using a 'no true Muslim' argument of his own - namely that if Muslim terrorists are not highly educated and qualified in Islamic study then they are not true Muslims and it is not fair to in any way blame 'Islam'... I think the theological path is unhelpful and impractical to the point of, well, pointlesness, but Mugwump is essentially treading the same path as his opponents, albeit from the other end of the garden. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Both are, in my view, erroneously using too narrow a definition of 'Islam' or indeed 'religion'. They both view Islam as a group of texts; they judge people to be proper Muslims in so far as they consider those people to accord with those texts. And here they get into a shouting match as group (a) will insist that Muslim terrorists are the real Muslims, because look at this verse, etcetera, while Mugwump and co will argue that on the contrary they are not real Muslims, because real Muslims who are better educated in their religion understand that the verses in fact mean this (or that; or whatever), etcetera, and only people with imperfect understanding of the religion are terrorists. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...I would suggest that it is of no value whatsoever who is theologically correct because neither is practically correct. <b>That is because a religion is not merely - or, perhaps, even mainly - its texts. It is both texts and associated humans and human structures</b> (i.e. its congregations, believers, adherents both devout and nominal, preachers, theologians etc of the time, and the organising structures, both dogmatic and actual factual). <b>That is to say, a religion is a mix of what it says and what its followers actually believe and - more importantly - actually do.</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The point is that while in certain respects a religion does not change much or at all - most usually and obviously with regard to its core texts - in other respects it can obviously change, and possibly greatly, especially in relation to the wider state and society... Likewise both Anjem Choudary and Majid Nawaz are constituents of 'Islam' today. All this is subject to change - for better or, of course, for worse.</blockquote>
I disagree. Islam's history is full of different schools of thought, different interpretations (something which a lot of people like Spencer and Gellar are loath to accept). But four things have to be stated: first, a definition of a religion which moves away from a doctrinal analysis is useless. Lamia accuses me of engaging in a 'No True Scotsmas' fallacy; the flaw of Lamia's view is to engage in 'Everyone is a Scotsman' fallacy. Second, the lack of a causal link here should be clear. It's bad enough when we hold <i>a human being </i>responsible for the acts of <i>another human being. </i>This becomes even more problematic when you try to make a causal link between a dead person/lifeless doctrines that are moulded by the a free actor. To put the points together: a Beatlist can listen to Lucy in the Sky, stab everyone and we can say (i) that is a legitimate part of Beatles-ideology and (ii) we can criticise the Beatles for their role in the stabbing. It's absurd.<br />
<br />
Third, I am very explicit about why my analysis does not rely on a particular interpretation of Islam being the 'true' one. Agency eradicates the need to do this. (To this end, Jacobin makes a very weak argument in which he misunderstands what I'm trying to say about 'agency' when he says 'Mugwump is impressed and persuaded by the ideas of Adam Smith and JS Mill, so Ayman al Zawahiri was impressed and persuaded by those of al Banna'). Fourth, if we are really going to hold the faith responsible for an act because of its believers, then surely we have our evidence in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not approve of Al Qaeda? Surely religiosity of adherents is relevant in assessing the link between doctrine and 'adherents'? It seems to be the distinction that Lumia is making doesn't affect the empirical analysis given above.<br />
<br />
Which brings me to my concluding remark: in this post I extol the virtues of data, studies and peer reviewed literature. The most signficant section in this post is 'characteristics of terrorists' - and <i>no one </i>has directly addressed it. Even if you agree with Lumia, that section simply will not allow you to come to a different conclusion. There are other criticisms of the post on Harry's Place (some people ignorantly give weight to quotes from Islamists; others come up with howlers to undermine data like 'academia is no bastion of objectivity' and 'Having data isn't enough'; others still accuse me of Islam apolgetics) but they are weak enough that I don't want to spend time responding to them as people will see through them.<br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Footnotes <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Apologies for the extensive footnotes that have very little to do with
the substantive part of this post. I’m off work and have time so I thought I’d
handle a few small things in the footnotes. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[1] In a particularly heinous <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2014/dec/10/owen-jones-property-developers-bankers-global-menace-comment-is-free-video"><i>Guardian </i>video</a>, Owen Jones tells us that
the real issue with the housing market is <i>property
developers</i>. Not once does he get anywhere near the real problem: supply-side
restrictions on housing. The most enlightening research on this subject comes
from Hilber and Vermeulen (2010) who find that house prices would be ‘21.5 to
38.1 per cent lower if the planning system were relaxed.’ This as Niemietz
notes in <i>Redefining the Poverty Debate </i>is
likely understating the issue considerably because they assume that no planning
controls existed prior to 1974 and the model assumes further development
restrictions (p.79). Again, this literature is <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/464355070742913024">fairly</a> <a href="http://www.cityam.com/article/1398192593/just-three-reforms-would-transform-uk-recovery-sustainable-boom">consistent</a>.
The ramp up in property prices, by the way, explains pretty much the entire
rise in capital as a percentage of national income (the main measure Piketty
uses in <i>Capital </i>for defining rising
inequality) as you can see from the graph below taken from Atkinson (2011):</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SbvNpdEOjBI/VKKrYSd7lGI/AAAAAAAAAE8/TOZ_D3jNCpM/s1600/foonote1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SbvNpdEOjBI/VKKrYSd7lGI/AAAAAAAAAE8/TOZ_D3jNCpM/s1600/foonote1.jpg" height="243" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Note also that capital/income
ratio is ‘actually stable or only mildly higher’ when you measure property not
in terms of its value but the rents that it gathers (a more accurate measure of
the wealth that it produces). This is a finding from Bonnet et al (2014) (see <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/464041337533124609">this chain</a>
of tweets for a summary and the important graphs). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[2] Given that this is a post
about Islam, I wont bore the readers of my footnotes with what I hope they
already know about the economic benefits of increased immigration. There is
however some literature that addresses how well Muslims integrate into Western
culture. There is a lot of polling to suggest, for example, that British
Muslims have abhorrent views when it comes to homosexuality and free speech (see
here for an aggregate of <a href="http://my.telegraph.co.uk/danielpycock/danpycock/956/what-do-british-muslims-think-of-the-uk/">poll
results</a>). As I write later in this post, we shouldn't rob these individual of
agency by saying that Islam is the cause. We should hold them accountable for
their views (and fortunately, in many areas we see a divide which shows how
there is no necessary connection). But it’s also worth somewhat downplaying the
‘creeping Sharia’ or ‘Muslims are going to change the character of our nation’
line of argument (not only because of the <a href="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/08/29/book-excerpt-the-muslim-tide-that-wasnt/">dubious</a>
demographic surrounding the issue). </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This line of argument is not
entirely without merit. Bisin et al (2007) find that Muslim immigrants
integrate at a slower pace than non-Muslim immigration: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9plsqA3rqqY/VKKrZP1J5WI/AAAAAAAAAFI/mOocwXYUcp8/s1600/footnote2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9plsqA3rqqY/VKKrZP1J5WI/AAAAAAAAAFI/mOocwXYUcp8/s1600/footnote2.png" height="252" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Bisin et al’s study however, has
not been replicated indicating that there was some kind of error (Arai et al
(2011)). Bisin et al (2011) however accounted for the bad results and said that
their results could be replicated, although somewhat weaker that the graph
above. Inglehart and Norris (2012), however, find more optimistic results.
Given Bisin et al’s weak results, the lack of replication it is worth focusing
on Inglehart and Norris’ more robust findings:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GG7x1xSddqM/VKKrZcvMF-I/AAAAAAAAAFU/aZ_8644M66k/s1600/footnote2b.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GG7x1xSddqM/VKKrZcvMF-I/AAAAAAAAAFU/aZ_8644M66k/s1600/footnote2b.png" height="293" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
the analysis
demonstrates that the basic values of Muslims living in Western societies fall
roughly half‐way between the dominant values prevailing within their countries
of destination and origin. This suggests that migrant populations living in
Rotterdam, Bradford and Berlin are in the process of adapting to Western
cultures, while at the same time continuing to reflect the values learnt
through primary socialization in their original countries of origin... n the
long‐term, the basic cultural values of migrants appear to change in conformity
with the predominant culture of each society.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UTYfK1fOUuk/VKKrZ1hgUYI/AAAAAAAAAFg/u0eEGyoCFyQ/s1600/footnote2c.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UTYfK1fOUuk/VKKrZ1hgUYI/AAAAAAAAAFg/u0eEGyoCFyQ/s1600/footnote2c.png" height="231" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
... although
Western Muslims are consistently located between Islamic and Western societies,
there is no evidence that generational change, by itself, will transform the
situation so that the cultural differences between Muslim migrants and Western
publics will disappear: younger Westerners are adopting modern values even more
swiftly than their Muslim peers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Thanks to Ben Southwood for
directing me toward these studies. I’m sure people can cherry pick Bisin et al
or Inglehart and Norris – but at least then people aren’t making empirical
claims without any empirical research. I have explained why I think the latter
study is more rigorous but am open to saying the literature is not, at this
point, conclusive. One indication however is to look again at these graphs and
see that religiosity is declining. This is significant because once you account
for religiosity, many of the socially conservative views of Muslims can be explained
away (Lewis and Kashyap, 2013). See also <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/12/16/no-difference-in-religious-fundamentalism-between-american-muslims-and-christians/">these
results</a> from the U.S where Muslims are far more integrated. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[3] In the interests of transparency,
I wanted to bring people’s attention to Romano et al (2013). I hadn’t come across
this study until last week. It finds that ‘non-Anbar SOI rather than the troop
surge reduced casualty rates in Iraq.’ This study does very little to counter
the wealth of literature available on the Surge and how it was both Sons of
Iraq and U.S troops that were required to reduce violence (Biddle et al 2012).
It also does nothing to counter Smith’s (2007) findings either (see an
elaboration of each in my <a href="file:///C:/Users/Mustafa/Desktop/anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/five-myths-about-isis.html">last
post</a>). </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[4] Generally, contrary to the
widespread belief, it does not appear that religion is <i>particularly </i>violent either. See this article by <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/06/god-and-the-ivory-tower/">Scott Atran</a>,
in particular: “The Encyclopedia of Wars surveyed 1,763 violent conflicts
across history; only 123 (7 percent) were religious. A BBC-sponsored "God
and War" audit, which evaluated major conflicts over 3,500 years and rated
them on a 0-to-5 scale for religious motivation (Punic Wars = 0, Crusades = 5),
found that more than 60 percent had no religious motivation. Less than 7
percent earned a rating greater than 3.”</div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Bibliography <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Ahmad, ‘The
Role of Social Networks in the Recruitment of Youth in an Islamist Organization
in Pakistan’, <i>Sociological Spectrum</i>,
Volume 34, Issue 6 (2014</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Arai et al,
'On Fragile Grounds: A Replication of 'Are Muslims Immigrants Different in
terms of Cultural Integration?', <i>Journal
of the European Economic Association</i> (2011)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Atkinson, ‘Wealth
and Inheritance in Britain from 1896 to the Present’, London School of Economic
and Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (2011) available at < <a href="http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/cp/casepaper178.pdf">http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/cp/casepaper178.pdf</a>>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Berger, ‘What
shapes Muslim public opinion on political violence against the United States?’,
<i>Journal of Peace Research</i>, Volume 51, Issue No. 6 (2014)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Bisin et al,
'Are Muslim Immigrants Different in Terms of Cultural Integration?', IZA
Discussion Paper (2007)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Bisin et al, ‘Errta
Corrige: Muslim Immigrants Different in Terms of Cultural Integration?', <i>Journal of the European Economic Association</i>
(2011)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Bonnet et al, ‘Does
housing capital contribute to inequality? A comment on Thomas Piketty’s Capital
in the 21st Century’, Sciences Po Economics Discussion Papers (2014) available
at <<a href="http://spire.sciencespo.fr/hdl:/2441/30nstiku669glbr66l6n7mc2oq/resources/2014-07.pdf">http://spire.sciencespo.fr/hdl:/2441/30nstiku669glbr66l6n7mc2oq/resources/2014-07.pdf</a>>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Botha, ‘Political
Socialization and Terrorist Radicalization Among Individuals Who Joined
al-Shabaab in Kenya’, <i>Studies in Conflict
& Terrorism</i>, Volume 37, Issue 11 (2014)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Conrad and
Milton, 'Unpacking the Connection Between Terror and Islam', <i>Studies in Conflict & Terrorism</i>, 36:4,
315-336 (2014)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
D'Alessia,
Stolzenberg and Dariano, ‘Does Targeted Capture Reduce Terrorism?’, <i>Studies in Conflict & Terrorism</i>
Volume 37, Issue 10 (2014)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Hultman et al,
‘United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection in Civil War’, <i>American Journal of Political Science</i>,
Volume 57, Issue 4 (2014)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Inglehart and
Norris, 'Muslim integration into Western cultures: Between origins and
destinations', <i>Political Studies, </i>Volume
60, Issue No. 2 (2012)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Lewis and
Kashyap, ‘Are Muslims a Distinctive Minority? An Empirical Analysis of
Religiosity, Social Attitudes, and Islam’, <i>Journal
for the Scientific Study of Religion</i>, Volume 52, Issue No. 3 (2013)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Nielson, ‘Networks,
Careers, and the Jihadi Radicalization of Muslim Clerics’ (2014) available at <<a href="http://www.mit.edu/~rnielsen/jihad.pdf">http://www.mit.edu/~rnielsen/jihad.pdf</a>>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Patel, ‘Rethinking
Radicalisation’, Brenan Centre for Justice (2011) available at <<a href="http://brennan.3cdn.net/f737600b433d98d25e_6pm6beukt.pdf">http://brennan.3cdn.net/f737600b433d98d25e_6pm6beukt.pdf</a>>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Romano et al, ‘Successful
and Less Successful Interventions: Stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan’, <i>International Studies Perspectives </i>(2013)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Sageman, <i>Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the
Twenty-First Century</i> (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-70404170969167248132014-10-05T04:10:00.001-07:002014-12-30T06:15:50.421-08:00Five Myths about ISIS<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
To some extent, the following
myths are all interlinked. The typical anti-war activist believes that the
current crisis is mainly political and financial and so military means are not
addressing the primary cause of the rise of ISIS. The idea that we’re going to
make it worse through military intervention isn’t just because its failing to
address the key causes but because it reinforces what went wrong: Maliki
alienated Sunnis and bombs will alienate Sunnis. And somewhat linked but not
entirely, they think because ISIS is a response to local conditions, ISIS is
not concerned with attacking the West. This post is addressed to these people –
their premises are false and so their conclusions and prescriptions are also
flawed. References for the academic studies cited are at the bottom and
footnotes are elaborations. Apologies for the length of Myths 1 and 2, Myth 5
should make up for it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 1: Military intervention will make things worse <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
To the three people who read this
blog regularly, I apologise that I am making this argument again. Fortunately,
I can make the same point using a different study. Patrick Johnston in a study
of militant degradation and its effect on end of conflicts and violence finds positive
results. His study systematically looked at 118 decapacitation efforts across
90 insurgency campaigns. Unlike previous studies (with the exception of one),
this looks at both decapacitation attempts that failed to hit their targets and
successful ones. This allows us to draw causal inferences because it gives us
appropriate counterfactuals. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Johnston finds that militant
decapacitation increases the probability of defeating the insurgency by 33
percentage points (Table 3, Column 5). There are positive results for both the
lethality of their attacks and their frequency as well:</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XQHA9Zcq77k/VDEjip7TwOI/AAAAAAAAAEE/LSdggosRW8g/s1600/decap2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XQHA9Zcq77k/VDEjip7TwOI/AAAAAAAAAEE/LSdggosRW8g/s1600/decap2.png" height="258" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This study is, as mentioned,
better than the previous literature because it looks at the counterfactual
(i.e., failing to killing militants). But it also means that these results may
not necessarily be because of the success of militant decapacitation. Rather,
they may be because failed attempts ‘incite mass resent, [and] these failures
could decrease the chance of war termination and counterinsurgent victory and
increase the chance of escalated levels of insurgent violence’ (p.66). I.e.,
rather than militant decapacitation being the reason there are positive
results, it could be because the consequence of failed attempts is so bad. Does
this match the data? Nope:</div>
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<br />
<!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SPkykpBui3c/VDEj_QpX5dI/AAAAAAAAAEc/AVkn7VT6TS8/s1600/decap3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SPkykpBui3c/VDEj_QpX5dI/AAAAAAAAAEc/AVkn7VT6TS8/s1600/decap3.png" height="213" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Indeed, the
estimated effect of failed attempts is small and far from statistically
significant, with -values that range from 0.356 to 0.788. Taken together, this
evidence strongly indicates that the successful removal of insurgent leaders,
not blowback from failed attempts, underlies my key findings [given above]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Military action can, therefore,
work to reduce violence. This study not only confirms but also refutes the
alternative hypothesis: i.e., the idea that it inflames the population to the
extent of having a tangible effect on the success of terrorism. This should not
be surprising: military action has reduced violence in <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">Iraq</a>,
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">Gaza</a>,
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/droning-on-amnesty-and-efficacy-of.html">Pakistan</a>,
the <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/bad-fences-and-bad-neighbours.html">West
Bank</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/461527165008617473">Mali</a>.
You can also add Johnston’s study to the emerging consensus against those who
are still arguing about blowback/foreign policy as a cause of terrorism. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In Iraq, the strategy that is
being pursued is far from ideal. There is currently a reliance on Shia
militias. These militias should not be trusted for three important reasons.
Firstly, moral: their loyalties ally with their illiberal ideologies rather
than with the rule of law or <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/isis-onslaught-iraq-victims-both-sides?CMP=twt_gu">human
rights</a>. Second, its short-sighted: the emboldening of Shia militias makes
it harder for them to be disarmed and consequently hard for a central,
pluralistic government to have control. <a href="http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/militia-mobilization-in-iraq-started-in.html">Joel
Wing</a> notes this point and goes on to make another significant point: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
...it will be
nearly impossible for the state to rid itself of the militias once the fighting
ends. They were never disarmed nor disbanded and now some of them such as the
Badr Organization and the League of the Righteous have become allies of the
prime minister... Iran’s influence is growing with this increasing use of
militias. All of them but the Sadrists are beholden to Tehran... they don’t
realize is that these militias will not go away when the fighting is over, and
neither will Iran keeping the government weak, which was why it couldn’t stand
up to the militants in the first place</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Thirdly, and most significantly,
Shia militias and the Iraqi army are simply not as well trained or capable as
we are (on which, see below). A note on two things I am <i>not </i>saying: the killings of Sunnis will inflame the population to
the extent that it will cause “blowback” (for reasons that should be obvious
now). I am also not saying that air strikes wont cause significant damage to
ISIS. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
By contrast, the ideal strategy –
or one that comes close – is one based on the empirical literature. The most
significant study is Biddle et al’s - an under-read study that would refute
many different ideas that are currently floating around. I have previously discussed
this study and the methodology and the extensive data they rely on is discussed
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">there</a>.
To recap, there were two broad strategies prior to 2007 to quell Islamist
violence in Iraq. They both failed and it was only in 2007 that violence
dropped. One failed strategy was the Sunnis attempting to realign against
extremist forces without U.S support, as Biddle notes:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
[1] The Nimr
reached out to U.S. forces in early 2004 to make common cause against al-Qaida
by standing up tribesmen as local police and civil defense forces in exchange
for U.S. money, weapons, and support. In 2004, however, the U.S. military had
little to offer in the way of direct protection; a single Special Forces
detachment of a dozen soldiers was assigned to work with the Nimr and
coordinate their security</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
[2] Sunnis
from the Albu Mahal tribe in al-Qaim (together with Albu Nimr elements from the
city of Hit) created an armed resistance movement dubbed the “Hamza Brigade.”
AQI fought back, and by May the Hamza Brigade was seeking U.S. military
assistance. They received little.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
[3] The fourth
failed realignment was dubbed the “Anbar People’s Council” and began in late
2005. Organized by seventeen tribal elders mostly from the Fahad tribe... Its
leaders and many of its members were insurgents from the 1920s Brigade (a
prominent Sunni guerilla faction) who had become disaffected by AQI’s criminal
activities and expropriation of local smuggling income. On November 28, 2005,
they decided to break with AQI and support the coalition, directing tribesmen
into the police for local security duty. The coalition accepted these recruits,
but failed to protect their leadership. By early 2006, AQI counterattacks
against the group had become extremely violent</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Without even looking at the data
(of which there is plenty) there is a clear pattern of Sunni militias turning
against AQ and then not having support from U.S military personnel to make a
significant difference. So when you read in <i><a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/article4199627.ece">The Times</a> </i>that...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Those of us
that witnessed the breathtaking courage of the Iraqi Sunni population that
resisted al- Qaeda in 2007 know that it is only they, and not we, who can
defeat Islamic State</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
...it’s an ahistorical misreading
of what happened in 2007 that gives the wrong prescription. <i>The Times </i>extract is more accurately
describes the failed policy that was pursued between 2005-6. The difference
between what happen in 2005 and 2007 is the presence of U.S military personnel.
The policy of simply letting Sunni groups rise up against ISIS not only ignores
the Johnston study (generally about counter-insurgencies) but also the Biddle
study which found that it was U.S military personnel working alongside Iraqi
Security Forces that worked to reduce the violence. This is what happened to
violent incidents when U.S military personnel was there (each graph charts the
rate of violence (y axis) over time (x axis) in different areas of operation):</div>
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<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cTRdz9rGk3E/UaDh3u5O3EI/AAAAAAAAACE/FuWHEdRKvbc/s1600/iraqsoi.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cTRdz9rGk3E/UaDh3u5O3EI/AAAAAAAAACE/FuWHEdRKvbc/s1600/iraqsoi.png" height="241" width="640" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And that should answer what the
ideal strategy is. It is one that has worked in Iraq. It’s one that follows
directly from both studies: we need boots on the ground to support local forces
so that we can decapacitate ISIS. The Kagans in their <a href="http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Defeating%20ISIS.pdf">policy
paper</a> endorse such a plan. Their plan takes into account many of the
criticisms given above: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
A strategy of
basing in Kurdistan and Shi’a Iraq and providing air support to Kurdish troops
and ISF forces intermingled with Shi’a militias and Iranian advisers may
achieve some initial successes, but will ultimately fail... [The first aim
should be to] disrupt ISIS sufficiently to prevent it from retaking the
initiative and launching either currently-planned operations or offensives
[which] will likely require the deployment of not more than 25,000 ground
forces supported by numerous air and naval assets.. Keeping two battalions on
QRF [quick reaction force]-alert all the time requires a total of six
battalions (or two brigades) deployed — around 7,000 soldiers in all.
Additional forces will be required to secure any temporary bases established in
Iraq or Syria and to provide logistical support.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 2: This is a predominantly a political problem that requires a
political solution<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>(a) One good reason why it’s a myth: </b>The idea is that this is a <i>political </i>problem and therefore requires
a political solution is also a myth. This has been littered throughout many
articles written about the current campaign – from <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/a-plan-to-fight-the-islamic-state-1408750016?mod=fox_australian"><i>Wall Street Journal</i></a> to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/08/us-air-strikes-iraq-islamic-state-iraqis?CMP=twt_gu"><i>The Guardian</i></a>. The argument is that
the Iraqi government acted in a sectarian way and so the Sunni population has
become alienated and this has allowed ISIS to operate. In my previous post I
noted the literature is clear that political support is not an impediment to
military success. The support comes <i>after
</i>military victory. The idea that we can explain ISIS’s rise on Maliki’s <i>political </i>sectarianism is, therefore, not
supported Cohen (2014):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
In fact, [in] Anbar... the
number of [violent] incidents had declined by over 90 per cent. After that point, between
60 per cent and 80 per cent of Anbaris believed that their neighborhoods were
secure. This sense of security, however, did not immediately translate into
support for the Iraqi government [it took until October 2008]... Ultimately,
Anbar shows an important progression: first, the insurgency is defeated, then
the population feels secure and then only then, can the counterinsurgent win
‘hearts and minds’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This is a consistent finding
across the three campaigns studied (Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam). If Maliki
(and now Abadi) had the military power, he could take the territory back.
Political views of the population do not impede such a process. For those interested in an elaboration of this study, see <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/mr-thomas-gradgrind-facts-and-terrorism.html">this post</a>. Aside from this
very specific and directly relevant study, we have two additional reasons for
pushing back against claims that this is a “political problem” rooted in
Maliki’s sectarianism. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>(b) Two more good reasons<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>(i) General studies</i><b>: </b>The
rationale of the opposing argument is that the Sunni population has become
alienated and so has given space to ISIS. The logic of this argument is the
same logic that permeates through those who think that Western foreign policy
grievances cause terrorism. There is simply no evidence (see a number of my
previous posts) – as I said, the Johnston study above is part of an emerging
consensus against the Robert Pape, Greenwaldian school of thought. Somewhat
amusingly, there is another strand of research that is relevant here.
Neoconservatives were derided for their idea that a lack of democracy was a
cause of terrorism. And they were absolutely right to be derided: there is
simply no link in the empirical literature between lack of democracy and
violent extremism. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Piazza (2008) notes that ‘most
empirical studies of terrorism tend to demonstrate a positive relationship
between political democracy [not authoritarianism] and terrorism’. Piazza
(2007) is the strongest and most rigorous of these studies. His study looks at
both international terrorism and domestic terrorism and uses data from 1972 to
2003 covering 19 Middle Eastern countries. He finds that ‘more liberal Middle
Eastern political systems are actually more susceptible to the threat of
terrorism than are the more dictatorial regimes.’ For those interested in a
qualtitative study, <i>Islamist Terrorism
and Democracy in the Middle East </i>by Katerina Dalacoura is an okay book
which I may get round to reviewing at some point. Needless to say, her
conclusion is also that there ‘is no necessary causal link between the lack of
democracy in the Middle East and Islamist terrorism’ (p.180).[1]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Why is this research relevant?
Because when people talk about Maliki’s sectarianism, they do not simply mean
his military action against Sunnis, they mean his sectarian political policies
that have alienated Sunnis. They say his policies are not pluralistic,
democratic or liberal and these have led to terrorism. The research above
should steer us away from such arguments: Maliki’s lack of pluralism would have
to buck the trend of authoritarian states having less terrorism. In case its
not obvious: of course, democracy should still be promoted as good in and of
itself as well as its other benefits.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
For those particularly interested
in some more studies, I recently came across this study that puts another hole
in the “the-West-is-responsible-for-everything-because-of-Sykes-Picot”
argument. It is also relevant in showing how there is nothing <i>determined </i>about the current state of
Iraqi animosity between Shia and Sunni. Admittedly, the Robinson (2014) study
uses data from 16 African nations but the results are still interesting:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Colonial
legacy theories also predict that ethnic group partition is problematic for
engendering a common national identity. By contrast, the results show that
being a member of a partitioned [by artificial borders] ethnic group is instead
positively related to identifying with the territorially defined nation over
one’s ethnic group... the legacies touted as impediments to widespread national
identification in Africa—ethnic diversity and cultural partition—are, if
anything, positively related to national over ethnic identification within
African countries. [All the results are summarised on Table 3 on p.726 which I
recommend looking at].</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>(ii) Specific facts</i><b>: </b>Second,
we don’t need to refer to these two research strands: Sunni military opposition
to ISIS is understated and military support to ISIS is overstated. The Biddle
et al study notes how local forces were significant (when used in conjunction
with the U.S military) in defeating the insurgency in 2007. If the argument
that Maliki’s sectarianism is correct, we should expect the absence of Sunni
opposition to ISIS. But the groups that were significant in 2007 remain
committed to fighting ISIS: the Anbar
Awakening Council and Foundation Council of the Sons of Iraq are fighting
against ISIS. Joel Wing <a href="http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/violence-in-iraqs-anbar-highlights.html">noted</a>
back in January:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Almost all of
the Anbar sheikhs were involved with the Awakening and remember the excesses
the Islamic State’s predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq perpetrated in the province,
and don’t want to see it return.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Not only that, but as Aymenn
Jawad al-Tamimi (2014) shows us, there are several <i>new </i>Sunni groups that have popped up specifically in response to
ISIS: Kata’ib al-Mosul is one which</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
...consists of
a number of sub-battalions, including one known as the “Revenge for the Martyrs
Battalion” which invokes as a grievance against IS the blowing up of the
shrines of the Prophets Jonah and Seth, as well as the killing of innocents,
forced displacement of Christians from Mosul and the attacks on Yezidis.
Similarly the “Zalzal Battalion” of Kata’ib al-Mosul invokes IS’s
transgressions against holy sites and denounces IS as “khawarij”--a common allegation
in present Sunni religious discourse which disparages IS for its extreme
conduct.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Harakat Ahrar al-Mosul is another
group, as is Kata’ib al-Hamza, as is Kata’ib Sayf al-Haq. These are groups made
up of various Sunni tribes (including ‘a number of Anbar sheikhs’). These
groups should not exist if you followed the logic of those banging on about
Maliki’s sectarianism. The <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/world/middleeast/isis-iraq-airstrikes.html">New
York Times</a> </i>produced a report which sought to downplay the extent of
Sunni opposition to ISIS. The first paragraph of the quote is all doom and
gloom and its only until you read further down that you realise the situation
is nowhere near as bad as stated: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Behind the
government’s struggles on the battlefield is the absence or resistance of many
of the Sunni Muslim tribes that officials in Baghdad and Washington hope will
play the decisive role in the course of the fight... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Wasfi al-Aasi,
a Sunni Arab tribal leader who leads a pro-government council of sheikhs in
Baghdad, said the biggest tribes had signaled their support against the Islamic
State and were establishing “national guard” units in six provinces.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Back on our side of the pond, <i><a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/iraq/article4178445.ece">The
Times</a> </i>notes reports of 25 tribes rising up against ISIS. Of course, lets
not avoid the key issue: these groups are weak. A reliance on them, without
Western military support, will – as with Shia militias – end in failure. There
are evidently some Sunnis that support ISIS but the idea that these individuals
are people we can work with or that they arose in response to Maliki’s
oppression is nonsense. The Naqshbandi Army (JRTN) are made up of Saddam’s
former henchmen, they remain Baathists opposed to the democratically elected
government of Iraq. They are also the most powerful non-ISIS non-governmental
Sunni military force. There is ‘<a href="http://www.aymennjawad.org/2014/08/naqshbandi-army-statement-24-august-analysis">no</a>
indication of any intention of a plan to confront the Islamic State (IS) on a
broader scale despite the distancing from IS' actions against minorities and
heritage sites.’ al-Tamimi notes that through coercion and co-opation, they
have assisted ISIS. ISIS has been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/world/middleeast/iraq.html?_r=1">gunning</a>
JRTN <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/2014/07/08/Islamic-State-rounds-up-ex-Baathists-to-eliminate-potential-rivals-in-Iraq-s-Mosul.html">people</a>
down despite JRTN helping them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There are two reasons why we
shouldn’t think JRTN is a political problem (i.e., it arose from the political
grievances of the Sunnis and can be dealt with by solving those grievances).
First, their political grievances are irreconcilable with democratic
governance. There is a reasonable debate amongst analysts as to whether JRTN
can be brought on side. Shane Harris in <i><a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/21/the_re_baathification_of_iraq?utm_content=buffer0598e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">Foreign
Policy</a> </i>argues because the marriage of convenience between JRTN and ISIS
is coming to an end, it provides an opportunity to make ‘some political
alliances with ex-Hussein loyalists’ – including by allowing them to join the
government. My view is that this would simply not work. As al-Tamimi states,
this is a deeply mistaken view <a href="http://www.aymennjawad.org/2014/08/naqshbandi-army-statement-24-august-analysis">because</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
... [by] its
very nature, JRTN is a revolutionary organization and any support for it is
fundamentally incompatible with any kind of perceived support for the Iraqi
government in Baghdad... To the extent that Baghdad or the West could ever work
with JRTN members against IS with a view to restoring some kind of government
control over areas like Mosul and Tikrit- no matter how autonomous- it would be
such that these JRTN members cease to be JRTN, in so far as they realize the
futility of their goals of 'revolution' under their leadership and implementing
their political vision with the restoration the pre-2003 Ba'athist state.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Second, JRTN (the most powerful
group) and other Iraqi Sunni groups are simply not a significant reason for why
ISIS took over towns in Iraq. As
Alexandre Massimo <a href="http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/iraqs-deteriorating-security-situation.html?m=1">notes</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
In total ISIS
is probably responsible for some 75 to 95% of all insurgent attacks... To give
an example of the extent to which ISIS is the dominant group in the insurgency,
the regular monthly total of all Ansar al-Sunna operations in Iraq is
considerably less then the number of attacks ISIS carries out in a month in any
one of Iraq's provinces in which it is operationally active</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Those who seek to explain this crisis by pointing to Sunni alienation need to explain why over 75% of the violence was carried out by ISIS rather than non-ISI Sunni groups. If one wanted to fall back on
the blowback argument (the government caused ISIS) rather than the indirect
sectarianism one (the government caused support for ISIS/caused non-ISIS groups
to emerge), there are a lot of examples of former Baathists becoming henchmen
in ISIS (see this <i><a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/world/middleeast/army-know-how-seen-as-factor-in-isis-successes.html?_r=0&referrer=">New
York Times</a> </i>report) but its simply not significant enough to refute the
empirical literature I’ve cited against the typical blowback argument (see above, below, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">here</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">here</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/torts-and-wrongs.html">here</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/droning-on-amnesty-and-efficacy-of.html">here</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/review-of-missing-martyrs-terrorism.html">here</a> and the last study <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/mr-thomas-gradgrind-facts-and-terrorism.html">here</a>). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>(c) The actual problem </b>How, then, do we explain the rise of ISIS? We
can start with the academic record considers a solution and see if that
solution was present. In line with all of the research above, Smith (2009)
finds</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DORga-k-_Eg/VDEjk5-NH9I/AAAAAAAAAEU/uSk69Qviz5Q/s1600/smith.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DORga-k-_Eg/VDEjk5-NH9I/AAAAAAAAAEU/uSk69Qviz5Q/s1600/smith.png" height="335" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
<!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
...holding
political and socioeconomic factors constant, U.S. troop levels have a
statistically significant impact on levels of civilian violence in Iraq [i.e.,
they reduce violence]. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A conservative estimate, using a
lower co-efficient of -.0061 from Model 3, would be that that an increase of
15,000 troops (from 138,000 to 153,000) would lead to a 9.3% reduction in
violence. Note this is a conservative estimate and is based on high levels of
troops being present already. The reason I’m quoting this study is not just to
reinforce the message stated above about how U.S military personnel were
essential in bringing down violence but because of Smith’s conclusions which
now appear prophetic: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
In terms of
reducing troop levels in Iraq, this suggests that some reduction may be
merited... but will incur the risk of sparking violence again. The effect of
reducing troop levels now that violence is lower will be less severe than it would
have been in 2006 when the Surge began. However, since violence exhibits
self-sustaining proclivities it may be necessary to quickly reverse course if
violence increases substantially. This implies that a gradual and measured
reduction in troop levels is appropriate, with enough built-in slack to quickly
return troops if necessary</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The U.S withdrawal occurred too
soon without a capable military force taking over. U.S military planners wanted
a contingent of 24,000 troops to stay beyond 2011. According to the <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/world/middleeast/relief-over-us-exit-from-iraq-fades-as-reality-overtakes-hope.html">New
York Times,</a> </i>this was resisted by the Obama administration. Military
planners returned with ‘options of 19,000 troops, 16,000 troops and 10,000
troops.’ General Lloyd Austin preferred the highest number and called the
lowest number ‘unwise.’ The Obama administration then whittled it down to
5,000. These 5,000 didn’t stay because Iraq and the U.S failed to reach an
agreement on immunity for soldiers. Alexandre Massi notes how by drawdown, ISIS
had essentially been decimated: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
By the
drawdown of USF-I [U.S. Forces-Iraq] forces in late 2011 ISIS had collapsed
into a network of isolated cells and local units with a minimal centralized
hierarchical command structure. ISIS had the capacity to maintain a low-level
insurgency and carry out VBIED [Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device] wave
attacks and complex assaults, but not to control terrain or exercise area denial
against ISF and was no longer an existential threat to the Iraqi government.
Continuous, industrial-scale spec ops raids by Joint Special Operations Command
(JSOC) had massively degraded ISIS' attack capabilities and depleted its middle
and upper tier leadership and VBIED network, killing 34 of the 43 top ISIS
leaders. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
He goes on to say that</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
After the US
withdrawal in 2011, the ISF largely stopped carrying out proactive
counterinsurgency operations. Without U.S. troops in an advise and assist role,
the ISF fell back on reactive, ineffective search and raid operations,
large-scale clearing operations and a reactive operational posture of defense
of fixed positions like checkpoints and combat outposts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And that’s it: the Iraqi military was weak and Western forces which have proven so capable were simply not there.
This has been exacerbated because after the U.S left, many prisoners they were
holding swelled the ranks of ISIS. Moreover, ISIS launched a campaign
(‘Breaking the Walls’) to free their comrades from Iraqi prisons by targeting
said prisons. <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/isils-political-military-power-in-iraq">Knights</a>
is almost definitely right to state ‘ISIL is a military power mostly because of
the weakness and unpreparedness of its enemies.’ To elaborate further on this
weakness, the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-confronts-difficulties-in-arming-iraqi-air-forces-with-missiles-and-f-16s/2014/07/03/3784ac22-0224-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html?wpisrc=nl_hdtop&Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost"><i>Washington Post</i></a><i> </i>reported a whole litany of failures: </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 38.35pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 38.35pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->No Iraqi pilot team has qualified to fly F-16
fighter jets that U.S is due to deliver</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 38.35pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Only two planes in the Iraqi air force are
capable of firing hellfire missiles</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 38.35pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->[But the U.S approved sale of] Apache
helicopters, which are capable of carrying Hellfires. But as of Jan. 27, when
the State Department officially notified Congress of the deal, Iraq had not
signed the sales contract</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 38.35pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Iraq’s aging attack helicopters are armed only
with .50-caliber guns and 2.75-inch rockets and must fly vulnerably low to hit
a target</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 38.35pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Iraq was having difficulties in paying for the
training programme. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The report goes on to note that
the Iraqi air force and their pilots were due to obtain training in a plan
developed by the U.S military in 2011:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The CIA, the
National Security Agency and the secretive Joint Special Operations Command
offered help in developing target packages that pilots could use to hit
“high-value individuals” and mid-level commanders... But even before the U.S.
military left the country, the Iraqi government purged many of its best
intelligence officers and assets because they were either Sunnis or Kurds,
vastly degrading its ability to locate important terrorist target... Killing
terrorists was no longer the Shiite-dominated government’s top priority</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Of course some of the listed delays
and difficulties were unavoidable, even reasonable. There was a legitimate
worry that the Iraqi government would target the <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/27/iraq-government-attacking-fallujah-hospital">wrong
people</a>. It’s also clear from the report that Maliki’s <i>military </i>sectarianism did weaken the military ability to fight
Sunnis not because he alienated people so they turned against him and became
terrorists is wrong. The distinction is important because the latter idea is
based on the flawed blowback and “grievances to terrorism” analysis. This weakness
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/islamic-state-attack-on-iraqi-base-leaves-hundreds-missing-shows-army-weaknesses/2014/09/22/9a8b9e4d-0fea-4650-8816-5e720dbffd04_story.html">continues
today</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Summary</i><br />
<br />
Each point should show why this
is predominantly a military problem and not a political problem</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">We
know that political support is not an impediment to military success (Cohen
2014)</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">We
know that authoritarian/undemocratic/sectarian governments do not produce more
terrorism (Piazza 2007, 2008)</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">We
k</span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">now that Iraqi Sunni military opposition to IS exists (al-Tamimi 2014)</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">High
troop levels which could reduce violence were not present (Smith, 2009) and a
weak Iraqi military could not pursue an active policy to target ISIS which, as
predicted, leads to increases in violence.</span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 3: ISIS is not a threat to the West<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
If you made it this far, the last
three myths will be significantly shorter. You wouldn’t think that people would
be making the argument that ISIS are not a threat to the West. But Simon
Jenkins of <i>The Guardian </i>actually
stated on BBC Radio 4’s <i>Today Programme </i>that
‘it’s total rubbish [that they are a threat], the most they could do is set off
a few bombs in London.’ This argument was given some credible support by
Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, who said that it was primarily a
problem for the Middle East (which it is) but he went on to say countries like
the UK were ‘<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/07/islamist-terror-threat-out-proportion-former-mi6-chief-richard-dearlove">marginally
affected</a>.’ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There is no doubt the Middle East
is the primary victim of ISIS violence but to argue ISIS is not a threat to us
is gravely mistaken. Note, even if there wasn’t a threat to the West, given
that we have capabilities where Iraq does not, I would still support action.
But these groups were plotting to carry out attacks involving chemical weapons
against Western countries. It was fortunately caught by Iraqi Security
Forces. (The Long War Journal report <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/06/iraq_breaks_up_al_qa.php">refers</a>
to Al Qaeda in Iraq[2]). I hope it’s clear by now that we cannot and should not
put reliance on Iraq Security Forces for our security. U.S officials <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/islamic-state-working-to-establish-cells-outside-iraq-and-syria-us-says/2014/08/14/639c32b0-23f5-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html">have</a>
also come out as saying that ISIS is attempting to establish cells in Europe. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Fortunately we do not have to
rely on either Richard Dearlove or U.S officials, we have a study! Hegghammer (2013)
created his own dataset of Western terror plots using datasets from seven
previous studies (these include foiled attacks) for the period 1990 to 2010. He
found that one in nine foreign fighters return and attempt to carry out an
attack and that out of the 401 plots in his data, 107 were carried out by
individuals who were once foreign fighters (veterans). Given that we know that
roughly <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27947343">400-500</a> British individuals
are fighting for ISIS, this represents a significant threat – especially
because veterans are both more lethal and more successful: </div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ii7V5UX7Blo/VDEjk28-mUI/AAAAAAAAAEY/_z-jvOOLFng/s1600/heggha.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ii7V5UX7Blo/VDEjk28-mUI/AAAAAAAAAEY/_z-jvOOLFng/s1600/heggha.png" height="120" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There is another reason why ISIS
poses a threat to the West. <i><a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/28/found_the_islamic_state_terror_laptop_of_doom_bubonic_plague_weapons_of_mass_destruction_exclusive">Foreign
Policy</a> </i>obtained an ISIS laptop which contained</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
...a 19-page
document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize
the bubonic plague from infected animals... The document includes instructions
for how to test the weaponized disease safely, before it is used in a terrorist
attack.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/08/29/is_the_isis_laptop_of_doom_an_operational_threat_0">Foreign
Policy</a> </i>subsequently ran an article which rightly cautioned against reading
too much into it because it did not reveal an active capability, merely an
intention. However, that intention should still be taken seriously. As Phillip
Bobbit observes in <i>Terror and Consent, </i>‘advances
in technology are rapidly lowering the thresholds for the development,
deployment and deliverability of WMD.’ He goes on to quote an academic paper
published in <i>Biosecurity and Bioterrorism
</i>which states ‘this technology is gradually moving into the market place...
[This] will soon put highly capable tools in the hands of both professionals
and amateurs worldwide’ (p.102-3). Back in 2006, <i>The Guardian </i>ordered the DNA sequences for deadly pathogens over the
internet. In their <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jun/14/terrorism.topstories3">report</a>
of the affair, they made it clear why such a threat should be taken seriously: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The DNA
sequence of smallpox, as well as other potentially dangerous pathogens such as
poliovirus and 1918 flu are freely available in online public databases. So to
build a virus from scratch, a terrorist would simply order consecutive lengths
of DNA along the sequence and glue them together in the correct order. This is
beyond the skills and equipment of the kitchen chemist, but could be achieved
by a well-funded terrorist with access to a basic lab and PhD-level personnel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
ISIS has that level of funding
and the most telling thing about the discovery of the laptop wasn’t only the
intention to create biological weapons but that they had the personnel to do so.
That is not to say there aren’t significant difficulties in building these
weapons. But that doesn’t lessen the threat and the best way to explain why is
through the legal case of <i>Wagon Mound
(No. 2) </i>[1967] 1 AC 617. In that case, engineers were careless in taking
furnace oil aboard in the Sydney Harbour. So careless that oil leaked into the
water and drifted to a wharf where it was set alight accidentally. One of the
relevant questions for the Privy Council was whether, despite there being a
small risk of the oil catching fire, the engineers had a duty to prevent
against it. I believe their Lordships came to the right decision. Lord Reid
held</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
... it does
not follow that, no matter what the circumstances may be, it is justifiable to
neglect a risk of such a small magnitude. A reasonable man would only neglect
such a risk if he had some valid reason for doing so, e.g., that it would
involve considerable expense to eliminate the risk. He would weigh the risk
against the difficulty of eliminating it... The most that can be said to
justify inaction is that he would have known that this could only happen in
very exceptional circumstances. But that does not mean that a reasonable man would
dismiss such a risk from his mind... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 4: It’s a trap!<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Sunny Hundal writes in <i><a href="http://labourlist.org/2014/08/britain-has-to-fight-isis-but-should-be-wary-of-their-trap/">LabourList</a>
</i>that </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
A US and UK
led force destroying the most successful and largest Caliphate in recent times,
however reviled ISIS may be, would be very symbolic. It would be used as a
recruiting tool for terrorists for generations. This is why ISIS want to lure
us in and we must be wary of their plans.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A lot of this has been debunked
above – but its worth picking up two points. First is the idea that this has
what Jon Stewart in a segment on <i><a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/09/12/must_see_morning_clip_jon_stewart_takes_down_obamas_isis_speech/">The Daily Show</a> </i>called a ‘crusadey vibe.’ It doesn’t matter that this is a U.S
led coalition, it can still degrade ISIS if employed correctly. In any event,
there is a lot of Muslim opposition to ISIS (as there was of Al Qaeda). Hundal
doesn’t justify why Western intervention would be such a symbolically bad thing
to do given how ‘reviled ISIS’ is. It’s simply contradictory: ISIS is not considered
Islamic by Muslims but the West attacking an Islamic Caliphate will attract
Muslims. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Second, using this argument to reduce
or prevent intervention is fallacious. Sunny goes on to say that we should
still intervene but ‘it must be led by Arab forces, for symbolic, logistical
and theological reasons’ – the evidence above should show why reliance on Arab
forces is not remotely possible. But there is a better reason why such an
argument is flawed. What was Bin Laden’s rationale for organising 9/11? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
[He believed
the U.S response would be] one of two strategies: an eventual retreat from the
Middle East along the lines of the U.S. pullout from Somalia in 1993, or a full
scale American ground invasion of Afghanistan similar to the Soviet invasion of
1979, which would then allow [AQ et al] to fight a classic guerrilla war (<i>The Osama Bin Laden I Know, </i>Peter
Bergen, p.311)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Sayef Adel, another leading AQ
commander at the time, wrote that AQ’s ‘objective of these painful strikes
[i.e., 9/11] against the head of the serpent was to prompt it to come out of
its hole. This would make it easier for us to deal consecutive blows...’ (Ibid,
p.309). It is a good thing we ignored the intentions of Bin Laden and Sayef
Adel because the scale of terrorist training has <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/review-of-missing-martyrs-terrorism.html">dropped</a>
by 90%, Al Qaeda Central has essentially be decimated to the extent that <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/401093934681571329">many</a>
analysts no longer speak of AQC but “Al Qaeda Senior Leadership.” As Bergen
goes on to note, following the extract above, AQ ‘lost the best base it ever
had... it was a strategic disaster for the organization’ (p.311). The same
applies now: Sunny can cite ISIS’s intentions (without a source, I might add)
but the only relevant question remains whether we can cause another strategic
disaster – the evidence above shows that we can. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Myth 5: Cutting off ISIS funding from Gulf states is the way to deal
with it<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/06/16/isis_uses_mafia_tactics_to_fund_its_own_operations_without_help_from_persian_gulf_d">No</a>,
<a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/482112060529336320">no</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/15/iraq-isis-arrest-jihadists-wealth-power?CMP=twt_gu">no</a>
and <a href="http://dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Jul-03/262530-extremist-group-takes-syrias-key-oil-field.ashx">no</a>.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Footnotes<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[1] Note that the empirical literature does become somewhat mixed when looking at suicide terrorism and specifically the lethality of attacks. Piazza in a 2007 paper in the <i>Journal of Politics </i>finds that ‘terrorists, however, who are nationals of nondemocracies are significantly more likely to launch suicide attacks.’ The most significant finding in the literature is that <i>failed states </i>are those which are most linked with terrorism. For those who need more evidence that ISIS’ rise comes from a security vaccum created by a weak Iraqi military, these types of studies provide it (taken from Piazza, 2008):</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fuy8fF83y6E/VDEmkOlUqmI/AAAAAAAAAEo/uiKyOp4oR1Q/s1600/heggha.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fuy8fF83y6E/VDEmkOlUqmI/AAAAAAAAAEo/uiKyOp4oR1Q/s1600/heggha.png" height="140" width="640" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[2] Speaking of AQI, its worth bursting the myth that ISIS ‘was kicked out of Al Qaeda for being so brutal’ (<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/21/the_re_baathification_of_iraq?utm_content=buffer0598e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">example</a>). This is another misreading of what happened in 2007 after AQI was decimated. As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unYSf6uEy-U">Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi</a> makes clear, AQI was subsumed into an umbrella organisation called ISI (Islamic State of Iraq). This was made up of a collection of Sunni terrorist groups. The link between ISI and AQC does not appear to be one of parent and affiliate. In a question and answer session with al-Zawahiri, he essentially stated that Al Qaeda in Iraq no longer existed. Fast forward to post-2010, al-Baghdadi then funded al-Jowlani (the head of Jabhut al-Nusra/Al Qaeda in Syria). When Baghdadi spread ISI into Syria and renamed to ISIS, Jowlani asked al-Zawhiri to adjudicate. al-Zawhiri decided in favour of Jowlani – i.e., only Nusra was the legitimate AQ front in Syria. Baghdadi did not accept Zawhiri’s ruling <i>because </i>he was never bound by it <i>because </i>ISI was not a AQ affiliate and did not declare allegiance (baya) to Zawahiri.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Selected Academic References<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Biddle et al,
‘Testing the Surge: why did violence decline in 2007?’, <i>International Security</i> (2012) 47</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Cohen, ‘Just
How Important Are ‘Hearts and Minds’ Anyway? Counterinsurgency Goes to the
Polls’, <i>Journal of Strategic Studies</i>
(2014) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Hegghammer, ‘Should
I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists' Choice
between Domestic and Foreign Fighting’, <i>American
Political Science Review </i>(2013) 1</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Johnston, ‘Does
Decapitation Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of Leadership Targeting in
Counterinsurgency Campaigns’, <i>International
Security </i>(2012) 47</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Piazza, 'Draining
the Swamp: Democracy Promotion, State Failure, and Terrorism in 19 Middle
Eastern Countries', <i>Studies in Conflict
and Terrorism</i> (2007) 521</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
-------- ‘Do Democracy and Free Markets Protect Us
From Terrorism?’, <i>International Politics </i>(2008) 72</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Robinson,
‘National Versus Ethnic Identication in Africa: Modernization, Colonial Legacy,
and the Origins of Territorial Nationalism’, <i>World Politics </i>(2014) 709</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Smith,
‘Relative Peace in Iraq: A Policy Evaluation of the Surge and Troop Levels’, A
Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of
Georgetown University (2009) 1</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
al-Tamimi,
‘Sunni Opposition to the Islamic State’, <i>Middle
East Review of International Affairs </i>(2014) 1</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-72104367112211779092014-08-18T16:06:00.003-07:002014-08-19T06:14:17.688-07:00Mr Thomas Gradgrind, Facts and Terrorism<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In the last week, I have had two
interactions with people who have insufficient regard for the empirical
literature. By this, I do not mean that we have disagreements about what the
academic literature actually says, rather I mean people who have taken the
position that the empirical literature is unworthy of our time, all it does is ‘validate
[our] sense of the real.’ These views are not really worthy of being directly
addressed at a time when there are so many vital discussions to be had. As I’m
working on my Iraq posts, I thought I’d just write this quick post in the style
of Ben Southwood.</div>
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Ben Southwood is the opposite of
the aforementioned unempirical individuals, his tweets are based on studies,
his posts are jam-packed with references and he is far from someone who would
reject data driven research. He often writes posts summarising interesting
new research. That’s my aim here – but my summaries will be somewhat longer. Obviously
I think these studies deserve a far wider audience but a subtle point is to
show what people miss when they disregard the empirical literature. </div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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<b><i>Whither COIN<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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Counter-insurgency doctrine
(COIN) has been described as part of the ‘new orthodoxy’. The basic idea of
COIN is to win the hearts and minds of a population so we can defeat an
insurgent group. The way hearts and minds are won, the doctrine tells us, is by
creating safe spaces and (mostly) economic development. General Stanley
McChrystal went as far as to say that ‘95 per cent of the effort should be
dedicated to winning popular support and 5 per cent to defeating the insurgents
themselves.’ I have advocated COIN-levels of troops, military action and
working with local groups to defeat insurgents but a major element of COIN –
the idea that we need to win hearts and minds to defeat insurgents – can seriously
be challenged on the basis of two new studies. </div>
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<b>1. </b>‘Just How Important Are ‘Hearts and Minds’ Anyway?
Counterinsurgency Goes to the Polls’, Raphael S Cohen<i>, Journal of Strategic Studies </i>(2014). Cohen’s main finding is that
winning hearts and minds is an effect of military success, not a cause of it. The
study looks through three examples of COIN in action: Vietnam, Iraq and
Afghanistan. The reason COIN has got things wrong is that it relies on a model
whereby the majority of people are undecided and can be won over. This is a
fair representation of what COIN expects:</div>
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The truth is that in these combat
zones, the idea the native population is remotely amenable to terrorist
organisation isn’t that well supported at all. Cohen tries to measure the
percentage of the population that does actually change their minds and finds
that its actually only around a third. Indeed, this seems to be overstating the
extent to which a population allow their hearts and minds to be changed:</div>
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The Afghan
data showed less variation: beliefs about how the national government was
carrying out its responsibilities varies 13 per cent in six Asia Foundation
polls between 2007 and 2012.... Similarly, Iraqi attitudes towards their local
leadership changed by 11 per in seven polls conducted between 2003 and 2009... When
the ABC News et al. polls asked Afghans to assess the level for support for the
Taliban in their area, responses varied by only 6 per cent, while the Taliban’s
favourability... In Iraq, different organizations asked about whether insurgent
attacks on Coalition forces could be justified, a tacit measure for
pro-insurgent sympathies... results varied only by 21 per cent over eight
surveys from 2003 to 2008 (p.11-12)</div>
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These data obviously have the
disadvantage that they tell us who <i>did</i> change their views rather than who <i>could</i>
– but it nonetheless is a fairly persuasive measure of how small the undecided
people really are. Whats more important though is <i>when </i>these views are changed. The data is fairly clear from all
three theatres that views change <i>after</i>
military success. Thus when we look at when the military gains of the Surge, it
was only after that we saw a change in attitudes toward central government and
U.S forces. As Cohen notes, attitudes to Iraqi institutions were largely
unchanged until 2009 (obviously long after the military effects of the Surge).
The most interesting example comes from Anbar:</div>
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In fact, Anbar
did not cross the 50 per cent threshold until the October 2007 poll, after the
number of incidents had declined by over 90 per cent. After that point, between
60 per cent and 80 per cent of Anbaris believed that their neighborhoods were
secure. This sense of security, however, did not immediately translate into
support for the Iraqi government [it took until October 2008]... Ultimately,
Anbar shows an important progression: first, the insurgency is defeated, then
the population feels secure and then only then, can the counterinsurgent win
‘hearts and minds’.<br />
<br /></div>
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Cohen goes on to show how
intelligence is not necessarily any better when the populations hearts and
minds are with coalition forces. This is one of the mechanisms that is used to
explain why the whole idea is important but, once again, its not really borne
out by the data. Tips off increases and showed no relationship with polling on
support for Iraqi institutions or U.S forces. The same trend is found in tip
offs given in Afghanistan, look at the trends for support for U.S actions (a
majority throughout the period but still declining) against tip offs received: </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JUS37o0pD28/U_KEkYVewcI/AAAAAAAAADM/T8yIoeO0VGk/s1600/afghanieds.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JUS37o0pD28/U_KEkYVewcI/AAAAAAAAADM/T8yIoeO0VGk/s1600/afghanieds.png" height="156" width="640" /></a></div>
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Finally, Cohen shows that hearts
and minds are a poor predictor of stability. In Afghanistan, the U.S has
enjoyed broad support for its actions but violence still rages. In Iraq, the
U.S did not have support for its actions but there was a success despite that
lack of support. Indeed, as shown above, the best way to get the change in
hearts and minds was to win militarily. One of the disappointing things about
the study is its failure to elaborate on the idea that militants do not require
local support to operate successfully. Cohen does note that ‘insurgencies can
survive with minimal popular support’ – but thats it. I have written a post
called ‘<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/al-qaeda-vs-people.html">Al
Qaeda vs. The People’</a> which touches on this: </div>
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It is
undeniable that support for Al Qaeda is dropping - advocating a Taliban-style
authoritarian rule whole killing scores of civilians does that - but in terms
of operational capability that does not mean there is a significant decrease in
their force. Bruce Hoffman makes the point that Red Army Faction had almost
zero public support and yet managed to inflict serious damage for almost three
decades. The same applies to Al Qaeda; Peter Bergen goes even further saying
that "Al Qaeda values one recruit more than a thousand supporters."</div>
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This study has direct relevant
for what is going on in Iraq today. I don’t think its a stretch to suggest that
its become part of the conventional wisdom to state that Maliki’s policies
have alienated the Sunni population so as to contribute to ISIS gains. In an
otherwise brilliant article, here is what Marc Lynch wrote in the <i><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/08/11/would-arming-syrias-rebels-have-stopped-the-islamic-state/">Washington
Post</a></i><i>:</i></div>
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The Islamic
State recovered steam inside of Iraq as part of a broad Sunni insurgency driven
by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloody, ham-fisted crackdowns in Hawija and
Fallujah, and more broadly because of the disaffection of key Sunni actors over
Maliki’s sectarian authoritarianism.</div>
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I have argued against this view
before and will do so again in a lot more detail in Part 4 of Iraq post series -
but for now its worth repeating exactly what the study says: the hearts and
minds of a population do not impede military success. If Maliki was able to
win, it would likely be followed by support from Sunnis (leaving aside that the
Anbar sheikhs are still committed to fighting ISIS). The study essentially
supports the idea that this is a military problem. If the argument is that the oppression Sunnis suffered has driven them to ISIS, I have <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">debunked</a> that several times before. Thats not to deny that
Maliki has acted in a sectarian manner – but it is to deny that ISIS gains are
anything to do with discontent. </div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>2. </b>‘First Steps Towards Hearts and Minds? USAID’s Countering
Violent Extremism Policies in Africa’, Daniel P Eldrich, <i>Terrorism and Political Violence </i>(2014). This study looks
specifically at the U.S efforts in counter-terrorism programmes that focus on
economic development and trying to win the public’s hearts and mind. As Eldrich
notes</div>
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USAID has been
carrying out a number of programs since 2005 in Mali focused on strengthening
the economic and social resilience of local communities in the face of messages
and inducements offered by violent extremist groups such as AQIM and MOJWA
(p.526) </div>
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In an attempt to control for the
people who were not subject to the programmes, the study looks at two different
Malian towns. They obviously also control for age, socio-economic status and
even political views at the start to make the comparison is as controlled as
possible. Here are the different programmes: </div>
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Not particularly surprising,
Eldrich found that those populations which were subject to the programmes
listened to messages of peace and participated in civil society more. This is
probably because they had more information on them and so acted accordingly.
The difference in terms of this should not be overstated but it is nonetheless
significant:</div>
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But the most significant finding
of this study is that there was <i>no
significant difference </i>in terms of support for the U.S, support for Al
Qaeda, support for extremist ideas (e.g. the idea that the U.S is at war with
Islam). Eldrich notes that:</div>
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In contrast to
the clear distinction in answers to questions about civic engagement and peace
and tolerance program listening between Malians living in Timbuktu and Dire´,
bivariate tests of the other two outcomes of interest showed no measurable
difference. The Chi-squared value for the answers to the question, ‘‘Is the
U.S. fighting Islam or terrorism?’’ was .397 (indicating no strong divisions by
control or treatment) while the answers for ‘‘Are al Qaeda’s activities
justified under Islamic law?’’ had a value of .743 (again indicating little difference
between the two groups) (p.536)</div>
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The idea that we can change hearts
and minds through economic development is based on a structuralist idea of
economic determinism (or, at least, giving primacy to economic conditions). Aside
from this study, there are two streams of research that show us this line of
argument is false. First, we can look at the literature on the link between
terrorism and poverty. The academic literature is clear:</div>
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...the
available evidence indicates that, compared with the relevant population,
members of Hezbollah’s militant wing or Palestinian suicide bombers are at
least as likely to come from economically advantaged families and have a
relatively high level of education as to come from the ranks of the
economically disadvantaged and uneducated. Similarly, members of the Israeli Jewish
Underground who terrorized Palestinian civilians in the late 1970s and early
1980s were overwhelmingly well educated and in highly regarded occupations (‘Education,
Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?’, Alan B. Krueger and
Jitka Maleckova, <i>Journal of Economic
Perspectives </i>(2003)). </div>
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Kruger and Maleckova go on to
quote several other studies which have the exact same conclusion as theirs from
around the world. But this isn’t the only literature we can cite in support of
the idea that economic factors do not lead extremist views. From an entirely
different context, we have the work of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/05/30/the-far-right-in-the-2014-european-elections-of-earthquakes-cartels-and-designer-fascists/">Alexandre
Afonso</a> which finds, if anything, richer conditions lead to voting for more ‘far
right’ parties in Europe: </div>
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Both of these two studies cast
doubt on a major element of COIN. First, is the idea that winning hearts and
minds is important for and a cause of military success. Second, the idea that
we can win hearts and minds regardless of that first point through economic
development is severely weakened. Just so I can needlessly push you in the
direction of my old posts: I have argued against structuralism and the primacy
it gives to economic incentives in relation to <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/brooms-vs-crowbars.html">crime</a>,<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-fall-of-soviet-union-and-suicide.html"> revolution</a> and <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/why-do-they-hate-us.html">terrorism</a>.
For those interested on the situation in Mali and counter-terrorism military
operations, see<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/mali-liberation-of-new-afghanistan.html"> this post</a>. </div>
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<b><i>Bombing Bombers <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>3. </b>‘Suicide Bombers in Iraq, 2003–2010: Disaggregating Targets Can
Reveal Insurgent Motives and Priorities’, K. R. Seifert and C. McCauley, <i>Terrorism and Political Violence</i> (2014).
This recent study adds to the emerging consensus of academics against Robert
Pape’s thesis that foreign occupation causes war. Two recent books <i>The Missing Martyrs </i>(reviewed <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/review-of-missing-martyrs-terrorism.html">here</a>) and <i>Myth of Martyrdom </i>(reviewed <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-fall-of-soviet-union-and-suicide.html">here</a>) are
additions – but this study brings even more data against Pape. This reinforced
the argument against Pape made<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html"> here</a>. But to return to the study, here is the data
set and aim:</div>
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Building on
Hafez’s work, we independently developed a database of 1,779 suicide bombers in
Iraq from 2003 through 2010... we use our 2003–2010 data to compare trends in
suicide bombing with trends in non-suicide attacks over the same time span.
Finally, we compare trends in targeting against foreigners in Iraq with trends
in targeting against Iraqis, including security forces, government entities,
and civilians</div>
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<br /></div>
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They ‘compared the pattern of
suicide bombers per month with the pattern of total insurgent attacks per month’
and they find that ‘it is clear that the relationship between total insurgent
attacks and suicide bombers was weak at the beginning of the insurgency, but
grew stronger beginning in 2007’ (p.7). Why was this? They explain: </div>
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Our
interpretation is that, early in the insurgency, Al Qaeda-inspired groups in
Iraq were competing with other militant groups in opposing coalition forces.
AQI used suicide bombings to intensify a “system collapse” strategy as detailed
by Hafez, whereas larger militant groups hoped to control the new system being
built by coalition forces.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Al Qaeda used suicide bombing,
mostly directed at Iraqis and Iraqi institutions because that is how they felt
they could effectively take over. The larger militias thought their
conventional arms were enough to take over, not destroy, the new institutions.
Hence, there was more insurgent activity than there was suicide bombing. How we
explain the correlation between the two in the latter period? Because of Anbar
Awakening and surge of U.S personnel: ‘It was a “synergistic interaction”
between these two initiatives that led to greater overall stability in Iraq.’
(Apologies for doing this again, but see my old post <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">here</a> for an elaboration). </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But the most interesting findings relate to <i>who </i>was targeted: </div>
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What is immediately clear is that
‘Target Set 3 [Iraqis, not Western targets] was by far the most frequent target of suicide attacks, drawing
77 percent’; coalition targets accounted for only 13% of suicide bombing
targets. The trends of when the different targets were hit matches different
assessments of risk: as the democratic institutions were set up (2003-5),
Iraqis and coalition personnel were targeted. As stated, the aim was to destroy
the institutions. The attacks against the coalition forces declined because the
‘more immediate threat to AQI and other small insurgent groups was a more
effective counterinsurgency conducted by both Iraqi government forces and
Awakening forces’ (p.16). This has an important implication that will be
familiar to those who have had to listen to me bang on about blowback for the
last two years:</div>
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Similarly,
Robert Pape’s thesis that suicide bombings are an extreme nationalist struggle
against a foreign occupier is challenged by our results showing that far more
suicide attacks occurred against Iraqis, especially Iraqi civilians, than
occurred against foreigners. In fact, suicide bombers began to be dispatched in
significant numbers after sovereignty was handed over to the interim Iraqi
government in June 2004. Although later attacks against the Awakening Movement
might be rationalized as targeting perceived “collaborators” with the occupying
forces, merely broadening the definition of an “occupying force” fails to take
into account the change in strategy and political motivation behind these
actions (p.15)</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-9810209692266960272014-07-07T13:02:00.001-07:002014-07-08T02:39:58.276-07:00Be Reasonable: Intelligence on Iraqi WMD<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The West and Iraq<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This is a series of posts on Western policy in Iraq. It aims
to cover many misconceptions in anti-war and pro-war arguments and give a more
nuanced understanding. Much of what follows is not remotely new – but its
become increasingly clear that leading pundits are re-writing what actually
happened and, in some cases, a consensus that exists in the academic
literature. There is a selected bibliography for ease of reference at the
bottom. Each of the following sections is written so that each can stand on its
own and so there’s no need to read each one in order: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 1: Pre-2003
Western Policy Toward Iraq (unpublished)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 2: Be Reasonable:
Intelligence on Iraqi WMD<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 3: Rational
Rationale for Regime Change in Iraq (unpublished)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 4: Let Freedom
Reign: Post-Liberation Success and Failure in Iraq (unpublished)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Part 2: Be
Reasonable: Intelligence on Iraqi WMD<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Reasonableness, Intelligence and WMD<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Establishing the Presumption (1991-98)<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The best way to explain the substantial part of what was
reasonable to conclude at the time is through explaining how the global
intelligence community got it wrong. First, its important to emphasise that
Saddam’s lack of compliance with the UN inspection regime meant that there was
a default position: we knew that Saddam had WMD. We knew that he had used them
and so when the UNSCOM inspectors left, we didn’t think differently. The
presumption, then, in the face of concealment was that Iraq continued to have
WMD. Kenneth Pollack in <i>The Atlantic </i>in
his essay ‘Spies, Lies and Weapons’ documents several very telling examples of
concealment which exposed Iraq’s WMD programme – and thus fomented mistrust.
The first was the discovery of a document which UNSCOM found<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The facility was instructed to remove
evidence of the true activities at the facility, evacuate documents to hide
sites, make physical alterations to the site to hide its true purpose, develop
cover stories, and conduct mock inspections to prepare for UN inspectors<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I would ask that a reader remember the words used here very
carefully. A second example was Hussein Kemal (Saddam’s son-in-law) and what he
said about the WMD programme when he defected. He alleged that Saddam
maintained a programme, he gave examples of sites – and UNSCOM found them too.
Saddam was forced to admit that he had a biological weapons site after evidence
came out. Lieutenant General Amer al-Saadi said ‘Iraq had made a political
decision to conceal it.’ To really stress the point, this is how UNMOVIC
summarised a series of Saddam’s machinations: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">a number of discrepancies and
questions remain, which raise doubts about the accounting of the special
warheads, including the total number [of chemical and biological Scud-type
weapons] produced: statements by some senior Iraqi officials that Iraq had
possessed 75 chemical and 25 biological Scud-type warheads; the finding that,
at a minimum, 16 to 30 structural rings remain unaccounted for; Iraq’s numerous
changes to its declarations on these matters; Iraq’s admitted action taken to
mislead UNSCOM on the location and number of special warheads; the physical
evidence which conflicts with Iraq’s account of its destruction of biological
warheads; and the fact that no remnants of biological warheads were found by
UNSCOM until after Iraq’s admission in 1995 that it had had an offensive
biological weapons programme (‘Unresolved Disarmament Issues,’ UNMOVIC, March 6
2003)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This is just in
relation to Scud-type chemical and biological </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">weapons. It is just the tip of the
ice berg for the post-Gulf War perfidy that Saddam was part of. This continued
right up until the end of the war (see example from <i>The Bomb in My Garden </i>below). The concealment in the 1990s
continued to have a huge impact on weapons inspectors. Pollack recounts: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In the late spring of 2002 I
participated in a Washington meeting about Iraqi WMD. Those present included
nearly twenty former inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission
(UNSCOM), the force established in 1991 to oversee the elimination of WMD in
Iraq. One of the senior people put a question to the group: Did anyone in the
room doubt that Iraq was currently operating a secret centrifuge plant? No one
did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This was also the opinion of Hans Blix who said that between
1991-1998 the concealment meant there was ‘no confidence’ that the proscribed
items had been done away with. Before moving from the backdrop to what the
evidence at the time actually said one further point should be stated. This was
not merely a reasonable response to what Saddam was doing but it was a
calculated decision by Saddam not just from 1991-1998 but until the very end.
Frank P Harvey in his tremendous <i>Explaining
the Iraq War </i>explains how this ‘strategic ambiguity’ was a policy of the
regime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">After Saddam was captured, George Piro, an FBI agent
conducted in-depth interviews with Saddam. Here is a telling extract from
Harvey: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Piro</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: Why
would you say something that suggests Iraq has WMD stocks when, as you say, you
had been trying to convince the UN Security Council that Iraq had complied?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Hussein</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: Mister George. You in America do not see the
world that confronts Iraq. I must defend the Arab nation against the Persians
and Israelis. The Persians have attacked regularly. They send missiles and
infiltrations against us. If they believe we are weak, they will attack. And it
is well known that both the Israelis and Persians have nuclear bombs and
chemical bombs and the biological weapons<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Saddam’s use of this ambiguity – to keep both Iran and the
U.S/UK away was a miscalculation on his part that relied on two elements.
First, he ‘mistakenly believed Tehran was a bigger threat to his regime than
Washington or London.’ He told Piro that ‘he was more concerned about Iran
discovering Iraq’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the
United States for his refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq’ (p.249).
Indeed, pretty much for the entire sanctions regime, Saddam didn’t remove his
men from the Iranian border. Israel was also a factor in Saddam’s
miscalculation. According to Ali Hassan al-Majid (better known as ‘Chemical
Ali’)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Saddam was asked about the weapons
during a meeting with members of the Revolutionary Command Council. He replied
that Iraq did not have WMD but flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime
remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration
might encourage the Israelis to attack (p.251)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Second, he also misunderstood how serious the U.S and UK were
about his WMD programme. From interviewing Saddam, Piro states that ‘he thought
the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in
1998 under Operation Desert Fox [i.e. limited air strikes] … He survived that
once, (so) he was willing to accept that type of attack.’ Most shockingly,
according to the Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, a mere few weeks before the
invasion, Saddam didn’t think the U.S would use ground forces (p.254).<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
This was, perversely, a result of the anti-war sentiment in the Security
Council – particularly France and Russia. Aziz says that Saddam believed that
they would have his back and this would stop U.S/UK action. Saddam’s delusions
about the U.S and UK and how seriously they took things didn’t stop when troops
were finally used: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">During the first ten days of the war,
Iraq asked Russia, France, and China not to support cease-fire initiatives
because Saddam believed such moves would legitimize the coalition’s presence in
Iraq... As late as March 30, Saddam thought that his strategy was working and
that the coalition offensive was grinding to a halt (</span><a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/61701/kevin-woods-james-lacey-and-williamson-murray/saddams-delusions"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Woods et al, Foreign Affairs</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus was the context: a reasonable presumption left over from
the UNSCOM days – compounded by Saddam’s policy of concealment and strategic
ambiguity. The failure to see this context doesn’t necessarily impede seeing
what the near-consensus view was, but it certainly makes it easier to explain. Those
who focus on Western intelligence failures (of which there are many) but do not
talk about Saddam’s policy and miscalculation miss an important part of the
puzzle of how we got it so wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Failing to Rebut the Presumption (2002-3)<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">To start with what UNMOVIC (the team that went into to
replace UNSCOM) thought, 3 weeks prior to the invasion, they released a report
of ‘Unresolved Disarmament Issues.’ This report is carefully worded and has its
limits. The team was essentially trying to prove that Iraq did not have WMD
left over – i.e., trying to prove a negative in the face of a very strong
presumption. Here’s what they said: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Scuds: </span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">[Iraq
claimed it used] 14 Scud-B missiles as targets in a missile interception
project. While such use is supported by some documentation contained in the
so-called Scud files, it is questionable whether Iraq would have really used,
what were at that time, valuable operational assets in the pursuit of such a
project. It cannot be excluded that Iraq retained a certain numbers of the
missiles <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Moreover, the lack of documentation
to support the destruction of a significant amount of Scud-B liquid propellant,
and the fact that approximately 50 warheads were not accounted for among the
remnants of unilateral destruction, suggest that these items may have been
retained for a proscribed missile force. After investigating Iraq’s statement
that, due to the limited storage lifetime, the propellants would now be
useless, UNMOVIC has assessed that the propellants would in fact still be
usable and would therefore need to be verified as destroyed (p.23-4)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">SA-2 Missile Technology: </span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Of particular concern is the limited amount of documentary evidence
concerning the activities at Al Sadiq. Questions arise as to why this work was
not declared to UNSCOM... based on the knowledge UNMOVIC presently has on these
projects, they can be considered as initial steps towards the development of an
indigenous liquid propellant engine capability (p.29)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Scud-type biological and chemical weapons</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: UNSCOM verified the destruction of
73 to 75 of the 75 special warheads that Iraq declared, a number of
discrepancies and questions remain, which raise doubts about the accounting of
the special warheads, including the total number produced.... uncertainty
remains concerning the types and numbers of chemical and biological agents it
filled into the special warheads. The finding of degradation products related
to nerve agents, on some warhead remnants suggests that its declaration may not
be complete. [Note too that UNMOVIC says that because a physical test
contradicted Iraq’s assertion of WMD destruction, ‘<i>it would be logical to assume that some missiles and associated propellant
might also have been retained</i>.’] (p.42-43) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">R400 and R400A (BWs and CWs): </span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Some fragments [found in 2003] had a black stripe and there
was evidence on some fragments of an epoxy coating, both indicative of
biological agent-filled bomb... As it has proved impossible to verify the
production and destruction details of R-400 bombs, UNMOVIC cannot discount the
possibility that some CW and BW filled R-400 bombs remain in Iraq<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Chemical munitions</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: Iraq still had significant stocks of conventional 122-mm warheads and
155-mm projectiles similar to those previously modified for use with chemical
agents. Iraq’s industries appear fully capable of modifying these conventional
munitions for use with chemical agents as well as the indigenous production of
most or all of their components (p.55) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Anthrax</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: Iraq
declared that the decision to destroy bulk BW agent unilaterally was made in
early July 1991, and the actual destruction of the agent was said to have been
carried out at Al Hakam in July/August 1991. However, it seems improbable that
the bulk agent that had been deployed out in the field would have been returned
to Al Hakam for destruction in July 1991... [It] seems highly probable that the
destruction of bulk agent, including anthrax, stated by Iraq to be at Al Hakam
in July/August 1991, did not occur... Based on all the available evidence, the
strong presumption is that about 10,000 litres of anthrax was not destroyed and
may still exist (p.97-8). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Wheat smut: </span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Iraq’s account of wheat smut is
inadequately supported by documentation; the quantity of agent produced,
consumed and destroyed cannot be confirmed. At the same time, if infected wheat
spikes had been retained from production in 1988, it is uncertain whether the
spores would now be viable... Iraq’s capability to produce this anti-crop agent
has not diminished. UNMOVIC is especially concerned with the broader question
of Iraq’s intentions with regard to biological agents that could be used as
economic weapons. (p.108-9). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Undeclared BW-agents: </span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Iraq has not declared that it produced such [TSB] organisms.
It is therefore a matter of concern that Iraq had obtained bulk quanties of
such media. In this regard, it is noted that the declared destruction of the
Brucella isolate which was acquired in 1986 was not supported by evidence,
which adds to the concern surrounding the accounting for TSB (p.117)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">These extended extracts from the UNMOVIC report show what UN
weapons inspectors thought prior to the invasion. They speak of unaccounted WMD
and a clear interest and programme in maintaining CWs and BWs. Hans Blix’s
statement is even more stark (which probably explains why Tony Blair quotes his
27 January 2003 statement at length in <i>A
Journey</i>). Here are some of his statements: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by
the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500
bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500
bombs... Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this
biological warfare agent [anthrax], which it states it unilaterally destroyed
in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production
and no convincing evidence for its destruction. There are strong indications
that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of
this was retained after the declared destruction date... <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Blix’s statements are significant because of his subsequent
activism against the Iraq War. At the time, though, his statements about Iraq
WMD were as fear-inducing as a statement from the Bush administration. For all
the failures of Western representation (which I will discuss below), given
Saddam’s previous use of WMD, given his concealment, given the reasonable
presumption and given this report it was reasonable to conclude that Iraq had
WMD. There was also a flow of reliable information which seemed to reinforce
the view that Saddam had WMD. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">One example given by Woods et al in their <i>Foreign Affairs </i>article is worth
mentioning – it is why I asked the reader to recall the wording of the document
showing that the regime sent out an order to conceal and clear WMD. In 2002,
the U.S<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">...intercepted a message between two
Iraqi Republican Guard Corps commanders discussing the removal of the words
“nerve agents” from “the wireless instructions,” or learned of instructions to
“search the area surrounding the headquarters camp and [the unit] for any chemical
agents, make sure the area is free of chemical containers, and write a report
on it,” U.S. analysts viewed this information through the prism of a decade of
prior deceit. They had no way of knowing that this time the information
reflected the regime’s attempt to ensure it was in compliance with UN
resolutions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">What would a reasonable person conclude from this intercept? Would
they have rebutted the presumption that Iraq had a WMD programme and was
continuing in its attempts to conceal it? I think the answer is clear. It
wasn’t just intercepts and inspectors that fuelled the presumption – it was
other Iraqi actors too. This is just one of the examples of the bits of
evidence that supported the presumption: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Rihab Rashid Taha (a senior Iraqi
scientist) was asked about the unaccounted for anthrax listed in Blix’s reports
– she failed to provide inspectors with any useful answers. After the war, the
same microbiologist confessed to dumping the lethal bacteria close to Saddam’s
palaces.... The deception, in other words, was understandably misread, but it
was unfortunately the most plausible (risk averse) interpretation in light of a
decade of deception (Harvey, p.259)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Reasonableness <o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Without relying on a single British dossier or U.S briefing,
it is clear there was a reasonable case that Iraq maintained WMD; clear
chemical and biological agents and an active programme for pursuing further
WMD. It is why there was such wide acceptance that there was WMD. Kenneth
Pollack summarises the phenomenal level of consensus:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Somewhat remarkably, given how
adamantly Germany would oppose the war, the German Federal Intelligence Service
held the bleakest view of all, arguing that Iraq might be able to build a
nuclear weapon within three years. Israel, Russia, Britain, China, and even
France held positions similar to that of the United States<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Pollack makes clear that the view of Iraqi WMD was widespread
amongst governments. Most surprisingly, it was widespread amongst officials in
Saddam’s regime. Woods et al note that ‘a number of senior Iraqi officials in
coalition custody continued to believe it possible that Iraq still possessed a
WMD capability hidden away somewhere.’ Why did they believe this? For the same
reason that I did, the UNSCOM inspectors that Pollack mentions and essentially
everyone believed: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Coalition interviewers discovered
that this belief was based on the fact that Iraq had possessed and used WMD in
the past and might need them again; on the plausibility of secret,
compartmentalized WMD programs existing given how the Iraqi regime worked; and
on the fact that so many Western governments believed such programs existed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s a conclusion was littered throughout independent reports
from reputable think tanks: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In September 2002, the independent,
London-based think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies
(IISS), published a dossier providing a thorough published guide to the
consensus view of the period. It
described the toxic materials still unaccounted for, and then moved on to the
more speculative area concerning what had happened since 1998. It was possible,
but not proven, that production of both biological and chemical weapons had
resumed (<i>A Choice of Enemies, </i>p.413)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In the next section I will go through several prominent
examples of how intelligence is alleged (and was in fact) used unreasonably –
but these examples don’t move away from one stark conclusion. This conclusion that
that Iraq had WMD – despite being completely wrong – was a completely
reasonable one. Through the prism of the presumption, the continual reports
coming from various sources, Saddam’s miscalculations and policy there could
not have been a different conclusion. Even if you ignored this mistakes laid
out in the next section (for reasons both above and below), you’d still come
out with the same conclusion. <i>Its why we
had this near-consensus</i>. As Robert Jervis states in <i>Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and Iraq
War:</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">while there were not only errors but
correctable ones and that analysis could and should have been better, the
result would have been to make the intelligence assessments less certain rather
than to reach a fundamentally different conclusion... A responsible judgment
could not have been that the programs had ceased (p.124, p.155)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">There is even a good bulk of academic opinion which holds
that it was reasonable to conclude Iraq had WMD written <i>post war</i>.<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
This shows the limits of intelligence rather than the incompetence of
intelligence agencies.<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
To give one example which shows the limits of intelligence (even when actors
are not deliberately deceiving as Saddam was):<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
when President Obama was deciding to authorise the operation against Bin Laden,
he asked different intelligence agencies for their assessment on whether Bin
Laden was inside the Abbotobad compound. Here is how </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/12/death-osama-bin-laden-us"><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The Guardian</span></i></a><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">reported the Deputy Director of the CIA’s response: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">“Mr President, if we had a human
source who had told us directly that Bin Laden was living in that compound, I
still wouldn't be above 60%." Morell said he had spent a lot of time on
both questions – WMDs and Abbottabad. "And I'm telling you, the case for
WMDs wasn't just stronger, it was much stronger”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The intelligence mistakes in the CIA, clearly, didn’t stop in
2003 – and they are unlikely to stop because of how reasonable these judgments
can be despite being so wrong. This should be apparent from everything from the
intelligence about Al Qaeda striking the U.S prior to the 9/11 attacks to the
Israeli strike on the USS Liberty. For reasons that will be laid out in the Part
3, this conclusion should not make us reluctant when facing threats like
Saddam. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">There is another conclusion that follows from all of the
above: there was no point in waiting for more inspections. Saddam’s two
miscalculations means that even when we had troops knocking on his door, he
didn’t think we were serious. And because he didn’t think we were serious even
when the war began, he continued his policy of strategic ambiguity. There is
also the technical issue that Saddam simply <i>could
not </i>prove that he had abandoned his WMD programme:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">... there was no way for Blix to
establish the truth, because the proof he needed (and the evidence UNSCR 1441
demanded) no longer existed – the documents inspectors required for proof of
compliance had long since been destroyed, ironically because Saddam was
motivated by the ongoing threat of sanctions to remove all evidence of WMD
programs, including proof that he had already destroyed proscribed weapons
(Harvey, p.152)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Indeed, as should be apparent from the fact it was reasonable
to conclude that Saddam had WMD anything he did do to reveal the remnants of
his WMD programme would have been insufficient: he would have had to have shown
us WMD stocks that did not exist. Clearly, he could not have done this – part
of the reason why war was inevitable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Unreasonableness, Intelligence and WMD<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The reason I wanted to write this section is because neither
side in the debate seems to address each other. My view is that those angry
about the pre-invasion presentation of the intelligence have a point – but
simply that it wouldn’t have changed the conclusions and, as will be apparent
from Part 3, the justifiable rationale for the war. But that doesn’t excuse the
errors of both the Blair and Bush administrations: politicians should be
entirely transparent, balanced (not prosecutorial) and they should be held to
standards of evidence.<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
What follows is overwhelmingly a summary of incompetence, not deception. Rather
than liars, a better analogy would be those acting for the prosecution - they
were over-zealous in their case that Saddam had WMD and it showed in their
presentation (this is more a result of status and confirmation bias than
deliberate deception). The Senate Intelligence Senate Committee went through
the claims of Bush administration officials and found, in relation to WMD,
their statements matched the available evidence but were conveyed as beyond
doubt where there were dissents.<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The United States: Beyond the National Intelligence Estimate<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">U.S claims about Iraq’s relationship with Al Qaeda are an
example of this zeal in making a case for war. It is now clear there was no
significant relationship – but it was also quite clear at the time. Three claims
were made to support this link – all were weak. First, that al-Zarqawi was in
Iraq with the regime’s support and was collaborating with the regime. As
Freedman points out, Zarqawi’s group was, at that time, ‘unaffiliated and
largely based in the Kurdish north’ (<i>A
Choice of Enemies, </i>p.407). Second, that the 9/11 ring leader Mohammed Atta
met up with Iraqi security officials in 2001. This was not considered credible
by the FBI or the CIA (Pfiffner, p.27) and yet Cheney still said the meeting
was ‘pretty well confirmed.’ The Joint Intelligence Committee completely
rejected any cooperation between the two. Third, it was based on evidence
obtained by torture of al-Libi (which probably didn’t vex members of the Bush
administration but definitely was not credible).<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
As the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09intel.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1403262084-0F2fDtsrIKMnI5nU0S/T7w"><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">New York Times</span></i></a><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">reported<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">While he made some statements about
Iraq and Al Qaeda when in American custody, the officials said, it was not
until after he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific
assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation
for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical
weapons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Christopher Hitchens </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/10/in_front_of_your_nose.single.html"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">believed</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> there was a connection on the basis
of al-Zarqai’s presence – it’s open to some to take this as evidence that it
wasn’t completely unreasonable to conclude there was an AQ-Iraq link. I do not
take that view and am glad that my own government never made the link. But
again, the fact there was reasonable evidence of low-level meetings between the
two should discount evidence of deception.<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
There are two points that need to be made in relation to Iraq-AQ links. First,
many confuse claims about 9/11’s impact on risk assessment and Iraq with claims
of links between the two. Pfiffner (p.26), like many, is guilty of this. He
quotes the following statement by Bush as an example of an ‘implied link’: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Some citizens wonder, ‘after 11 years
of living with this [Saddam Hussein] problem, why do we need to confront it
now?’ And there’s a reason. We have experienced the horror of September the
11th.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">But Bush is not saying that 9/11 was linked to Iraq here.
What he is saying is that the risk calculation after 9/11 changed. Bush
explained his as not being able to trust tyrants with WMD which they could
deliver to terrorists. The point was that common ideas of deterrence were no
longer in play: threats had to be dealt with before they materialise (this will
further be discussed in Part 3).<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The second point to note about the Iraq-AQ links is that its prominence in run
up to the war started to wane as people like Blair (and British officials)
pushed for them to stop using that line of argument. Freedman notes this: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet while such suggestions [of an
Iraq-AQ link] helped create a political climate in favor of war, they could not
sustain international diplomacy. By the summer of 2002, it was apparent that
there was no clinching evidence demonstrating a link with al Qaeda. Woodward
reported Rice’s view that it would be impossible to get international support
on Iraq’s human rights record, and the terrorism case seemed “weak or
unprovable.”... With the terrorism issue, there was “the most disagreement
within the bureaucracy.”... In September, after meeting Bush, Canadian prime
minister Jean Chrétien told reporters that when he asked about links between al
Qaeda and Iraq, the president replied, “That is not the angle they’re exploring
now. The angle they’re exploring is the production of weapons of mass
destruction” (<i>A Choice of Enemies, </i>p.408-9).
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This is largely unacknowledged. What the U.S produced in
relation to weapons of mass destruction wasn’t that divergent from the
consensus mentioned above. Nonetheless U.S intelligence agencies often
disagreed about several aspects but the administration took whichever view
which made the situation seem bad. The National Intelligence Estimate itself
had several caveats<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The dissenting views were highlighted
in color and boxed text, not buried in footnotes as was the norm during the
Cold War, and the dissents in this case were, as Tenet noted, ‘‘an unprecedented
sixteen pages of the ninety-page NIE.’’ Tenet also pointed out that ‘‘the
phrase “we do not know” appears some thirty times across ninety pages. The
words “we know” appear in only three instances. (p.603-4)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The uncertainty was lost in public statements. But still, on
the general question of WMD, rather than specific bits of evidence (like
aluminium tubes or yellowcake from Niger), ‘Bush cannot be fairly blamed for
using such widely accepted claims, even though little evidence of the weapons
was found in Iraq after the war’ (Pfiffner, p.44). I am not going to handle the
issue of biological and chemical weapons which I think I have handled
sufficiently but will focus on what many anti-war activists consider to be the most
egregious examples of deception. In relation to whether Saddam was pursuing a
nuclear weapon, the NIE concluded that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">we assess that Saddam does not yet
have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on
acquiring them. Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its
nuclear program about the time that UNSCOM inspectors departed--December 1998<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It suggested that without fissile material, it would take at
least 5 years to develop a weapon. With material from abroad, it would take at
least 2 years. The British dossier (discussed below) said much the same in Feb
2002:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Although there is very little
intelligence we continue to judge that Iraq is pursuing a nuclear weapons
programme... Recent intelligence indicates that nuclear scientists were
recalled to work on a nuclear programme in the autumn of 1998, but we do not
know if large scale development work has yet recommenced. Procurement of
dual-use items over the past few years could be used in a uranium enrichment
programme... while sanctions remain
effective, Iraq cannot indigenously develop and produce nuclear weapons; if
sanctions were removed or became ineffective, it would take at least five years
to produce a nuclear weapon. This timescale would shorten [to one to two years]
if fissile material was acquired from abroad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">There is clear uncertainty in this extract – but despite the
uncertainty, the JIC still concluded that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear
programme. The IAEA a few months after the NIE was released stated that they
had found ‘no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear related
activities in Iraq’ (see </span><a href="http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/2003/ebsp2003n005.shtml"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">) – but this would not have been much
comfort given the reasons explained above about concealment and Saddam’s
motives. Take, again, one more example of Saddam’s miscalculation from <i>The Bomb in My Garden, </i>written by Mahdi
Obeidi (an Iraqi scientist at the forefront of the nuclear programme):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">A different order landed on my desk
in early December 2002, shortly after the arrival of UN weapons inspectors.
“move your documents from your offices to the basement.”... The regime had
obviously panicked now that inspectors were fanning out across Iraq for the
first time in four years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">How should this have been interpreted? Moreover, while there
was a fixation on attempts by Saddam to obtain uranium from Africa (see below),
this wasn’t the only thing. The JIC outlined six items which had no legitimate
non-nuclear purpose which Iraq had apparently sought. There were several
independent assessments (like that from IISS) which concluded much the same.
Moreover, in a critical response to the Africa claim, Professor Dombey </span><a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/new-doubt-over-uranium-claim-6941528.html"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">reveals</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> something that shows why Iraq having
a nuclear weapons <i>programme </i>wasn’t an
unreasonable claim: ‘Saddam was known by both Britain and the US to be sitting
on a stockpile of 500 tonnes of uranium ore - so had no need to purchase any
more.’ The fact that it was plausible that Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear
weapons programme should speak volumes as this was the weakest of all WMD
claims. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">On the question of specifics of intelligence on nuclear
weapons, there was arguably unreasonableness. The following statement made by Bush
in the State of the Union took on the same significance in the U.S as the ’45
minutes’ claim took in the UK:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The British Government has learned
that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from
Africa<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The issue? The NIE stated that the status of the arrangement
was ‘not known’ and there was a dissent which called said the claim was highly
dubious (unlike the general issue of WMD) – which is why the British government
was referenced. Condoleezza Rice stated that doubt was not ‘communicated to the
President.’ Pfiffner is not generous at all to Rice in making this claim (there
were series of conversations, memos etc., about taking the claim out) but it
doesn’t seem that Rice’s claim is true at all. Bush in his memoir addresses the
issue briefly: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In my 2003 State of the Union
address, I had cited a British intelligence report that Iraq sought to buy uranium
from Niger. The single sentence in my five-thousand-word speech was not a major
point in the case against Saddam. The British stood by the intelligence... In
July 2003, former ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote <i>a New York Times</i> column alleging that the administration had
ignored his skeptical findings when he traveled to Africa to investigate the
Iraq-Niger connection. There were serious questions about the accuracy and
thoroughness of Wilson’s report, but his charge became a prime talking point
for critics of the war (<i>Decision Points, </i>p.103)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Much was made of the fact that alleged documents that showed
an agreement between Niger and Iraq appeared to be forged. But two caveats have
to be made: first, as is clear from Bush’s account, people were not persuaded
by Wilson’s report. Indeed, ‘Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s [found]
that those who read Ambassador Wilson’s reporting on his visit to Niger did
not, in fact, see it as discrediting the reports of Iraqi interest in African
uranium’ (Froscher, 2010, p.421). Moreover, the British assessment was not
based on forged documents, it was based on several sources which the Butler
Review found to be ‘well founded’ (p.123). Iraqi officials had gone to Niger in
1999 and they had previously attempted to buy uranium ore. Second, and more
importantly, Froscher notes that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">the supposed Iraqi interest in
yellowcake was not a major factor in the IC’s assessment of the status of
Iraq’s program. Prior to March 2003, when the key reports were shown to be
forgeries, the IC downplayed them not so much because of doubts about their
authenticity but because, even if true, they added little to the picture. The
key issue, again, was not whether Iraq was interested in reconstituting its
nuclear program - that was, at the time, taken as a given - but how close Iraq
was to having the bomb (p.421). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">An assessment of whether it was reasonable to conclude Iraq
did seek yellowcake cannot be made without knowing more about the British
intelligence – unless one takes the Butler Review at face value. But it really
is not as simple as quoting dissents from Wilson and the lack of certainty with
the NIE. What is reasonable to conclude, however, was that this was not key to
the bottom line intelligence summary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The other specific claim that created much controversy (about
aluminium tubes) is more appropriately handled later but I will make one point.
There were dissents but its far too easy, with hindsight, to say that the
dissents should have been accepted. There are correctible mistakes in the
bureaucracy and assessment in this particular mistake – but it should certainly
downplay accusation of deception (if not unreasonableness) to note that the NIE
did consider the tubes evidence of a nuclear programme. The charge was
sufficiently serious that the weapons inspectors investigated the charge
relentlessly (Obeidi ad Pitzer, p.187). The tubes, though not the right size
for a nuclear purposes were of a high quality which fomented suspicions (Ibid,
p.196). Ultimately it was the wrong conclusion and the presentation did not
speak of any doubt but it should definitely downplay accusations of deception. And
again, it was not pivotal in pre-war intelligence estimates (this should be
apparent from the fact that the Department of Energy still conclude Saddam
reconstituted a nuclear programme despite disagreeing with the tube story). <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">UK Intelligence: Blair’s Overreach <o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Critics of U.S and UK policy never seem to acknowledge the
divergent views within American agencies or between officials. They also very
rarely talk about the divergence in evidence between the U.S and UK. Which
brings us to British intelligence assessments: the September dossier prepared
by the British government on the basis of JIC intelligence was at the time
considered fairly mundane<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
– a claim that </span><a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100024377/iraq-dossier-tony-blair-rewrites-history/"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">seems</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> to have been accepted by Chilcot –
except for the 45 minute issue. In the foreword, Tony Blair wrote Saddam’s
‘military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of
an order to use them.’ The Butler Review was perfectly right to note that this
claim should not have been made without reference to the type of weapons
(p.156) – it was a reference to munitions, no missiles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Blair </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3466005.stm"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">subsequently</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> said that he didn’t know that that
the report referred to munitions rather than ballistic missiles – which is
enough to suggest that the record should have been corrected. Blair has since
tried to downplay the 45 minute claim by stating that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Of the 40,000 written parliamentary
questions between September 2002 and the end of May 2003 when the BBC made
their broadcast about it, only two asked about the forty-five-minutes issue. Of
the 5,000 oral questions, none ever mentioned it. It was not discussed by
anyone in the entire debate of 18 March 2003. So the idea we went to war
because of this claim is truly fanciful (<i>A
Journey, </i>Blair, p.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">He’s right and wrong. The idea that this particular claim was
pivotal in the decision to go to war is fanciful. But he’s also wrong to
downplay the fact that both the Joint Intelligence Committee and he acted with
undue care by including it without reference to the type of weapon.
Fortunately, Blair has said it would have been ‘better to correct it in light
of the significance it later took on.’ Accusations
that Blair lied should be seen as unreasonable in light of the near-consensus,
the available evidence and the British government’s refusal to go along with
the AQ-Saddam link and, quite simply, logic. John Rentoul notes how such a
conversation would have gone: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">"I've got this brilliant plan
for joining the American invasion of Iraq: we'll say it's all about weapons of
mass destruction and when it turns out that there aren't any, everyone will
hate me for ever. How does that sound?" Great plan, they [i.e., the
cabinet] all said, and made the necessary preparations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Blair’s presentation of the evidence, however, was arguably
prosecutorial at times. He stated in his foreword that it was ‘beyond doubt’
that Saddam continued to produce chemical and biological weapons. The JIC
itself had described some evidence being ‘sporadic’ and ‘patchy’ and so it
inevitably raises the question of why Blair stated it was ‘beyond doubt.’ Blair
answered this question himself at the Iraq Inquiry: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Sir Lawrence Freedman</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: Given that [evidence was in some places described as patchy etc], was
it wise to say that intelligence is ever beyond doubt? Wasn't this setting
yourself up for a higher standard of proof than it might be possible to 16
sustain?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Blair</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: I think
what I said in the foreword was 18 that I believed it was beyond doubt.. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Sir Lawrence Freedman</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: Beyond your doubt, but beyond anybody's doubt?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Blair</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: If you
-- if I had taken, for example, 2 the words out of -- even the 9 March 2002 or
3 the March 2002 JIC assessment, it said, "It was clear that ..." Now,
if I said, "It was clear that" in the foreword, rather than "I believe, beyond
doubt", it would have had the same
impact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The point was that the JIC <i>still </i>concluded that it was ‘clear that Saddam continues his
programme.’ But I’m instinctively reluctant to accept that ‘beyond doubt’ is
the same was ‘it is clear that...’ It may just be my profession that leads me
to conclude that the two should not be conflated – but even a non-lawyer like
Sir Lawrence Freedman notes that it does sound like a ‘higher standard of
proof.’ Blair’s explanation should, however, discount accusations of deception
but not unreasonableness. It is often funny that much of the academic
literature which criticised Blair – attempts to do so by comparing his
statements with JIC intelligence (which, as stated, concluded what the
near-consensus had concluded).<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Reasons for Unreasonableness<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This subsection aims to give an explanation for the
correctable failures (i.e., not those which were reasonable to make and which
can be explained by Saddam’s policy of denial and reasonable interpretation of
reliable reports). The </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html"><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">New York Times</span></i></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> famously apologised for its coverage of the lead up – and in that they
drew particular ire to Iraqi dissidents: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The problematic articles varied in
authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended
at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors
and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility
has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks... Complicating matters
for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by
United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq.
Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for
misinformation from these exile sources.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The most famous of these dissidents was Curveball. He later </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">admitted</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> he lied and would do it again to <i>The Guardian. </i>It should be noted that <i>The Guardian </i>is wrong to suggest that
Curveball ‘triggered’ the Iraq war or that the U.S was ‘duped.’ As Jervis
notes, ‘the INC sources were discounted by the ICs, though not by the vice
president’s office, the civilians in the Defense Department, and the media’ (<i>Why Intelligence Fails, </i>p.140). The
Rob-Silberban Commission agreed noting that INC sources had ‘minimal impact on
pre-war assessments’ (p.108). The intelligence community, then, did not have as
many shortfalls – but the reliance on human intelligence by some did certainly
cause significant overreach. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Aside from reliance on human intelligence by some and being
over-zealous in presentation, there were a series of bureaucratic inefficiencies
which lead to correctable mistakes. Take the example of the aluminium tubes
that were purchased but obtained by the U.S. The NIE concluded (i) Iraq was reconstituting
its nuclear weapons programme and (ii) the aluminium tubes were evidence of
this – but the State Department and the Department of Energy dissented (the DoE
only dissented on the latter claim). Jervis explains how correctable mistakes
compounded the intelligence failure (I make no apologies for quoting Jervis at
length):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Immediately after gaining access to
the tubes, the lead CIA analyst concluded that they were designed for a
centrifuge. Since he had a background in the enrichment industry, his opinion
carried great weight. His superiors were then quick not only to endorse his
conclusions but to convey them to policymakers, and even put them into the PDB,
before other agencies had a chance to analyze the material and reach a
different verdict. Although the NIE acknowledged the disagreement and
uncertainties, CIA could not easily give up its established position. The
effect of this error was magnified by the fact that the DCI was the head of the
CIA as well as the IC. In the latter capacity he was supposed to arbitrate
differences among the intelligence agencies, but as director of CIA, Tenet was
closer to CIA analysts than to those from other parts of the IC. The dissents
from INR and DOE therefore received less of a hearing than they might have in a
similar situation today, when there is a Director of National Intelligence.
Indeed, it appears that Tenet did not even know that there was a dispute until
the NIE was being written... Furthermore, the communication channels within DOE
were clogged, in part because segments of it were scattered around the country,
and the views of their experts were not always well represented at high-level
meetings (<i>Why Intelligence Fails, </i>p.142-3)
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Betts gives another example of these bureaucratic mistakes<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">When the NIE was being done,
Curveball’s allegations about BW programs appeared to be corroborated by three
other sources, but one later recanted, and another had already been branded a
fabricator by the Defense Intelligence Agency in May of 2002. Nevertheless,
owing to bureaucratic miscommunication, allegations about biological weapons
programs from that source still found their way into the October 2002 NIE (Betts,
p.602)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">These are both correctable mistakes, inherent in centralised
structures and bureaucracy, not evidence of deception or even cognitive biases.
Some in the academic literature (Pfiffner is just one example) have tried to
conclude that many intelligence failures were a result of politicisation (i.e.,
political pressure or direction). This is thoroughly unconvincing.<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
As Jervis notes, Tennet rebuked Bush for his mishandling of the evidence – this
would only have been necessary had the intelligence agencies not given the
administration exactly what it wanted (p.132). After extensive interview with
people involved in the U.S intelligence community he found very little evidence
of politicisation (p.133). And that’s not particularly surprising, the CIA
pushed back against Saddam-9/11 links, forecasts about the post-invasion phase
despite ‘administration statements to the contrary, repeated inquiries and
challenges that can only be interpreted as pressure.’ But more importantly<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">[First] it appears that the belief
that Iraq had an active WMD programs was held by <i>all</i> intelligence services, even of those countries that opposed the
war. While this does not mean that U.S and UK ICs were not affected by
political atmosphere, it does show that they did not need political pressure to
reach their conclusions<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">[Second] positions taken by...
different parts of the American IC also casts doubt on the politicization
thesis. The State Departments INR was the most skeptical member of the
community about nuclear weapons and Air Force intelligence dissented on the
UAVs y yet State and Defence were the two most policy-oriented agencies. The
Department of Energy (DOE) dissented on the aluminium tubes, and there is no
evidence that political pressure was exerted (p.134)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">There were many correctable failures: specificity was lost in
presentation as a result of cognitive biases, bureaucratic mistakes and
reliance on faulty human intelligence. In some cases, politicians ended up
making exaggerated claims because they did not understand the nature of the
intelligence (like Blair’s 45 minute claim). But as I stated above, this would
not have made a difference to general conclusions that made up the
near-consensus in the intelligence community (and confirmed by subsequent
academic opinion).<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Jervis brings these two elements together well when he shows the effect of
specific evidence against the effect of the reasonable presumptions that led to
general conclusions: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This makes sense of the exchange in
which Bush reacted to CIA’s presentation of what could be declassified to
convince the public that Saddam was developing WMD by asking if “this is the
best we’ve got” and receiving Tenet’s infamous reply, “Why, it’s a slam-dunk!”
Bush was focusing on the specific evidence he had just heard; Tenet was moved
by the plausibility of the entire picture (p.155)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">As Harvey notes, in debates in Congress the issue of faulty
intelligence was raised prior to the war. ‘The disagreement between the CIA and
Department of Energy (DOE) over the relevance of aluminium tubes was also
raised’ but ‘these distorted intelligence items were marginal to the larger WMD
picture and threat’ (Harvey, p.149). Both Jervis and Harvey conclude <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">...even if there had been no errors
in analytic tradecraft I believe that the best-supported conclusion was that
Saddam was actively pursuing all kinds of WMD, and probably had some on hand.
The judgment should have been expressed with much less certainty, the
limitations on direct evidence should have been stressed, and the grounds for
reaching the assessments should have been explicated. But while it would be
nice to believe that better analysis would have led to a fundamentally
different conclusion, I do not think this is the case (Jervis, p.42)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Even if I haven’t convinced you that this was necessarily the
case for every claim made by U.S and UK officials, I hope I have shown that the
overwhelming bulk of faulty intelligence was either reasonably concluded or not
a result of deception. More importantly, most of the specific evidence that
people found problematic really had no major impact on the overall evidence or
justification for war. But importantly, its perfectly reasonable to be angry at
the lack of nuance, the lack of understanding and the lack of caution exercised
by U.S and UK officials. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Post-war intelligence<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">For reasons that will become apparent in Part 3, the issue of
whether Iraq had WMD is not as fundamental as commonly claimed to the
defensible rationale for the liberation of Iraq. Iraqi intention and future
capability is just as important. From the post-war intelligence reports, there
can be no doubt of Iraq’s intention: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD
capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed
and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of
capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a
nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international
pressure and the resulting economic risks... In Saddam’s view, WMD helped to save
the Regime multiple times... his lieutenants understood WMD revival was his
goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm,
verbal comments and directions to them... (Comprehensive Report of the Special
Advisor Report on Iraq's WMD, Vol. 1)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This was the conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group. The Iraq
Survey Group is littered with examples of how Saddam was serious about getting
WMD (including prior to the war) and uncovered activities UNMOVIC was not aware
of: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Imad Husayn ‘Ali Al ‘Ani, closely
tied to Iraq’s VX program, alleged that Saddam had been looking for chemical
weapons scientists in 2000 to begin production in a second location...
Purported design work done in 2000 on ballistic and land attack cruise missiles
with ranges extending to 1000 km suggests interest in long-range delivery
systems... M16 was planning to produce several CW agents including sulfur mustard,
nitrogen mustard, and Sarin (Ibid). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">They found that Operation Desert Fox (a small scale operation
undertaken by the U.S and UK in 1998) significantly weakened their nuclear
programme. It would be interesting to ask those against the Iraq war whether
they would have authorised the operation. Sanctions also played a role in
weakening the WMD capability but as they note sanctions were weakening:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to
mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international
support. Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions
regime, both in terms of oil exports and the trade embargo, by the end of 1999
(Ibid). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">I will expand on the erosion of sanctions and containment in
Part 3. Of course the Iraq Survey Group also did not find ‘evidence that Saddam
Husayn possessed WMD stocks in 2003.’ There are many on the right who like
peddle stories of a limited amount of WMD being found. And there is a very
small grain of truth in this: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It is not literally true that no WMD
were found in Iraq. After 2003, according to a U.S. Army report,
‘‘approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin
nerve agent’’ were discovered. These were decaying remnants of pre-1991
stockpiles, found in scattered ‘‘small numbers,’’ not the types maintained in
operational condition that were expected (Betts, p.597) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Neoconservative blogger Kyle Orton draws attention to two cables revealed by
Wikileaks which indicate mustard gas was found (see </span><a href="http://warlogs.wikileaks.org/id/151E7734-E81A-D113-5818DB36E7BABD4F/"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> and </span><a href="http://warlogs.wikileaks.org/id/7726706C-22D1-404B-B73C-5BB9F23BD1ED/"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">). But this really is getting the overstating
the discoveries: the intelligence indicated stocks, it indicated more than a
few non-operational remnants. Which brings me to another post-war
rationalisation used by a few people on the fringe. Again, here’s </span><a href="http://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/why-the-anti-war-movement-doesnt-get-off-so-lightly-from-the-disaster-in-iraq/"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Kyle Orton</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">James Clapper said “that he believed
that material from [Saddam's] illicit weapons program had been transported into
Syria“. There was certainly some heavy traffic into Syria during the
invasion... Whether we will ever know the answer is doubtful—though opening the
archives of the Assad regime might be helpful—but those who say there were “no
WMDs” in Iraq are wrong twice: they refuse to acknowledge what actually was
found [i.e., remnants referred to above] and show a distinct lack of interest
about what wasn’t <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">This line of argument is misleading. Yes, there should be
some investigation into but to make the conclusion that Orton does is rash. This
is because the Iraq Survey Group concluded that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Based on the evidence available at
present, ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD
material from Iraq to Syria took place. However, ISG was unable to rule out
unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials (Addendum to the
Comprehensive Report, p.1).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The key words in this extract are ‘unlikely’ in the first
sentence and ‘limited’ in the second. Kyle has told me that he accepts that the
view that arms were shipped is a ‘fringey one and it is not one [he]
particularly subscribe[s] to’ but I think there’s certainly a problem in giving
these theories undue credence. The Israelis seems quite keen on this idea but
they have not produced an iota of evidence for their claims. Aside from the
lack of evidence of any such movement (let alone whether the movement was of
stocks of WMD), the conclusions above should caution against accepting the
claim: Saddam did not expect an invasion, he did not expect to lose control of
his regime. His miscalculation meant that he had no reason to transfer his
supposed WMD.<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Selected Bibliography<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><u><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">R. K. Betts, ‘Two Faces of Intelligence Failure:</span> <span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">September 11 and Iraq’s Missing WMD’,
<i>Political Science Quarterly,</i> Volume
122, Issue 4, 585<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">M. Fitzgerald and R. N. Lebow, 'Iraq: The Mother of all
intelligence failures', <i>Intelligence and
National Security</i>, Volume 21, Issue No. 5, 884<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">L. Freedman, <i>A Choice
of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East, </i>Public Affairs (2008)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">T. Froscher, ‘Indispensable Intelligence and Inevitable
Failures’, <i>Nonproliferation Review, </i>Volume
17, Issue No.2, 419<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">R. Jervis, <i>Why Intelligence
Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and Iraq War, </i>Cornell University
Press (2010)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">F. P. Harvey, <i>Explaining
the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and Evidence, </i>Cambridge
University Press (2011)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">C. Kaufmann, ‘Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace
of Ideas’, <i>International Security</i>,
Vol. 29, No. 1, 5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">J. N. L. Morrison, 'British Intelligence Failures in Iraq', <i>Intelligence and National Security</i>,
Volume 26, Issue No. 4, 509<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">M. Obeidi and K. Pitzer, <i>The
Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam’s Nuclear Mastermind, </i>John Wiley
and Sons (2004) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">J Pfiffner, ‘Did President Bush Mislead the Country in His
Arguments for War with Iraq?’ <i>Presidential
Studies Quarterly, </i>Volume 34, Issue 1, 25<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">K Pollack, ‘Spies, Lies and Weapons’, <i>The Atlantic </i>(January 2004)<i> </i>available
at <</span> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2004/01/pollack.htm"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2004/01/pollack.htm</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">K. Woods, J. Lacey and W. Murray, ‘Saddam’s Delusions’, <i>Foreign Affairs </i>(May 2006) available at
<</span> <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/61701/kevin-woods-james-lacey-and-williamson-murray/saddams-delusions"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/61701/kevin-woods-james-lacey-and-williamson-murray/saddams-delusions</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Dossiers and
Intelligence: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Lord Butler, ‘Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass
Destruction’ available at <</span> <a href="http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2004/07/14/butler.pdf"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2004/07/14/butler.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Iraq Survey Group, ‘Comprehensive Report of the Special
Advisor Report on Iraq's WMD’, Vol 1 available at <</span> <a href="http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0001156395.pdf"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0001156395.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">______________ ‘Addenda to the Comprehensive Report’
available at <</span> <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/addenda.pdf"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/addenda.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the
British Government available at <</span> <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/02/uk_dossier_on_iraq/pdf/iraqdossier.pdf"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/02/uk_dossier_on_iraq/pdf/iraqdossier.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">National Intelligence Estimate (2002) available at <</span><a href="http://fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd-nie.pdf"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">http://fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd-nie.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ‘Whether Public Statements
Regarding Iraq by U.S Government Officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence
Information’ available at <</span> <a href="http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">UNMOVIC, ‘Unresolved Disarmament Issues’ available at </span><a href="http://www.un.org/depts/unmovic/documents/UNMOVIC%20UDI%20Working%20Document%206%20March%2003.pdf"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.un.org/depts/unmovic/documents/UNMOVIC%20UDI%20Working%20Document%206%20March%2003.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Saddam was not alone in thinking this, Harvey (2011)
says those in his inner circle thought “war would last only a few days and look
very much like 1998, with air strikes, military operations and ground troops,
if any, focused primarily in the south
of Iraq” (p.254) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Thomas Graham Jr. and Keith A. Hansen, <i>Preventing Catastrophe: The Use and Misuse
of Intelligence in Efforts to Halt the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass
Destruction</i>, see a summary by Froscher (2010): “They judge that it was
reasonable to conclude, as had nearly all other observers at the time, that
Saddam was still pursuing WMD” (p.420-1) Harvey (2011): “The result was a
widespread international consensus in 2003 that Saddam retained proscribed
weapons – again, this was the only reasonable interpretation of a decade of
intelligence on the regime’s behaviour” (p.197). Jervis (2010): “the most
reasonable assessment would have been that Iraq probably (but not certainly)
had active and broadly based WMD programs and small stockpile of chemical and
perhaps biological weapons” (p.155, see also the quotes throughout this post
from p.124 and p.134). Betts (2008): “Although the bottom-line analytic
conclusion was wrong and the caveats were insufficient, in the absence of
adequate collection, it was the proper estimate to make from the evidence then
available. No responsible analyst could have concluded in 2002 that Iraq did
not have concealed stocks of chemical and biological weapons” (p.598). Pfiffner
(2004): “The administration’s inference that Saddam Hussein was continuing his
previous weapons programs was not an unreasonable conclusion, one that was
shared by intelligence agencies in other countries” (p.44). Two examples of
past claims: Freedman (2008): “Whereas the discussion of the terrorist link was
deeply controversial, that was not the case with the assumption that Iraq had
stocks of WMD and was engaged in an active process of deception” (p.410). Hans
Blix told the Iraq Inquiry that “I, like most people at the time, felt that
Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction” (p.30 of his testimony available
here: <a href="http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/51945/20100727-blix-final.pdf">http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/51945/20100727-blix-final.pdf</a>)
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> To emphasise what should be apparent: this is not a
condemnation of the intelligence services but a point about the limitations of
intelligence. The intelligence services are vital in stopping terror, a fact
that I have pointed out again and again is the fact that MI5 has successfully
managed to stop several attacks. Even more specifically, British intelligence
was pretty much spot on in relation to other countries in proliferation. Cf.
Betts, p.605: “The Butler Report investigated all proliferation-related
intelligence projects, including those related to Libya, Iran, North Korea, and
the A.Q. Khan network in Pakistan, as well as Iraq. These other intelligence
projects were more or less successful, which made the Iraq case ‘‘one failure
against four successes. Hence, it was viewed as a failure due to Iraq-specific
factors that somehow tripped up an otherwise effective system,’’ not as
evidence of thorough breakdown.” But, see also Mount and Mongomerty (2014, <i>Intelligence and National Security</i>,
Volume 29, Issue 3, 357): “This paper seeks to catalogue and evaluate the
intelligence work surrounding 16 of the 25 states that are thought to have
pursued nuclear weapons and to provide a framework for evaluating the causes of
distorted intelligence estimates of nuclear proliferation.... We find that the
US has overestimated nuclear programs much more frequently than it has
underestimated or correctly estimated them." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Bush gives one interesting example of an intelligence
failure in his memoirs. Bush recalls: “Mr. President,” George [Tenet, Director
of the CIA] said, “we think we have a chance to kill Saddam Hussein.” They had
received intelligence that Saddam was hiding out in a complex called Dora Farms.
Bush ordered strikes against the complex. He goes on to say “A witness had seen
a man who resembled Saddam being carried out of the rubble at Dora Farms. But
as the days passed, the reports changed. The operation was a harbinger of
things to come. Our intent was right. The pilots performed bravely. But the
intelligence was wrong” (<i>Decision Points,
</i>p.254) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Cf. Pfiffner p.45: “The issue here is not whether the
war with Iraq was wise; whether it was a wise war will become clear only with
the passage of years. At issue here is a matter of democratic leadership.
Citizens must trust the president because they do not have all of the
information that he has. If the president misrepresents the nature of crucial
information, he undermines the democratic bonds between citizens and president
upon which this polity is based”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Select Committee on Intelligence, ‘Whether Public
Statements Regardiing Iraq by U.S Government Officials Were Substantiated by
Intelligence Information’. The conclusion is overwhelmingly that the President
and other officials generally conveyed what intelligence stated at the time. This
conclusion should be reinforced by the fact that the dissents (at the back of
the report) are fairly convincing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> The intelligence community had already noted that
al-Libi was an unreliable source. There was some doubt in the CIA as to what
was true. In the extremely critical documentary ‘Hubris’ by MSNBC’s Rachel
Maddow (based on the book <i>Hubris</i>),
Phillip Mudd is quoted as saying ‘he said two different things at two different
times. We will tell the policy consumers.. both stories, you choose to believe
what you choose to believe but I don’t know which ones accurate.’ This, again,
should downplay accusations of deception but certainly not unreasonableness. Incidentally,
the whole documentary is misleading because it argues that the reliance on
unreasonable information was a primary driver of the intelligence – it
selectively quotes dissents with hindsight and ignores the predominant
evidence. This idea should be considered untenable for the reasons this post
gives. Just to give two examples of how bad <i>Hubris
</i>is – they quote a memo of a meeting between Tommy Franks and Rumsfeld. The
memo has a section called ‘how start?’ – the documentary considers this to be ‘what
would the pretext be?’ – in reality, the memo was not “creating” a pretext, it
clearly assumes existence of WMD (the first bullet point was “Focus on WMD” and
the document listed practical concerns like how to stop “movement of WMD”).
Most significantly, under the options for “building momentum for regime change”
it has several options and significantly it states “might not have to go all
the way [to regime change].” There is
nothing sinister about the memo. Second, as Maddow states the NIE showed that
the “evidence was wrong” it freezes on a extract which says Iraq “does not have
nuclear weapons” – a claim the administration never made. See here for the full
memo: < <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show-16">http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show-16</a>>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Intelligence (accepted by the British as well)
indicated there were low-level meetings in the 90s; this was confirmed in
post-war intelligence reports based on documents from Saddam’s regime. See, for
example this DIA report which found that ‘Saddam collaborated with known Al
Qaeda affiliates and a wider constellation of Islamist terror groups’ – report
available at <i>NY Sun</i>< <a href="http://www.nysun.com/foreign/report-details-saddams-terrorist-ties/72906/">http://www.nysun.com/foreign/report-details-saddams-terrorist-ties/72906/</a>>
There was also dodgy information circulating, most famously Laurie Mylroie’s <i>Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's
Unfinished War Against America</i>. This was a shoddy book but when the
cognitive biases were in operation, her allegation that Saddam was behind
almost every terrorist act in the 90s had force. This is entirely consistent
with Richard Dearlove’s (Director of MI6) assertion in the Downing Street Memos
that ‘the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy’ – <i>he was referring to the AQ-Saddam link</i>.
In a particularly shoddy article which should be disproved by this article, Fitzgerald
and Lebow (2007) use this statement as evidence that the motivation of the U.S
had nothing to do with WMD (i.e., they incorrectly interpret it as a statement
about WMD generally rather than cognitive biases working on the AQ-Saddam
link). Finally, see the footnote above
about what the CIA stated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Cf. Blair’s remarks to the Iraq Inquiry: “if September
11 hadn't happened, our assessment of the risk of allowing Saddam any
possibility of him reconstituting his programmes would not have been the
same... Here is what changed for me the whole calculus of risk... The point about
this act in New York was that, had9 they been able to kill even more people
than those 3,000, they would have, and so, after that time, my view was you
could not take risks with this issue at all, and one dimension of it, because
we were advised, obviously, that these people would use chemical or biological
weapons or a nuclear device, if they could get hold of them--that completely
changed our assessment of where the risks for security lay... from September 11
onwards-- we obviously had to deal with Afghanistan, but from that moment,
Iran, Libya, North Korea, Iraq, the machinery, as you know, of AQ Khan, who was
the former Pakistani nuclear scientist and who had been engaged in illicit
activities and in distributing this material, all of25 this had to be brought
to an end” available at < <a href="http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/45139/20100129-blair-final.pdf">http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/45139/20100129-blair-final.pdf</a>>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Again, see n.2, and see also Betts (2008): “With the
benefit of hindsight, one might argue that the strictly correct estimate in
2002 should have been that the intelligence community simply did not know
whether Iraq retained WMD or programs to obtain WMD. That would have been
intellectually valid but would have abdicated the responsibility to provide the
best support possible to the policy process” (p.604)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> The Butler Review quotes the <i>Today Programme,</i> BBC Radio 4: “Well to be honest it’s not that kind
of document. It’s,it’s actually rather sensibly cautious and measured in tone
on the whole” – see p.127: - in the footnotes, it goes on to say “Some Editors
noted that the ‘45 minute’ story attracted attention because it was of itself
an eyecatching item in a document containing much that was either not new or
rather technical in nature.” The reason that it was considered to ‘mundane’ and
‘measured’ was the near-consensus on the view that Iraq had WMD. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> For an example, see J. N. L. Morrison, 'British
Intelligence Failures in Iraq', <i>Intelligence
and National Security</i>, Volume 26, Issue No. 4, p.515: While the dossier
itself was a fair summary of the JIC’s conclusions over the years, the
Executive Summary painted an over-stark picture, while the Prime Minister’s
foreword went completely over the top<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> A further example of this is given by the Butler
Review: “even taking into account the difficulty of recruiting and running
reliable agents on Iraqi issues, we conclude that part of the reason for the
serious doubt being cast over a high proportion of human intelligence reports
on Iraq arises from weaknesses in the effective application by SIS of its
validation procedures and their proper resourcing...”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Cf. Select Committee on Intelligence, ‘Whether Public
Statements Regardiing Iraq by U.S Government Officials Were Substantiated by
Intelligence Information’, Conclusions point patently against such an
interpretation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Cf. Harvey (2011), p.152: “It is also true that in the
interest of generating support for a policy the administration deemed
essential, a more balanced and nuanced interpretation of the intelligence did
not always emerge. But the balance in question was never between, on the one
hand, the WMD case the administration was making and, on the other, some
alternative, dissenting view that Saddam had nothing. Rather, the debate
consisted of how much relative weight should be assigned to specific items,
like operational links to Al-Qaeda or aluminum tubes, in the context of a
general consensus that Saddam had, or was developing, some level of WMD. No one
in the government (or international community) came close to making the
argument that the regime was clean, for one simple reason – there was no way to
arrive at that conclusion in the absence of UN inspectors, or in the absence of
a UN inspections report defending that conclusion. Neither UNSCOM nor UNMOVIC
ever came close to producing such a report” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn16">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/be-reasonable-intelligence-on-iraqi-wmd.html#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Cf. Kris Alexander, ‘No, Syria Doesn’t Have Saddam’s
Chemical Weapons’, <i>Wired </i>available at
< <a href="http://www.wired.com/2012/07/syria-iraq-wmd-meme/">http://www.wired.com/2012/07/syria-iraq-wmd-meme/</a>>
: “If something moved — like, say a convoy of Winnebagos of Death heading for
Syria — it could be detected and killed... Do you think anyone in the
administration or the military would have turned down the chance to justify the
war before it started? Further, does
anyone honestly think that if the Bush administration had good evidence that
the material was somehow making its way into Syria, it wouldn’t have acted?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-80598525690781348342014-04-22T14:40:00.000-07:002014-08-12T07:24:50.555-07:00"And then poof”: Futility in the Abbas-Netanyahu Negotiations 2013-4<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This round of negotiations began
with parties agreeing that they would not talk to the press. After 9 months I
have collected over 150 pages of news reports quoting anonymous sources (“Western”,
Israeli, Palestinian and American) about the talks. This post is not meant to
be an authoritative account of the talks but will seek to use the best evidence
available to evaluate the claims of these officials meshed in with my own
thoughts about the final status issues. I should emphasise that the majority of
what follows is based on Palestinian sources. It will be years before the
actors write biographies and even longer before the Israeli archives are opened
allowing for a better, truer understanding. Even if readers disagree with my
conclusions and prescriptions, this post should reflect the best descriptive
evidence available. </div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Start of Negotiations <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Quite amusingly, the <i>basis </i>for negotiation at the start was
disputed by the two sides. A ‘<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/1967-lines-not-the-basis-for-new-talks-report-says/">Palestinian
source’</a> told the Associated Press that the Palestinians had received a
letter from Kerry ‘guaranteeing that the basis of the negotiations would be
Israel’s 1967 lines.’ But another Palestinian <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Abbass-spokesman-Palestinian-leadership-hasnt-decided-to-resume-talks-yet-320555">source</a>,
Abaas Zakki of the PLO Executive Committee said no such assurances were given. Funnily
enough, given the coverage of Israeli officials making inappropriate remarks
against John Kerry, Zakki accused Kerry of having an “extraordinary ability to
deceive not only others, but first and foremost himself.” Meanwhile, Israeli
sources were bragging that the talks were not to be held on the basis of the
1967 lines – including <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.536915">Netanyahu</a>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
I pulled the
Palestinians down from the tree of preconditions; I didn’t agree to a further
freeze of building in the territories; I refused to release 120 prisoners
before the talks began; and the 1967 borders aren’t mentioned</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A “Western official” confirmed
that the 1967 lines were not mentioned as the basis for negotiation to the <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/world/middleeast/palestinian-prisoner-release-is-critical-hurdle-in-resuming-peace-talks.html">New
York Times</a></i>. What seems likely, however, is that the U.S wrote a letter
and that is what <i>they</i> would consider
the basis of the talks. According to a report in <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.536906">Haaretz</a>,
this was accepted by the Palestinians for two reasons: Netanyahu’s movement on
the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel and secondly</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Kerry’s threat
that Abbas would be blamed for the failure to renew the talks, leading to cuts
in the U.S. funding of the PA, seemed to convince Abbas to agree to renew talks
without reaching agreement on all topics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Does the failure for Israeli
officials to accept the 67 lines as a basis for negotiation show how
intransigent they are? The 1967 lines should be the basis for negotiations and,
as is commonly said, ‘everyone agrees’ that with modifications, it will be the
future border. But I’m not sure this speaks to Israeli intransigence for two
reasons. Firstly, prior to this round of negotiations, Netanyahu’s position was
known to the Palestinians. His position has been derided as rejectionist but
the sources for such a claim are outdated: he not only accepts the ’67 lines,
but is close to previous Israeli offers. In 2010, Palestinian news outlet Firas
Press reported that Netanyahu had communicated that he was willing to withdraw
from 90% of the West Bank. In fact, the majority of discussions that Ehud Barak
undertook during that time was devoted to finding ideal security
arrangements.[1] </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But it’s not just this report
that makes me think there is no need for explicit reference to the ‘67 lines.
Netanyahu’s 90% position seems to have been an opening. In 2012, Haaretz
reported that Netanyahu’s envoy Molho offered exactly the same thing, if not
more. <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/netanyahu-s-border-proposal-israel-to-annex-settlement-blocs-but-not-jordan-valley-1.413473">Haaretz</a>
noted that his position was “similar, if not identical to that which was
presented by Tzipi Livni during the negotiations that took place in 2008.” (Note
too that goes beyond Likud <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-would-give-up-86-of-west-bank-says-deputy-fm/">public
position</a> of ending the occupation of 86% of the West Bank). Yasser Abed
Raboo had a separate line of communication with Netanyahu during the same period.
According to <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/revealed-netanyahus-secret-talks-with-the-palestinians/">Abed
Raboo</a>, Bibi was willing start negotiations on the basis of the 1967 lines (<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/likud-sources-claim-pm-ready-to-negotiate-on-basis-of-pre-1967-lines/#ixzz2qtJ8tVK2">Likud
sources</a> confirmed this in December 2013). As if to underscore the general
point I’m making (i.e., that Netanyahu is not as rejectionist as commonly
portrayed), Abed Raboo stated the following:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Netanyahu
literally jumped up. ‘You were born in Jaffa?’ he asked. And he looked at me
and said, “I promise you that after all this is over, I’ll allow you to return
to live in Jaffa.’</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Even on the issue of Jerusalem,
which Bibi seems more intransigent on, the current round of negotiations have
shown how flexible he is compared to the general perception of him. Around
January 2014, <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/upbeat-kerry-says-some-progress-made-in-peace-talks/#ixzz2qtLd5Otv">Palestinian
sources</a> stated that ‘Kerry had suggested a new formulation for Jerusalem,
under which it would be termed the capital of both states without a clear
definition of East Jerusalem’s outlines, that Netanyahu had “apparently” agreed
to this, and that the Palestinians had rejected it.’ This should not be
surprising, a <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/poll-most-rightist-israelis-would-support-palestinian-state-dividing-jerusalem.premium-1.490926">Haaretz
poll</a> found that the majority of Likud voters support the Clinton
Perametres. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Secondly, Israel’s electoral
system has had a negative effect on the Israeli leader’s (past and present)
ability to state their positions publically. Bennett, the leader of HaBayit
HaYehudi, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Bennett-Bayit-Yehudi-opposition-to-67-lines-paid-off-320475">stated</a>
that he would not be part of a government that negotiated on the basis of the
1967 lines. It goes without saying that Avigdor Liberman has the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Bennett-Bayit-Yehudi-opposition-to-67-lines-paid-off-320475">same
position</a>. To ask Netanyahu to publically declare his position (as confirmed
above) would lead to the <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/bennett-well-bolt-coalition-if-it-agrees-to-1967-lines/#ixzz2qtMlmzs3">downfall
of his coalition</a>. In essence, a public rejection of the ’67 lines does not
represent Bibi’s position and we can easily explain it. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Aside from the 1967 lines issue,
there were several reports that Israeli officials had committed to a partial
settlement freeze. But this was a slight of hand: Netanyahu <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-reportedly-agreed-to-limit-settlement-building-during-talks/">agreed</a>
with Kerry that he would approve no more than 1,000 homes in existing settlement
blocs within the first two months of negotiations. The reason this is a slight
of hand is<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.538180"> because</a>
there has “almost never been a year in which more than 1,000 housing units were
built under government auspices in the settlements.” A <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=13111">Palestinian
source</a> confirmed that “Israel will be able to pursue construction... in
exchange for the prisoners' release” – although, as explained below, this was
only in relation to the settlement blocs. I will return to the issue of
prisoner releases below. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This is a good point to talk
about what settlements generally mean for the peace process. Pro-Israel <a href="http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/you-wont-believe-how-many-new.html#.U1UBJPldV6Y">supporters</a>
often like to say that there have been no new settlements since the 1990s
(although Netanyahu has actually established <a href="http://peacenow.org.il/eng/sites/default/files/summary-of-4-years-of-netanyahu-government.pdf">3-4
new settlements</a>). By this they mean that the territory that is included in
the boundaries of settlement blocs have not expanded. Pro-Palestinian supporters,
however, point to the increase in housing units within those boundaries and
population increases. The truth lies somewhere in the middle: the latter view
doesn’t take into account that the total land that is actually covered by
settlements is roughly 2% by most accounts (though this does not take into
account the surrounding infrastructure to said settlements which will require
up to 5%).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But the former, Pro-Israel view
does not take into account three things. First, the <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/at-least-166-homes-in-israeli-settlement-built-on-private-palestinian-land.premium-1.496872">appropriation</a>
of Palestinian private property. Second, it does not take into account illegal
activity undertaken by private individuals. This is an even more pressing
concern given the official policy of the Netanyahu government to acquiesce to
facts on the ground where the land is “State Land” (see <a href="http://peacenow.org.il/eng/sites/default/files/state_response_070311.pdf">paragraph
4</a> of the Israeli government’s response to a Peace Now petition).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Thirdly, it does not take into
account that the Netanyahu government has been adding “neighbourhoods” to
existing settlement blocs. These “neighbourhoods” were originally built in
contravention of Israeli law and were promised to be removed. They have now
been, outrageously, <a href="http://peacenow.org.il/eng/sites/default/files/summary-of-4-years-of-netanyahu-government.pdf">retrospectively
legalised</a> by adding them to settlement blocs. Importantly, these cannot
seriously said to be within the boundaries of existing blocs. To give one
example of how the Pro-Israel view seriously understates the issue of
settlements: in 2012, the Israelis approved the establishment of a new
settlement (i.e., not within an existing bloc or boundary) of Rechalim. Rechalim
was an illegal outpost which successive Israeli governments vowed to take down.
As if to make a further mockery of the Israeli legal system and Palestinian
claims, the boundaries of this new settlement were changed to include another
outpost, <a href="http://peacenow.org.il/eng/Nofei-Nehemia">Nofei Nehemia</a>
(built contrary to Israeli law) which is located <i>two kilometres </i>from Rechalim. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It is <i>these </i>kind of<i> </i>new
settlement approvals that increase that 2% figure. Moreover, it is these type
of settlements that seem to have violated the agreement to return to the
current negotiations. As stated above, Bibi agreed to limit construction to
1,000 units within the existing settlements (a meaningless limit). But he also
seems to have agreed to limited construction outside of the settlement blocs –
and Israel violated this proviso:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
While
objecting, discussion of plans [of construction within settlement blocs] was
part of the understandings that led to the renewal of the peace talks, along
with the issue of the prisoners. The declaration of construction plans in <i>secluded settlements</i>, however caught the
Palestinians by surprise. Netanyahu told U.S. officials that he, too, was
surprised by the approval of the plan, but the Palestinians reject this as an
excuse (<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.540937">Haaretz</a>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Senior Israeli
and American officials said that Kerry told the Israeli premier that <i>some</i> of the tenders being published
contravened agreements between the sides to curb construction over the course
of the nine-month negotiations period (<a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014564600">Haaretz</a>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
All the above leads me to the
following general conclusions: Israeli settlements are infringing on the ’67 lines and it is wrong to downplay the impact of the settlements by focusing purely on
existing boundaries. It is why I agree with <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fco-minister-condemns-israeli-settlement-plans">my
government’s</a> and the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Kerry-US-considers-Israeli-settlements-to-be-illegal-330786">USG’s</a>
view that they pose an obstacle to a peace agreement. But they do not provide
an excuse for the Palestinians to refuse to negotiate: these settlement
expansions beyond current boundaries occur over an extremely long period of time
(i.e., long periods of time are required to increase the aforementioned 2% figure).[2]
Moreover, the Israeli commitment to peace is not linked to a commitment to end
settlement activity. Norman Finkelstein of all people <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2006/2/14/fmr_israeli_foreign_minister_shlomo_ben">pointed
out</a> that </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Even on the
record of settlements, as Dr. Ben-Ami well knows, the record of Rabin was worse
in terms of settlement expansion than the record of Yitzhak Shamir, and a fact
he leaves out in the book, the record of Barak on housing startups in the
Occupied Territories... was worse than the record of Netanyahu [in the 1990s].
It’s a paradox... the worst record is the record of Labour, not Likud.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Nobody seriously believes that
Shamir was more committed to peace than Rabin. And nobody seriously believes
that Netanyahu was more serious about peace in the 1990s than Barak. Even the
settlement freeze accepted by Netanyahu in 2010 was <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/settlement-freeze-it-was-barely-a-slowdown-1.316074">barely
a “freeze”:</a> there was a 16% reduction in the number of housing units being
constructed in the period. The reason for this was (i) exemption for 600 units
and (ii) a 90% increase in approvals prior to the freeze being implemented
(which were unaffected by the freeze). The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fm0TcjT95M&feature=player_embedded">Palestinians</a>
knew there wasn't a settlement freeze but a “slow down” – and yet chose to negotiate.
Abbas has negotiated in private several times without settlement freezes even when Israel breached an agreement as in
this round[3] (I have mentioned a few private negotiations above). In fact
Palestinian sources <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3953106,00.html">accepted</a>
the lack of a freeze was “not a reason to call off the talks” in 2010. Thus,
settlements have little to do with Israeli desire for peace or Palestinian
desire for peace. But that doesn’t mean they are not a long term obstacle to
peace. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Clutching at straws<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The original plan was to have a 9
month timetable which would resolve the final status issues. The details of how
this plan failed are not particularly interesting: there was a debate for a
long time about whether the Jordan Valley would be subject to Israeli control
(Bibi’s position), international supervision (Livni’s position) or Palestinian
control (Abbas’ position) – see this <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-rejects-israeli-claim-to-jordan-valley/"><i>Times of Israel</i></a><i> </i>report for a summary. In the course of the negotiations however,
several positions held by the parties have come out. Israel’s <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-make-stiff-land-demands-for-peace/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter">Channel
2</a> leaked the following: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The Palestinian
Authority demands that any land swap with Israel as part of a peace deal not
exceed 1.9 percent of the West Bank... that it may sign agreements with other
states without Israeli intervention; that Israel release all Palestinian
prisoners in Israeli prisons; and that all Palestinian refugees and their
descendants be granted the right to choose to live in Israel or the Palestinian
territories as part of a final agreement [contrary to what Abbas said <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-well-renounce-claims-to-jaffa-haifa-for-peace/">here</a>]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Around December 2013, Kerry
presented a security proposal to both sides: it said that Israel would remain
in the Jordan Valley for 10 years. There was a <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-reject-kerry-layout-for-peace-plan/">Channel
10</a> report that stated it also included land swaps and a cap on Palestinian
refugees but this doesn’t seem to be particularly credible. The Palestinians <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.562718">rejected</a>
this. Netanyahu also <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-reportedly-offered-to-lease-settlements-from-pa/#ixzz2qtM5wsYn">offered</a>
to cede most of West Bank – including the territory with settlements on it in
exchange for a long term lease of the land with payment. The Palestinians
rejected this. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
It was around this time that talk
of a “framework deal” rather than a final status agreement became the U.S aim
for negotiations (see <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-security-plan-included-idf-troops-on-west-bank-highway/#ixzz2qtQ7vqo0">here</a>
and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/world/middleeast/kerry-to-press-for-framework-accord-to-keep-mideast-peace-effort-moving.html?ref=middleeast&_r=0">here</a>).
This would provide a framework for future talks after the 9months were up. The
Palestinians didn’t react well to this change, Abed Raboo <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/bennett-said-to-give-netanyahu-red-lines-for-framework-deal/#ixzz2qtKCJkdC">said</a>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The
Palestinian side will not even look at a worthless piece of paper, a framework
agreement, which contains general principles for later negotiations, when the
two sides have already been negotiating for months and years</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Kerry’s framework seems to have changed
several times – he tried to include the new formulation of Jerusalem stated
above (accepted by Netanyahu, rejected by the Palestinians) – but the <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/jerusalem-vivendi/.premium-1.571721#.UuuhdoFnLFM.twitter">final
version</a> seems to have been:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The ‘Kerry
Plan,’ likely to be unveiled soon, is expected to call for an end to the
conflict and all claims, following a phased Israeli withdrawal from the West
Bank (based on the 1967 lines), with unprecedented security arrangements in the
strategic Jordan Valley. The Israeli withdrawal will not include certain
settlement blocs, but Israel will compensate the Palestinians for them with
Israeli territory. It will call for the Palestinians to have a capital in Arab
East Jerusalem and for Palestinians to recognize Israel as the nation state of
the Jewish people. It will not include any right of return for Palestinian
refugees into Israel proper</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The Palestinians <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-tells-kerry-no-to-framework-deal-in-current-form/#ixzz2xa9auPJI">confirmed</a>
that these were the terms. I.e., its exactly what ‘everyone thinks’ the final
solution will look like. It’s extremely similar to the Clinton Parameters, the
Olmert offer and Netanyahu’s positions quoted above. Netanyahu, for his part,
was “searching for a way to tell Kerry "yes," while somehow keeping
his coalition intact” <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.567689">according</a>
to Likud members who spoke to him. He essentially accepted the Kerry Plan in
private but not in public (see <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-tells-kerry-no-to-framework-deal-in-current-form/#ixzz2xa9auPJI">here</a>).
The Palestinians <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-tells-kerry-no-to-framework-deal-in-current-form/#ixzz2xa9auPJI">rejected</a>
the framework agreement. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Whats really interesting is the
reasons given for the refusal. The <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-tells-kerry-no-to-framework-deal-in-current-form/#ixzz2xa9auPJI"><i>Times of Israel</i></a><i> </i>had a comprehensive set of quotes from Palestinian officials on
the matter – which included assertions that the framework agreement was vague. There
is, however, one factor which makes these talks futile and irrelevant. So far I
have merely noted that the Palestinians have rejected several proposals put
before them. I have not sought to evaluate whether each rejection was right or
not (in fact, I think the idea of ‘leasing land’ is an impractical idea). But there
is one thing which I think everyone involved will consider a categorically
incorrect position to take – something that makes the current negotiations
useless. According to <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/tv-report-abbas-said-no-to-obama-on-3-core-peace-issues/">multiple
sources</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Abbas rejected
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that he recognize Israel as a Jewish
state. He also refused to abandon the Palestinian demand for a “right of
return” for millions of Palestinians and their descendants... And finally, he
refused to commit to an “end of conflict,” under which a peace deal would
represent the termination of any further Palestinian demands of Israel</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
John Kerry has <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Kerry-says-Netanyahu-wrong-to-insist-Palestinians-recognize-Israel-as-Jewish-state-345341">said</a>
that “its a mistake for some people to be raising [recognition of Israel as a
Jewish state] again and again as the critical decider of their attitude toward
the possibility of a state, and peace.” I have sympathy with this view – but
only if the peace agreement is an agreement which puts an end to all further
claims. In such a situation, the fact that Israel is a Jewish state is a
reality which no one can contest. Abbas is refusing to accept – in a framework
agreement (!) – that an eventual peace agreement will mean an end to all
claims. The PA has <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.556329">said</a>
that he is not interested in an interim agreement – but this precisely what any
agreement without an end to all clams would be. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The irrelevance of the prisoner release and ‘diplomatic warfare’ <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In the weeks that followed, Israeli
officials <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-abbas-refusal-to-discuss-jewish-state-torpedoing-talks/#ixzz2xaDjJm6g">focused</a>
on Abbas’ rejection of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state ignoring the
issue of an end to all claims. In any event, the conversation seems to have
quickly changed to Israel’s final prisoner release. Israel was due to release
the last batch of prisoners on March 29 – a release that U.S officials <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/erekat-israel-to-release-30-prisoners-on-march-29/#ixzz2xaPbBzMD">assured</a>
the Palestinians would happen but which Israel <a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/19194">refused</a> to carry out. At the
very start of the negotiations, Israel officials <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-says-pa-dropped-preconditions-but-palestinians-claim-kerry-promised-talks-on-basis-of-pre-67-lines/">stated</a>
that prisoners would “would go free in phases, depending on the progress of the
talks” (something that Bibi <a href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=617242">stated</a>
publically). This does not seem to be the way U.S and Palestinian officials
took the agreement as they both <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/US-to-Israel-No-Palestinian-prisoner-release-is-violation-of-terms-of-talks-346878">said</a>
Israel as violating the agreement to return to negotiations. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Another bone of contention
between the two sides was whether Israeli Arabs would be included in the
prisoner release. Israeli officials from the very start <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-says-pa-dropped-preconditions-but-palestinians-claim-kerry-promised-talks-on-basis-of-pre-67-lines/">stated</a>
that Israeli Arabs were not included as part of the deal. Unlike the contested
claims above, I am not sure whether Israeli Arabs were intended to be part of
the deal. But Israel’s refusal to release any of the final batch of prisoners
should make this a relatively minor point. There are two points to make in
relation to the prisoner release. First, Israel offered to release the
prisoners in exchange for a continuation of talks. Palestinian officials <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-reject-israel-talks-proposal-as-blackmail/#ixzz2xaEOnhx4">said</a>
that this was “a policy of blackmail [by] linking its agreement to releasing the
fourth batch of prisoners with the Palestinians accepting to extend the
negotiations.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
My own view is that this is not
blackmail but a justifiable position: no state should hand over violent
individuals in exchange for no benefit. This is so even accepting that there is
a reasonable case that the exchange was part of the agreement. Israel was
merely asking for further negotiations – in fact, Palestinian sources said
Israel was <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-offers-to-free-400-more-prisoners-if-abbas-extends-talks/#ixzz2xaEnDE6x">willing</a>
to offer up 400 more prisoners for an extension of 6 months. There was a clear
Israeli fear <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-offers-to-free-400-more-prisoners-if-abbas-extends-talks/#ixzz2xaEnDE6x">that</a>
that the “PA would back out of peace talks once the fourth round of convicts
were released.” This was not an unjustified fear. Abbas <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Abbas-rejects-extending-peace-talks-beyond-nine-month-timeline-338924">ruled</a>
out an extension of talks prior to the prisoner release affair stating that “We
need to focus on the remaining time and not think about pro-longing the talks.”
Saeb Erekat also <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Erekat-rejects-possible-extension-of-deadline-of-talks-with-Israel-335951">ruled
out</a> the possibility of an extension prior to the prisoner release issue. Added
to this the refusal to countenance an end to the conflict, Israel made the
right decision. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Second, the U.S appears to have
tried to <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.583059">salvage
the talks</a> by including the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan
Pollard. It would also include the release of several hundred Palestinian
prisoners, family reunifications and a settlement freeze (which would likely be
as useless as the last settlement freeze). I can’t put how illogical this is
better than <a href="http://ottomansandzionists.com/2014/04/01/leave-pollard-where-he-is/">Michael
Kaplow</a>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
That the
Israeli government would link his release to its own willingness to resolving a
wholly separate issue is shameful. If Israel does not think that it is in its
own best interests to continue negotiating or if it genuinely believes that it
has no reliable partner across the table, then it should end the negotiations
irrespective of what the U.S. offers since to do otherwise would be to take a
concession in bad faith. Conversely, if the Israeli government believes that
negotiations stand a good chance of success and that a deal with the
Palestinians would be in Israel’s best interests, then it is monstrously dumb
to link the willingness to keep on talking to Pollard’s release.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I can’t see why the U.S offered
this: Israel was <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4504491,00.html">willing</a> to
continue the talks and give over further prisoners. As best as I can tell,
Israel did not request this but was <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4509170,00.html">offered</a> it
to “sweeten the deal.” Not to be outdone on illogical decision-making by the
U.S, Abbas for his part <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4503748,00.html">refused</a> to
talk about extensions so long as the prisoners were not released. The PA then
started a process of applying to join 15 different international organisations/treaties.
The Palestinians said they no longer felt bound by their pledge to avoid
“diplomatic warfare” (quite frankly a ridiculous, somewhat Orwellian phrase) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/world/middleeast/mideast-peace-talks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes">because</a>
of Israel’s refusal to release the last batch of prisoners. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Israel reacted badly: it has
sanctioned the PA <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Source-No-breakthrough-in-effort-to-save-peace-talks-but-sides-agree-to-meet-again-348215">financially</a>;
it has <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-suspends-government-communication-with-pa/">stopped
all cooperation</a> outside of security matters and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/world/middleeast/mideast-peace-talks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes">asked</a>
the Palestinians to revoke the 15 applications. This is a hysterical reaction
from the Israelis; there is simply no need for it. Sure, it violates terms of
Oslo and it violates the agreement to return to negotiations <i>but it really doesn’t matter</i>: this is
about peace between peoples, not a time for trivialities. As Grant Rumley
points out in <i><a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/02/palestine_abbas_israel_statehood_peacetalks">Foreign
Policy</a>:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Among the
organizations and conventions that the Palestinians applied to join, none of
them represents a serious threat to Israel. Almost all of them are not even
directly linked to the United Nations. Rather, they're a series of conventions
and articles, such as the 4th Geneva Convention, treaties on the rights of the
child, and a convention on the elimination of discrimination against women.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I have made clear above that the
refusal to handover the last batch of prisoners was justified because it would
lead to Israel releasing violent individuals for no benefit; Palestinian
intransigence in negotiations and a refusal to agree to an extension would make
it an act of self-harm. But even if you disagree with me on this point, it
should be noted that the plan to apply to international organisations predated
the prisoner issue. Erekat prepared a list of recommendations for Abbas –
including to “immediately” apply to said organisations – <a href="http://jcpa.org/article/crisis-peace-talks/">prior to and without
reference</a> to the prisoner release. This matters to the failure of the talks
but not to peace (see below for the distinction). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The Blame Game<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A distinction between the talks,
further new talks going forward and peace should be made. The party to blame
for the failure of one does not necessarily have the blame for the other. To
start with the failure of the talks, it is clear that each side can very easily
mould the facts to their own liking. The Palestinians could say that the
agreement had been violated by Israel twice: first when they approved of
non-bloc settlements and then when they refused to handover the final batch of prisoners.
U.S officials apparently <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.583964">share</a>
this view. John Kerry said just as much noting that after the failure of the
final prisoner release and the new tenders for construction in Gilo, <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/kerry-focuses-blame-for-impasse-in-talks-on-israel/">“poof”
– talks over</a> (although see <a href="http://www.thetower.org/0132oc-state-department-scrambles-to-correct-coverage-of-kerry-testimony/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter">here</a>
and <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.584850">here</a>
for denials that this is what he meant).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
My own view has been given above:
despite disagreeing with the settlements, they cannot be blamed for the failure
of any talks (past or present) and I think Israel was right in refusing to hand
over the last batch without a pledge to continue negotiations. More
particularly, I think the newly issued construction tenders weren’t
particularly important to failure of the talks and to peace generally because
Gilo will be part of Israel proper. As <a href="http://www.thetower.org/0132oc-state-department-scrambles-to-correct-coverage-of-kerry-testimony/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter">Jefferey
Goldberg</a> stated back in 2011, this is one of the things that “everyone —
the Americans, the Palestinians and the Israelis — knows.” You don’t have to
take his word for it, Erekat offered Gilo to Israel in 2008 (<a href="http://transparency.aljazeera.net/files/2825.pdf">see p.5</a>). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Going forward, talks are
currently ongoing and so things could change. But at the moment, the failure to
<i>restart</i> talks can be laid on both
sides. Israel must stop asking for the withdrawal of the 15 applications –
simply because the Palestinians are probably right in saying that they couldn’t
revoke them even if they wanted to. But I can’t help in saying that the
Palestinians still share a much bigger share of the blame for the failure to
get talks going again. They have imposed 7 new preconditions before talks can
be entered into.[4] <a href="http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=687363">Ma’an</a>
reported these conditions:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
1. To receive
a written letter from Israel's premier recognizing the Palestinian borders of
1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital. [The PA <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Israeli-officials-Zero-chances-for-peace-talks-to-break-impasse-before-end-of-April-348304">publically
stated</a> that it wanted the borders drawn before agreeing to an extension of
talks]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
2. The release
of Palestinian prisoners who former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to free
including Marwan Barghouthi, Ahmad Saadat, and Fuad Shweiki. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
3.
Implementing a border-crossing agreement and lifting the siege on Gaza. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
4. The return
of exiles deported in the 2002 Bethlehem siege. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
5. Stopping
settlement activity in Jerusalem, and opening closed institutions in Jerusalem.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
6. Allowing
the reunification of 15,000 Palestinians with their families. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
7. Israel
refraining from entering areas under Palestinian Authority control for arrests
or killings, and granting the PA some control over Area C.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
None of these conditions are
acceptable: the first essentially gives up all territorial claims without
allowing for land swaps that are realistically going to be part of the
agreement; the second condition actually includes a list of <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4506655,00.html">1,200
prisoners</a> – a high number which includes high profile individuals etc etc.
In essence, the list of demands makes Israel’s insistence on the 15
applications irrelevant. To emphasise: these are <i>preconditions </i>not starting points for a negotiation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The reason I wish to make a
distinction between talks and peace is because the former can be ended on the
basis of one of the trivial reasons given above (be it settlements that
everyone knows will be part of Israel or the 15 insignificant applications) –
whereas the failure of peace is about the actors and their positions. This was
point well made by Muhammad Shtayyeh, a senior Palestinian negotiator, who told
the <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/08/world/middleeast/mideast-talks.html">New
York Times</a>:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Some of you
might be under the impression that the differences between us and the Israelis
have to do with the prisoner release or the recognition of Israel as a Jewish
state... We have big differences with the Israelis on refugees, on Jerusalem,
on borders, and on the Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley... The
gap between us and the Israelis has been growing and not narrowing. No one
should be left under the impression that we have an opportunity that we are
losing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Again, my own view was given
above: if there is no end to the conflict, the parties are negotiating over
details of an interim agreement, they are not negotiating over a peace
agreement. I think Netanyahu’s positions (those he gives in private – to
Palestinians) are amenable to a peace agreement. This is not because Bibi is
sincere: he has been forced into his position by the Israeli public, political
opposition and the United States. There is still hope but as Jackson Delhi
wrote in the <i><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-the-united-states-cant-get-a-mideast-settlement-by-diplomatic-blitzkrieg/2014/04/13/2952ecae-c0bb-11e3-b195-dd0c1174052c_story.html">Washington
Post</a><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Almost every
positive development in Israeli-Palestinian relations has happened outside the
“peace process.” Israelis accepted Palestinian statehood because they realized
their country could not keep the West Bank and remain both Jewish and
democratic. Palestinians abandoned violence because it failed to end the
occupation and was far more costly to Palestinians than to Israelis. Security
cooperation works in the West Bank because Israel and the Palestinian authority
share an interest in combating Islamic extremists.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The solution lies in fully
utilising the Palestinian public – this requires transparent governance,
institutions and new elections. As I have <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/246388415246004224">pointed</a>
out <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/399901400592703489">over</a>
and <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/398145169012174848">over</a>
again: the Palestinian people <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/406211153895780352">reject Hamas’</a>
means and ends and <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/322135390641352705">favour</a> a <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/246385966690992129">peace
agreement</a>. Until then, their leaders will not respond to their wishes: an
end to the conflict.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Update (12/08/2014):</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Yedioth Account</i></b><br />
<br />
Since I have written this post, there have been three different accounts published. Many have chosen the account that fits with their ideological preferences rather than, as I have, based it on account of mostly Palestinian officials during the talks. The new accounts are all valuable in some way but it is my contention that they do not significantly change the account given here. I was not going to write about these new accounts because it should be obvious that they are not based on as many sources as the account above. But the reliance by some on these new accounts has persuaded me of the need to respond.<br />
<br />
The first account that came out after the talks ended was published in the Israeli daily <i><a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4515821,00.html">Yedioth Ahronoth</a> </i>by the veteran journalist Nahum Barnea. The account is based on U.S officials who state that<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are a lot of reasons for the peace effort's failure, but people in Israel shouldn't ignore the bitter truth - the primary sabotage came from the settlements... [A]nnouncements of new housing tenders in settlements limited Abbas' ability to show flexibility. He lost his trust in the talks. The worst part was when Netanyahu said Abbas had agreed to a deal of prisoners for settlement construction.</blockquote>
This account is riddled with inaccuracies. The most important one is that settlement construction was allowed as part of the agreement at the start of the talks: I quote several officials, U.S, Israeli and Palestinian, confirming that construction in the blocs was allowed. A Palestinian official explicitly confirms that construction was allowed to continue in exchange for the prisoner release. It is not for nothing that Netanyahu can confidently and mostly rightly <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/471266637220298753">state</a> that "We built exactly what we said we would build in every one of the tranches" (see also <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4517947,00.html">here</a>). <br />
<br />
What makes this such a gross inaccuracy is the precise details of the breakdown:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Kerry realized an agreement would not be reached. He tried to at least get an agreement on both sides to continue the talks. The Palestinians demanded the prisoners Kerry promised them, including Israeli-Arab murderers. Netanyahu demanded something in return. Kerry persuaded Obama to give him Pollard. And then came the Housing and Construction Ministry's announcement of building tenders for more than 700 housing units in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood. Abbas lost interest. He turned to the reconciliation talks with Hamas and to the question of who would inherit his mantle.</blockquote>
It was tenders for settlement building in Gilo that made Abbas lose interest. Does anyone seriously believe this? There are four reasons this is unconvincing. First, because of the aforementioned fact that settlement construction in the blocs was agreed to. Second, the Palestinians planned to leave the talks which should bring into question settlements as a cause of breakdown, and more particularly, Gilo settlements as a cause of breakdown. As <i><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.589256">Haaretz</a></i> noted:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Attached to the letter, a copy of which has been obtained by Haaretz, is a 65-page document that chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat submitted to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on March 9, three weeks before Israel was to release the final batch of Palestinian prisoners. In it, Erekat proposed a strategy for the PA during the final month of negotiations and after April 29, when the talks were originally scheduled to end before their premature collapse... Erekat recommended... informing the U.S. and Europe that the Palestinians wouldn’t extend the talks beyond April 29, demanding that Israel nevertheless release the final batch of prisoners, intensifying efforts to reconcile with Hamas.. The document also shows that the Palestinians planned in advance to take unilateral steps in defiance of the commitment they made when the talks were launched in July 2013</blockquote>
I would ask readers to note when this letter was written as it confirms the Palestinians had no intention of renewing talks. The date is March 9th. When were the Gilo settlement tenders announced? <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Over-700-housing-tenders-approved-for-Gilo-347199">April 1st</a>. Third, as noted above, Gilo is going to be part of Israel under any deal - a fact that is accepted by Erekat. <i><a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinian-officials-who-decry-gilo-colony-public-offered-it-israel-negotiations">Electronic Intifada</a> </i>noted this point but failed to make any connection and thus missed in the inconsistency. Fourth, if the reason for the breakdown in the talks was because of settlement building, it is clear that Israel <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-was-ready-to-allow-wide-scale-palestinian-building-in-key-west-bank-areas/">offered</a> a partial settlement freeze to renew the talks (see also <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4513195,00.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Report-Netanyahu-agreed-to-talk-borders-settlement-freeze-just-before-Hamas-Fatah-deal-350419">here</a>). Anyone who puts their faith into this highly inaccurate account is ignoring all of these four reasons and also the account given above based on copious sources. <br />
<br />
At this point, it is also worth reiterating two points. First, that Israel wanted to extend the talks and the only reason for the refusal to release the last batch of prisoners was Abbas' inability to agree to an extension by placing the list of preconditions above. Second, for reasons I explained in the main body of the text, I consider settlement building outside of the blocs (and sometimes within) an obstacle to peace whilst still not being a reason for Palestinians to abandon negotiations. It's also worth looking at Israeli construction during the period of the negotiations. <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Peace-Now-Israel-issued-tenders-for-thousands-of-settler-homes-during-talks-350742">Peace Now</a> came out with the following statistics:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Tenders were issued for 4,868 new homes over the pre-1967 lines during the nine-month negotiating process... In addition, the Civil Administration advanced plans for 8,938 new housings units over the Green Line... only 27% of the plans advanced for new settler homes were in the settlement blocs, which Israel believes would remain part of its state in any final status agreement with the Palestinians. The bulk of the plans, 73%, were for Jewish communities outside those areas</blockquote>
But the Peace Now figures are somewhat misleading. Tenders and plans are not the same as actual construction. In fact, it's been <a href="http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/how-single-settlement-apartment-can-be.html#.U-n06fldV6a">noted</a> that Peace Now's definition of "approvals" includes several stages that relate to the same proposed housing unit (i.e, a single housing unit has 8 approvals). What happens when we look at <i>actual </i>construction in the West Bank? As an op-ed in the <i><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/israel-gets-no-credit-from-obama-for-a-year-of-moderate-settlement-construction/2014/03/13/d2ee1b12-aab8-11e3-adbc-888c8010c799_story.html">Washington Post</a> </i>noted<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The critical figure to monitor is the number of Israeli houses built outside such blocs in areas intended for the future state of Palestine. What the CBS data tell us on that question is that only 908 units were built last year in Israeli townships of 10,000 residents or fewer. And most of those units were built in settlement towns that are part of the major blocs. Units built in areas that would become part of Palestine number in the hundreds — and likely in the low hundreds. Given that about 90,000 Israelis live in the West Bank outside the blocs, that is approximately the rate of natural growth... <i>In fact, what the much-cited CBS data reveal is that Netanyahu’s track record on this issue is more restrained than that of Ehud Barak</i>, the last Labor Party prime minister, whose government approved three times more new houses in small settlements in 2000 than Netanyahu did last year.</blockquote>
That last sentence should echo exactly what I said above: 'nobody seriously believes that Netanyahu was more serious about peace in the 1990s than Barak.' I can now say it again with a slight amendment: nobody can seriously believe that Netanyahu is more serious about peace <i>in 2010</i> than Barak was in the 1990s - despite the latter building more settlements<i>. </i>This would also explain why Netanyahu had to explain himself before a group of settlers <a href="http://www.jta.org/2014/05/30/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/netanyahu-u-s-pressure-behind-west-bank-planning-freeze#ixzz3AB5JHegK">stating</a> "he suspended construction in West Bank settlements because of American pressure." There are some minor points in this account which are also wrong (refuted in my account) but they are not significant enough to warrant further discussion.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Haaretz Account</i></b><br />
<br />
The second account to come out is from the Israeli left wing paper <i>Haaretz </i>written by Israel's leading diplomatic journalist Barak Ravid. This account essentially confirms my account. It is worth noting that there are those who will not only ignore all the documentary evidence given in my account, but have no knowledge whatsoever of the <i>Haaretz</i> version of events. It is also worth noting that the <i>Haaretz</i> account is also based on U.S officials so the decision to ignore it in lieu of the <i>Yedioth </i>account should be treated with suspicion. Here is a summary of <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.603028?v=D49264F4786A03FB602DCA91D7904129">Ravid's article</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
..the bulk of the negotiations was carried out by means of almost daily video conferences with Netanyahu... Netanyahu softened his positions slowly but consistently, and showed seriousness and a readiness to make progress. [Netanyahu's positions can be summarised as follows]</blockquote>
<br />
<ol><ol>
<li>Borders: Netanyahu agreed for the first time to accept the principle that the negotiations will take place on the basis of the 1967 lines together with a territorial swap. The implication: readiness to withdraw from more than 90 percent of the territory of the West Bank in any peace agreement</li>
<li>Security: The clause on this issue states that the Palestinian state will be demilitarized and that there will be an Israeli army presence along the Jordan River as part of a special security regime to be established in that area... Netanyahu, for his part, softened his opposition to the presence of international forces in the West Bank. He agreed to the presence of an international force as a supplementary and supportive means alongside the Israel Defense Forces</li>
<li>Recognition of Jewish state: Here, too, Netanyahu showed greater flexibility in the course of the negotiations. A senior Israeli official noted that at one stage Netanyahu replaced the term “Jewish state” with the term “nation-state of the Jewish people.” The framework document declares that peace will prevail between “two nation-states.” Netanyahu also agreed to include two clarifications in the document in order to try to placate the Palestinians, who have strong objections regarding this issue. For the first time, it was emphasized that the equality of rights of the minorities in Israel will not be infringed in any peace agreement. The second, and more interesting, clarification stated that recognition of the existence of two nation-states will not be considered an attempt by one side to oblige the other to forgo its narrative or to adopt a different narrative</li>
<li>Refugees: Two approaches were discernible in the Israeli negotiating team. Some of those involved put forward a rigid stance of principle that rejected any compromise...Nevertheless, in the end Israel agreed to show flexibility here as well, and to consider return of refugees on a case-by-case basis. Israel put forward an idea according to which a special mechanism would be established to which Palestinians could apply, and Israel would examine their requests on an individual or humanitarian basis and decide whether to accept them or not, according to its own sovereign judgment.</li>
</ol>
</ol>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...the primary reason for the failure of the U.S. attempt to formulate a framework document lies in the sour relations between Netanyahu and Abbas and in the fact that no point of convergence was forged between their approaches</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Palestinian leader, who was unwell and in a foul mood when he arrived for the meeting, had the feeling that the Americans had pulled “a Dennis Ross” on him – referring to the veteran American diplomat who was known throughout all the years of the negotiations for his practice of first striking a deal with the Israelis and then selling it to the Palestinians as an American proposal. </blockquote>
<div>
That last paragraph is the only significant difference between the Haaretzs and my account. In other respects, the account emphasises Bibi's flexibility and seriousness. It's at the point that I want to refute an utterly ignorant claim that is being made about Netanyahu. During the first few days of Operation Protective Edge, the Prime Minister<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-gaza-conflict-proves-israel-cant-relinquish-control-of-west-bank/"> stated</a> that </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish <u><i>security control</i></u> of the territory west of the River Jordan </blockquote>
<div>
This statement has been misinterpreted by an ignorant cabal of people. They think it means that Bibi no longer supports the two state solution. Not only does this ignore (1) Bibi's proposals prior to the last round of talks which would give up 90% of the West Bank; (2) the account given above and the Haaretz account which shows Bibi was serious about making peace and (3) it ignores what the statement actually says. To elaborate on that third point: it is clear from my account and the Haaretz account that Bibi does not want to give up IDF <i>security</i> control of the Jordan Valley for a period of time - and thats exactly what he means. The context of his statement makes this clear: <i>given the rockets coming out of Gaza, we cannot allow a situation like that to arise in the West Bank - </i>which is why he supports demilitarised Palestinian state with an IDF presence. A further fact that people would have to ignore is that an Israeli official explicitly stated that the statement did not reflect a policy change to the <i><a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/491512261031493632">Huffington Post</a></i>. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For those who are especially ignorant of Bibi's actions (hundreds of hours of negotiations, proposal after proposal of giving up the WB and his persistent flexibility), this statement shows what he "really" believed in the two state solution. In truth, his statement is perfectly consistent with the two state solution and his consistent positions about security in the West Bank and in that sense, does show what he "really" believes. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<b><i>The New Republic Account</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
The New Republic account, written by Ben Birnbaum and Amir Tibon is based on talks with officials from both sides and the U.S. This is the only account that, like mine, does not simply take the word on a selection of officials from one or two of the three countries. Importantly, it confirms that settlement construction was going to continue to talks (thereby undermining the <i>Yedioth </i>account again). It also confirms much of what was said above:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
By late January, the Americans believed that their strategy of patient engagement with Netanyahu was finally paying off. After months of painstaking negotiations over every word in the framework, the prime minister had accepted once-unthinkable language. On refugees, the document would promise monetary compensation to Palestinians displaced in Israel’s War of Independence (and, separately, to Jews who left their homes in the Arab world). It also stated clearly that “the Palestinian refugee problem” would be solved within the new Palestinian state. But, in a groundbreaking departure from Israeli policy and his previous statements, Netanyahu agreed to a mechanism whereby Israel—at its sole discretion—would admit some refugees on a humanitarian basis. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The more dramatic Netanyahu concession, however, concerned borders. After decades of railing against any mention of the 1967 lines, Netanyahu accepted that “[t]he new secure and recognized border between Israel and Palestine will be negotiated based on the 1967 lines with mutual agreed swaps.”</blockquote>
It should be noted that this account doesn't really reveal the full extent of Bibi's movement. It seems clear that what he proposed is not as generous as Olmert's - but when you consider that Abbas refused to accept the basic point that a peace agreement should constitute the end of the conflict, everything else just slips away as irrelevant. Equally important is the fact that there was a grand bargain for the extension of talks in which Israel would release not only the fourth batch of prisoners but a further 400 (Israel seems to have <a href="http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/140329-israel-offers-palestinians-to-release-400-prisoners">proposed</a> this). Abbas refused and, as the account goes on to say,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Abbas continued working with Erekat on what he was calling “the Palestinian nuclear option.” He even put a timer on it: If Israel didn’t vote to release the fourth tranche by seven o’clock on the evening of April 1, Abbas would formally resume the U.N. bid</blockquote>
The Israelis continued to try to get a deal to extend talks with prisoner releases. As I explained above, Israel's reluctance to release terrorists unless there was an extension is perfectly understandable. With hindsight, its clear from the aforementioned letter that the Palestinians weren't serious about the talks. Here is how Livni tried to implore Erekat to take the deal:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Erekat’s phone rang. It was Livni. “OK,” she said, “so you had your little show [i.e, applying to for international treaties]. Now hold back the documents. We have a deal to extend the talks. The prisoners can go out in forty-eight hours, and then we can get to substance. Don’t destroy this.” Erekat told her that he was with the Americans and would have to call back. The following morning, he sent her a text message. “It’s a done deal,” he wrote. “We just handed in the documents.”</blockquote>
<i>The New Republic </i>account is nonetheless valuable for its anecdotes doted throughout. The one that I have seen quoted the most is the following:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
After the meeting, the Palestinian negotiator [Erekat] saw Susan Rice—Abbas’s favorite member of the Obama administration—in the hall. “Susan,” he said, “I see we’ve yet to succeed in making it clear to you that we Palestinians aren’t stupid.” Rice couldn’t believe it. “You Palestinians,” she told him, “can never see the fucking big picture.” </blockquote>
They really can't - and the rest of us shouldn't join them in missing the fucking big picture.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i></i></b></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Notes</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[1] I have downloaded many of
these articles so a direct link cannot be given but the articles were printed
widely across the <a href="http://paltoday.ps/ar/post/171391/%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%87%D9%88-%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%B9%D8%AF-%D9%84%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D9%85%D9%86-90-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B6%D9%81%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AD%D8%AA%D9%84%D8">Palestinian
press</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[2] Abbas seems to implicitly
acknowledge this in an interview with the <i>Washington
Post: </i>"It will take a couple of years," one official breezily
predicted... he says, he will remain passive. "I will wait for Hamas to
accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze
settlements," he said. "Until then, in the West Bank we have a good
reality . . . the people are living a normal life."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[3] This seems to have been
explicitly accepted by Abbas: “Abbas stopped short of saying that continued
Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank destroys the peace process, as
some Palestinians officials have suggested. “But we do say: the settlement
policy must not be continued. The incursions into the Palestinian territories
must not be continued....All this hinders the peace process and obstructs the
way to solutions,” Abbas said. <i>“All this
is true. But we carry on nevertheless” </i>(<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-reports-are-wrong-peace-talks-not-at-a-dead-end/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter">Times
of Israel</a>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[4] Rather frustratingly, several
media outlets reported that Abbas was willing to extend the negotiations in <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/peace-talks-can-continue-past-april-29-says-abbas/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter">the
headlines</a> but when you read further into the reports you see vague
statements that talks have to “be aimed at the establishment of a Palestinian
state with its capital in East Jerusalem.” The seven conditions were not
overridden by these vague statements and are entirely consistent with them. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-50615497384976064322013-12-24T16:33:00.004-08:002013-12-24T16:51:48.514-08:00Review of The Missing Martyrs: Terrorism, Institutions and the End of History<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Missing Martyrs: Why there
are so few Muslim Terrorists </i>by Charles Kurzman (Oxford University Press,
2011), pp.256</b></div>
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<br /></div>
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I recently finished re-reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The End of History </i>by Francis Fukuyama
and I still accept his core argument: history is directional. The
contradictions inherent in illiberal regimes, economic systems and ideology
inevitably lead to liberal democracy. Fukuyama doesn’t spend much time
discussing Islam and Islamism as a possible challenge to liberal democracy
because, as he notes, the ‘religion has virtually no appeal outside those areas
that were culturally Islamic to begin with.’ He goes on to say</div>
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<br /></div>
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Indeed, the
Islamic world would seem more vulnerable to liberal ideas in the long run than
the reverse, since such liberalism has attracted numerous and powerful Muslim
adherents over the past century and a half (p.46). </div>
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<br /></div>
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Later in the book he says that </div>
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But now [i.e.,
in 1991], <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">outside the Islamic world</i>,
there appears to be a general consensus that accepts liberal democracy's claims
to be the most rational form of government (p.211)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Charles Kurzman’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Missing Martyrs </i>goes some way into
explaining that Fukuyama’s first quoted statement is largely correct and the
second statement is, at the very least, too simplistic when it comes to the
Middle East in 2013. The rest of this post is a review of three elements of the
book I found interesting – one of which speaks to the Fukuyama extracts. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Terrorism: Kurzman’s Mea Culpa</b></div>
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Firstly, his main thesis is that
there are an incredibly small amount of Islamist terrorists relative to the
number of Muslims. Moreover, there are a small number of supporters of such
terrorists. Kurzman has several data points for these two propositions: he
starts with quoting upset Al Qaeda statements:</div>
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We are most
amazed that the community of Islam is still asleep and heedless while its
children are being wiped and killed everywhere and its land being diminished
every day... Oh, brother in religion, why have quit supporting Islam an its
people (p.8-9) - Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula </div>
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<br /></div>
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In fact, Al Qaeda planned to
carry attacks on the West Coast of the U.S during 9/11 but they ‘could not find
qualified people to carry it out’ (p.12). Of course, the most persuasive
evidence is simply the numbers: ‘Islamist terrorists have managed to recruit
fewer than 1 in 15,000 Muslims over the past quarter century and fewer than 1
in 100,000 Muslims since 9/11’ (p.11). The two people who have read all my
posts know that all of the above is music to my ears because it’s something
I’ve been saying for a really long time. True, many others have said it but
almost no one accepts <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">the
implication</a> of such a view: </div>
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<br /></div>
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...the vast
majority of Muslims across the Middle East don’t like Al Qaeda. This gives
prima facie evidence to the position I’m advocating: if foreign policy is the
cause, why do we not see a wide spread response?[1] </div>
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<br /></div>
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I haven’t seen anyone make or
accept this argument – until now, and it comes in the form of a mea culpa.
Kurzman, back in 2001, was part of the ‘blowback’ brigade. He argued against
military action would lead to increased attacks. As it turned out</div>
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<br /></div>
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Johnson [the
author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blowback</i>] was wrong, and so
was I. Afghans did not sign up with Al Qaeda... and Muslims around the world
did not [violently] protest against the invasion... the overall level of
Islamist terrorism remained stable... Islamist groups carried out 60 attacks
per moth prior to 9/11 and 43 per month in the following year. Non-Islamist
groups carried out a similar number of attacks during the same period (p.143)</div>
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<br /></div>
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The Iraq War produces the same
result: there were ‘an average of 47 attack per month in year before the
invasion and 44 per month afterward’ (p.144). It was only in 2007 where there
was a large jump. Kurzman doesn't go into the reasons for this – but its clear
from the data that I’ve previously shown this has very little to do with
Western foreign policy. That said, Kurzman is incorrect because he goes too
far: he says that terrorism is inelastic (i.e., Western foreign policy is
irrelevant). This is far more acceptable than the Greenwaldian blowback
nonsense but it is just simply a fact that our military action has reduced
violence (see <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/droning-on-amnesty-and-efficacy-of.html">here</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">here</a> and <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">here</a>). </div>
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<br /></div>
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There are some data points which
contradict this argument about the Muslim world shunning terrorists: </div>
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<br /></div>
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[In 2003], in
nine Muslim-majority countries, disturbingly large percentages expressed
confidence in Bin Ladin [sic] “to do the right thing regarding world
affairs”... 55% of Indonesians and Jordanians, 62% of Pakistanis, 77% of
Palestinians (p.29)[2]</div>
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<br /></div>
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Greenwald would happily explain
that these levels of support are genuine and tell us about foreign policy. The
reality is that these results are not genuine expressions of support for Al
Qaeda. Kurzman believes that these responses are given as part of rebellious
fad of anti-Americanism which he calls ‘radical sheikh’ (a play on Tom Wolfe’s
‘radical chic’ - a similarly rebellious fad of American hipsters expressing
support for communist revolution). I’m unconvinced by this because polling
shows that only a third state that they sympathise with Al Qaeda’s goal to
‘confront the U.S’ (out of those who have any sympathy with it (p.48)). </div>
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<br /></div>
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A far more persuasive explanation
which Kurzman never explicitly states is the proliferation of the conspiracy
that Al Qaeda was not behind 9/11 (although he comes close on p.48-9). According
to <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/07/21/muslim-western-tensions-persist/http:/www.pewglobal.org/2011/07/21/muslim-western-tensions-persist/">Pew</a>,
there is ‘no Muslim public in which even 30% accept that Arabs conducted the
attacks.’ So when they express support in Bin Laden, the vast majority cannot
be expressing support in attacks like 9/11. Which is why (as will be outlined
below), you find overwhelmingly large majorities in favour of democracy and similar
levels of support for civilian attacks as Westerners. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The reason I find this
explanation so much more persuasive is because it matches the path of the question
that is asked. If you look at the <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-largely-discredited-among-muslim-publics-in-recent-years/">Pew
results</a> you will see confidence in Bin Laden going down year on year: </div>
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<br /></div>
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Over time,
support for bin Laden has dropped sharply among Muslim publics. Since 2003, the
percentage of Muslims voicing confidence in him has declined by 38 points in
the Palestinian territories and 33 points in Indonesia. The greatest decline
has occurred in Jordan, where 56% of Muslims had confidence in bin Laden in
2003, compared with just 13% in the current poll.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The reasons why it has gone down
so radically could be because people started to realise that Al Qaeda meant
support for violence – more research is needed into this question. But one
thing does remain clear: there is no way to reconcile (i) the decline in
support for the ‘confidence in Bin Laden’ proposition and (ii) huge support for
regimes which AQ would call apostate governments with any expressed support for
Bin Laden – unless you see it as not supporting Bin Laden at all. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ideology and the End of History</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Kurzman shows how the second
Fukuyama statement quoted above is overstated: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The World
Values Survey and a variety of subsequent polls have asked respondents whether
they agreed or disagreed with the statement, “Democracy may have problems, but
its better than any other form of government.” More than three-quarters of
Muslims agreed... this included 71% of Saudi citizens, 83% of Palestinians and
85% of Afghans (p.110). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This is should be the first
riposte to those who claim that we cannot ‘impose democracy’: it is not an
imposition, it is giving the people what they want. In any event, I don’t think
it makes any sense to talk of “imposing” choice, its a self-refuting proposition[3].
Kurzman’s claims about how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">liberal </i>Middle
Eastern Muslims are a little harder to accept. He defines ‘liberal Islam’ as
the acceptance of ‘key ideals of Western liberal tradition such as democracy,
human rights, social equality, tolerance’ (p.95). This is a good definition but
he goes to say that these<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>‘ideals
[are approached] from a distinctly Islamic discourse.’ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The reason its hard to accept the
liberalism of M.E Muslims should be apparent from this result: Gallup found
‘majorities or near majorities in dozens of Muslim societies favouring the
implementation of Sharia’ (p.109). The extent to which this is a negative
result, of course, depends on the content of ‘Sharia.’ Kurzman believes that Middle
East Muslims reconcile their ‘dual ideals of sharia and democracy’ through ‘a
combination of political liberalism and cultural conservatism’ (p.117). Kurzman
attempts to show this in two ways: first, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in
practice, </i>people do not choose Islamist governments and secondly, support
for Sharia may simply be a ‘symbolic gesture.’ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This latter second claim is
supported by the following finding: ‘majorities in 13 out of 14 Muslim
[countries] agreed’ with the statement that ‘religion is a matter of personal
faith and should be kept separate from government policy’ (p.110). However,
unlike the Bin Laden result, we have reasons for thinking this is not merely
symbolic but translates to actual support for Islamist policies. The latest <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/">Pew
data</a> finds that 40% or more of most Middle East countries want Sharia
applied to non-Muslims; there are majorities in support of barbaric penalties
like amputations; there is anywhere between 44% and 84% support for stoning for
adultery (of those who want Sharia to be the law – which also constitutes a
majority); between 29% and 86% support for the death penalty for apostasy. This
is not liberalism ‘approached through a distinctly Islamic discourse’ – this is
a clear manifestation of illiberalism. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It’s not all bad, of course, <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/10/most-muslims-want-democracy-personal-freedoms-and-islam-in-political-life/">most
Muslims</a> ‘also embrace specific features of a democratic system, such as
competitive elections and free speech.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moreover, a majority Muslims in the Middle East do support ‘equal
education for boys and girls [and] women having the right to decide whether to
wear the veil’ and state that ‘women should be allowed to vote, hold cabinet
level positions and work outside the home’ (p.116). But again, it is a stretch
to state that the ‘conservatism’ of Middle East Muslims does not ‘translate
into illiberal policies’ (p.116). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Taking Kurzman’s first claim
about Islamists losing elections: historically, it does seem to be correct
(bearing in mind this book was published in 2011): </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
in more than
80 election in Muslims societies over the past generation, Islamic parties do
worse in the freest election than the non-freest. Overall, most Islamic parties
won less than 15% of seats, and only once has an Islamic party won an outright
majority.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This should show that the idea
that Arabs or Muslims are hostile to democracy/non-Islamist parties is utter
nonsense. However <a href="https://www.dws-investments.com/EN/docs/research/Two_yrs_arab_spring_article.pdf">the
trend</a> has not been followed since 2011. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood
and Nour parties won 70% of all seats; in Tunisia a relatively liberal Islamist
party won 41% of the vote and in Libya another relatively liberal Islamist part
won 48.8% of the vote. I am not suggesting that all Islamist parties are the
same but they are certainly not the kind of human rights-respecting parties
that would garner seats in this country. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There are many non-ideological
explanations for this: civil society in these countries has not been allowed to
flourish whereas religious groups have giving them an organisational headstart.
Polls carried out between August 2011 and June 2012 showed between 51% and 56%
preferred a democratic-civil state rather than an Islamic state – but this
didn’t align with the results of the election. But organisationally: Islamist
parties have four times as many active members and more than double the amount
of campaign volunteers (<a href="http://transitionalgovernanceproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Ford-Foundation-Islamist-Secular-Divide.pdf">source</a>).
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But it would be wrong, given the
results shown above about support of illiberal policies, to suggest this is
entirely about non-ideological factors. Over time, however, this will change –
we are seeing the pangs of refusing to have liberal democracy subverted in
Egypt. Where Islamist come into power, they will fail (a July 2013 <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/152/75491/Egypt/Morsi,-one-year-on/Egypt-opinion-polls-reveal-dissatisfaction-with-Mo.aspx">poll</a>
found that 73% thought that Morsi didn’t make a ‘single good decision’; 82% <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/03/opinion/opinion-egypt-protests-ziada/index.html">support</a>
the military’s ousting of Morsi)[4]. It is also encouraging that less Islamist
parties have won in Tunisia and Libya[5]. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
To summarise: From the survey of
the polling, it does appear that the Muslim world has accepted democracy. But
it is a stretch to say that there is an acceptance of political liberalism.
There are encouraging levels of support for selective forms of <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/10/most-muslims-want-democracy-personal-freedoms-and-islam-in-political-life/">free
speech, limited personal freedoms</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/349946793485799425">pluralism</a>
– but the thing about liberalism is that it cannot be selective. The barbarity
of punishments, gender discrimination and religious involvement speaks to the
conflict of political liberalism and Sharia rather than reconciliation between
the two. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This is not to suggest that the
Muslim world will not change – I think it will, particularly as civil society
(on which, see below) and free speech grows. History is directional and the
contradictions in a non-liberal democracy will manifest themselves – this is
just a fact that is inherent in the superiority of liberal democracy. There are
problems in overstating the liberalism (as Kurzman does) and illiberalism (as
many on the right do) in Muslim countries but <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/247851737849929729">one fact</a>
should encourage us all: Arab spring ‘crowds were much larger than the ones
that have formed in the past few days [protesting the anti-Islam film in 2012].’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Democratisation </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This section has nothing to do
with the book but its interesting to ask why Middle Eastern countries haven’t
democratised despite having populations which explicitly endorse democracy. I
am not talking here about the causes of revolution – I have stated my opinion
on that before: the socio-economic, cultural explanations of revolution (and
crime and terrorism) almost always fail. In fact, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/21/why-the-modest-harvest-of-the-arab-spring/">Brownlee,
Masoud and Reynolds (2013)</a> find in their statistical study that ‘there were
no structural preconditions for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">emergence</i>
of [the Arab] uprisings.’ I am instead asking: why, given that the people
endorse democracy, have they not had their way? The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/21/why-the-modest-harvest-of-the-arab-spring/">answer</a>
is a mixture of brute force (which oil-states can fund), hereditary monarchies
(who have a lot of loyalty) and, most importantly, an anti-democratic institutional
framework. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There are two studies which show
exactly how the institutional framework severely impedes successful democracy
despite the wishes of its people. <a href="http://econ.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/psc-2013.original.pdf">Kuran
(2013)</a> builds on his work on Islamic economic institutions (reviewed on
this blog <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/overview-long-divergence.html">here</a>)
and shows how Islamic institutions (not people or culture) have inhibited the
rise of a civil society. The most significant of these is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">waqf </i>– this is an institution which
provides public services (like schools and water). This was a form of trust
which was funded by a private individual’s assets. It allowed the individual to
protect their assets without giving it to the government. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
As Kuran states, ‘the waqf served
as the delivery vehicle for functions met in the West generally through
corporations’ (p.400). The reason the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">waqf
</i>matters is because a waqf could not participate in politics, could not
align with other waqfs and was not accountable to its users. Compare this with
a corporation which can take part in politics and was accountable to its
customers and its stakeholders. And the absence of the corporation matters: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Democratic rights
got established because of epic struggles driven by groups organized, usually
as corporations, within universities, as cities, as religious orders, as
unions, or as merchant associations. Such groups demanded rights. They
articulated requests. They developed blueprints for alternative orders. They
stimulated intellectual life. (p.401)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Hence this absence of the
corporation as an institution left ‘the Islamic world without politically
influential social structures situated between the individual and the state’ (p.402).
<a href="http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Projects/BPEA/Spring%202012/2012a_Chaney.pdf">Chaney
(2012)</a> provides another institution which impeded the growth of civil
society: the use of slave armies in Islamic conquests. The use of ‘these slave
armies allowed rulers to achieve independence from local military and civilian
groups’ (p.12). The only check that formed on this ruler (backed by his slave
armies) was religious associations but both these groups ‘worked to resist the
emergence of rival centers of political power such as merchant guilds that
could have facilitated institutional change’ (p.12).[6] </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The use of slave armies explains different
results in different countries which were invaded by Muslim armies: slave
armies were not used in India and the Balkans and hence a dual effect that (i)
the ruler would have to cooperate with the existing groups with the effect that
(ii) wholesale institutional importation could not be carried out. Both of
these allow for strong civil society to arise. (Chaney’s paper is excellent
because he provides statistical support his argument against other explanations
of democratic deficit). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
These historical Islamic
institutions explain why civil society is so weak – even today. This does not
mean that widespread protests cannot occur – it simply means that the citizenry
are organisationally weak. It means that even when you have support for
democracy across the population, institutional reform is difficult. It is with
this institutional framework in mind that one should read Sheri Berman’s
article in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139586/sheri-berman/the-continuing-promise-of-the-arab-spring?cid=soc-twitter-in-postscripts-the_continuing_promise_of_the_arab_spring-072313">Foreign
Affairs</a>:</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The
fundamental mistake most commentators on the Arab Spring make is
underestimating the scale, scope, and perniciousness of authoritarianism.
Tyranny is more than a type of political order; it is an economic and social
system as well, one that permeates most aspects of a country’s life and has
deep roots in a vast array of formal and informal institutions. Achieving
liberal democracy is thus not simply a matter of changing some lines on a
political wiring diagram but, rather, of eliminating authoritarian legacies... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
One of the best ways to help
foster civil society is help create these groups. According to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">New
York Times</a>, </i>this is exactly what the U.S did in the run up to the Arab
Spring. As they note, ‘the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a
bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders
of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning,
organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections.’ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shortfalls</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Aside from the shortfall
mentioned above, there are several other shortfalls. Firstly, a general theme
of Kurzman’s book: he seeks to underplay the good that Western military action
can do. In explaining the low levels of Islamist terrorists, part of his
explanation involves Muslim pushback and ‘symbolic support’ (which is explained
above). That is undoubtedly true: but this small group of terrorists can be
eliminated. In fact, even he notes that since the liberation of Afghanistan
‘the scale of terrorist training has dropped by 90 percent’ (p.12). The same
has happened in Pakistan where Al Qaeda has been decimated[7] – and the whole <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/droning-on-amnesty-and-efficacy-of.html">host</a>
of <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">other</a>
examples I’ve given in the past. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
As I’ve shown above, Kurzman has
a tendency to overstate the liberalism of Middle East Muslims. Rather more
surprisingly, he has a tendency to overstate that extent to which terrorist
organisations are willing to change their behaviour. He does this generally: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Most of these
[terrorist] organisations abandoned revolutionary violence a generation ago and
now run candidates in parliamentary elections, with platforms that pledge
allegiance to democracy and limit jihad to peaceful definition (aside from
destroying Israel) (p.42-3). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I laughed at the end of that
sentence – I particularly liked that he put it in brackets. He also does the
same thing more specifically to Hamas and the Taliban. He points to the fact
that Hamas leaders signed a statement which ‘condemn[ed] in the strongest terms
the incidents [i.e., 9/11] which are against all human and Islamic norms’
(p.43). I didn’t know about this but I think its (i) selective because Hamas <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/02/hamas-osama-bin-laden">praised</a>
Bin Laden (and the chances of this being symbolic are slim because it happened
in 2011) and (ii) irrelevant because it carries out terror attacks. True Hamas
endorses nationalism whereas Al Qaeda is globalist but that is about it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
On the Taliban, I find Kurzman
more egregious. Kurzman claims that ‘the Taliban leadership remained dubious [first]
of al-Qaida’s global aspirations and [secondly of] killing of civilians’
(p.79). His evidence that the Taliban doesn’t like to kill civilians? Mullah
Omar’s orders which says that they should not ‘cause death and injury to
innocent people.’ Lets ignore that we shouldn’t take a terrorist organisation’s
word especially when they have a history in massacring innocents – the order is
meant for public consumption. If you look at orders Mullah Omar gives in
private, you’ll see he approves of the massacre of innocents. Article 10 of a <a href="http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamaswar/etc/mullahomar.pdf">2009
order</a> allows Taliban terrorists to kill hostages who are not just soldiers
but “government workers” but even this says that care should be taken not to
harm “local people” (Article 41). But then came a <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/07/mullah_omar_orders_t.php#ixzz2oQF9rmew">2010
Order</a> which was not intended for public consumption and it stated</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
2. Capture and
kill any Afghan who is supporting and/or working for coalition forces or the
Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
3. Capture and
kill any Afghan women who are helping or providing information to coalition
forces</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
These people are civilians – even
the “informers” are civilians who are merely helping their democratic
government. Note that it allows for the killing of anyone who ‘supports’ the
government – a government that was democratically elected that <a href="http://t.co/rPluM2m330">polls</a> show have an <a href="http://t.co/rQJJJIk0Kf">extraordinary amount</a> of support. Both claims
about the Taliban are shown to be incorrect by <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/18/bomber.video/index.html?section=cnn_latest">the
fact</a> that Taliban had a camp to train suicide bombers to be dispatched to
the West. The cooperation between the Taliban and Al Qaeda is such that a
Taliban spokesperson <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/02/al_qaeda_operates_in.php#ixzz2oQLkYnYa">stated</a>
that</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
They [al
Qaeda] are among the first groups and banners that pledged allegiance to the
Emir of the Believers [Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban], and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they operate in Afghanistan under the flag
of the Islamic Emirate</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The Taliban have refused to
denounce Al Qaeda – and so to say they don’t have global aspirations is
misleading (see <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/10/al_qaeda_and_the_taliban_toget_1.php">here</a>,
<a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/02/taliban_spokesman_refuses_to_d.php">here</a>,
<a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/03/taliban_offer_every_assistance.php">here</a>,
<a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/04/taliban_cooperation.php">here</a>).
They will allow the Taliban to operate and help them in their global endeavours
to attack the West. The Taliban’s primary goal is to remove the democratically
elected government of Afghanistan and the coalition forces but given their
material support for Al Qaeda that really shouldn’t matter. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Finally, a shortfall is his view
that ‘Muslim liberals suffer the second hand smoke of American foreign policy’
(p.156) because association with America leads to them being targeted. He
therefore praises the Obama administration’s ‘restraint’ and ‘hands off
approach’ during the 2009 Iranian elections (p.158-9). I’ve always thought this
view of what Obama did has been somewhat overstated (see this <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/23/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-obama-was-silent-about-protests-a/">fact
check</a> of Romney’s claim that Obama was ‘silent’) but in any event assuming
he was muted, his silence was regretted not just by Iranian reformists (which
he admits on p.159) but also the Obama administration itself (see this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/us/politics/arab-spring-proves-a-harsh-test-for-obamas-diplomatic-skill.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">New
York Times</a></i> report). Either Obama spoke out in which case its a bad
example or he didn’t speak out and it turned out to be wrong choice because
everyone regretted it. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And even then, </i>regardless
of which one is right, the Iranians <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/27/iran.obama/">condemned</a>
the U.S anyway (i.e., it led to the result that Kurzman wanted to avoid). More
generally I think his approach is wrong because of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times </i>report quoted above about the U.S having an
important role in civil society organisations and the Arab spring. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Despite the negatives I’ve
listed, this really is a good book. I don’t think there’s been a more
interesting book on terrorism in a very long time. I have a couple of other
gripes but this post is already long enough. Merry Christmas! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></b></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Footnotes</i></b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[1] This is merely prima facie
evidence, the host of studies that I’ve provided merely confirm this.
Statistics like this make claims such as “but these factors could affect
different [sane] people in different ways” redundant. If we are trying to
establish a cause, something to direct responsibility to, and the factor we
have is present in 15,000 people but only one of them actually becomes a
terrorist, the relevance of that factor is severely undermined. A similar
argument should and can be made about poverty and crime. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[2] These figures seem incorrect, they are
based on Pew Global Attitudes research but from my search, the results are
different from those given though not markedly: <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2011/05/2011-osama-021.png">http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2011/05/2011-osama-021.png</a>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[3] You cannot “impose” choice
for two reasons: the whole idea of leaving a society to “its” culture is
predicated on the idea of choice – i.e., “they want to exclude choice” is an
expression of desire. But until you have a mechanism for deciding choice, you
simply cannot state that is “their” choice. Indeed, the polling reveals that
their choice is not undemocratic. Secondly, even if there were polling in support
for an anti-democratic government, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">itself
</i>is a choice but, additionally, that doesn’t mean we should give effect to
it for the same reason we shouldn’t give effect to slavery contracts: not only
does it undermine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their </i>choice in the
future, but in this context would undermine generational choices (one election
for 100 years doesn’t leave any choice for those born after that election). See
this <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/regimes-in-perpetuity.html">old
post</a> on Iran and elections for an elaboration of this latter argument. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It’s also based on cultural
relativism. Three points on cultural relativism: the extent to which cultural
relativism is relevant in a debate is continually undermined by people sharing
values – like democracy. If one accepts a directional history then the idea of
“cultural relativism” increasingly is and will become merely an academic
exercise. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Second, to the extent that people
have not accepted a fully-formed human rights perspective cultural relativism
is still wrong. I don’t have the time/space to go into detail but just as a
brief argument: Ronald Dworkin in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Justice
for Hedgehogs </i>explains that it is simply not possible to make claims <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">about</i> moral truth without committing
oneself to claim <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of</i> substantive moral
truth. To state that there is no moral truth is to make an assertion that
“there is no moral truth” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is itself is a
moral truth</i>. Additionally, we can rightly call something universal when it
cannot be questioned. One cannot question human rights without implicitly
endorsing them: the cultural relativist uses free speech, free thought and
ideals of democratic pluralism when criticising the universality of free speech
and he therefore presupposes that they exist. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>[4] The coup isn’t necessarily a blow to
democracy in the long term. One study finds that ‘Whereas the vast majority of
successful coups before 1991 installed durable rules, the majority of coups
after that have been followed by competitive elections’ (see <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/07/05/the-guardian-coup-theory-was-egypts-coup-actually-good-for-democracy/">here</a>
and <a href="http://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/yes-thats-a-coup-in-egypt/">here</a>).
It’s important to remember that the goal is liberal democracy rather than
democracy alone – Morsi was putting the country on a path to an authoritarian
executive that may have been irreversible in addition to his interference with
NGOs, the rise in blasphemy cases and press freedom violations (see <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/08/blame_morsy_egypt#.UeFe6hJC2ak.twitter">here</a>).
It is for this reason that I agree with Tony Blair in his article in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article3852924.ece">The
Times</a></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The people do
want democracy, but they will be disdainful of Western critics whom they will
see as utterly naive in the face of the threat to democracy that the Muslim
Brotherhood posed... We should support the new Government in stabilising the
country... This is the only realistic way to help those — and they’re probably
a majority — who want genuine democracy, not an election as a route to
domination.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[5] See also: “Ijali Naqvi and I
[Kurzman] found when we analysed 48 Islamic party platforms [that] platforms
are more likely in recent years to mention democracy, the rights of women and
the rights of minorities than in earlier years” (p.114) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[6] A particularly interesting
article of one of the ways opposition was resisted is provided by <a href="https://www.msu.edu/~asarkiss/file/Research_files/SarkissianPR2012.pdf">Sarkissian
(2012)</a> who finds that religious laws like blasphemy laws are ‘largely
directed at suppressing political competition rather than limiting non-Muslim
religious practice’ (p.523). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[7] Just as a brief tangent, I
want to address an argument people have unfairly being directing toward the
Obama administration – an argument that has disappointingly found a place on
the pages of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21586832-west-thought-it-was-winning-battle-against-jihadist-terrorism-it-should-think-again">The
Economist</a></i>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
A FEW months
ago Barack Obama declared that al-Qaeda was “on the path to defeat”. Its
surviving members, he said, were more concerned for their own safety than with
plotting attacks on the West... His overall message was that it was time to
start winding down George Bush’s war against global terrorism... the
inconvenient truth is that, in the past 18 months, despite the relentless
pummelling it has received and the defeats it has suffered, al-Qaeda and its
jihadist allies have staged an extraordinary comeback. The terrorist network
now holds sway over more territory and is recruiting more fighters than at any
time in its 25-year history</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/05/23/president-obama-speaks-us-counterterrorism-strategy#transcript">What
did Obama say?</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Today, the
core of al Qaeda in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>Afghanistan and
Pakistan</u></i> is on the path to defeat...what we’ve
seen is the emergence of various al Qaeda affiliates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From Yemen to Iraq, from Somalia to North
Africa, <i><u>the threat today is more diffuse</u></i>, with Al Qaeda’s affiliates in the
Arabian Peninsula -- AQAP -- the most active in plotting against our
homeland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while none of AQAP’s
efforts approach the scale of 9/11, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">t<u>hey
have continued to plot acts of terror</u></i>, like the attempt to blow up an
airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
None of what the Economist stated
contradicts what Obama said. It is undeniable that AQ in Pakistan has been
decimated – so much so <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/401093934681571329">the Foreign
Office</a> no longer thinks that AQ core exists. Obama’s view didn’t come out
of nowhere, see <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/al-qaeda-vs-people.html">this
post</a> I wrote on Al Qaeda’s strength in 2011: mainstream thought said
exactly what Obama said (and they were right then and they are right now). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Obama similarly has not said he
wants to end the War on Terror: he said a chapter of the War was coming to an
end (he was <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/08/remarks-president-dscc-fundraising-reception">referring</a>
to Afghanistan). He also said that he did not want a ‘boundless War on Terror’
but instead he wanted ‘a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle
specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.’ The key word is
‘persistent’ and this, again, is nothing radically different from his
administration’s approach (see my post <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/dont-mention-war.html">here</a>,
key part is from a 2009 AFP report: ‘President Barack Obama is replacing the
"global war on terror" with a new US strategy more narrowly focused
on Al-Qaeda’). And should anyone be in any doubt, Obama administrations officials
made clear that the War was not coming to an end in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/plan-for-hunting-terrorists-signals-us-intends-to-keep-adding-names-to-kill-lists/2012/10/23/4789b2ae-18b3-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_story.html">Washington
Post</a></i>: 'there is a broad consensus that such operations
are likely to be extended at least another decade' and 'some officials said no clear end is in sight.' So, again, the claim in the
Economist extract above is at best misleading. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-77131851199998457722013-10-31T14:36:00.001-07:002013-11-01T09:03:34.369-07:00Droning On: Amnesty and the efficacy of drone strikes<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
As the <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html">evidence</a>
I’ve previously presented shows: drones rarely kill civilians and they are
quite effective at reducing terrorism. This shouldn’t be surprising: there is a
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/civilians-in-post-911-wars-and-us-policy.html">general
trend</a> for Western military action to cause very little civilian loss and the
latter proposition is only surprising to people who still believe in the idea
of blowback. But two things have made me want to write this post: firstly, the
report from Amnesty and secondly, laying out the evidence on effectiveness far
more thoroughly than I previously had. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Amnesty International<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The debate about drones is
fundamentally about effectiveness and civilian causalities –and once those
issues have been handled, the bulk of the debate is over – which is why I think
the <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amnestyusa.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fasa330132013en.pdf&ei=X8lyUviLDI_H7AaLhYGIBA&usg=AFQjCNFb74XZvElAe4wvb-HUGHaRXsFHzw&sig2=HQGpHNgMtVtr28T">latest
report</a> by Amnesty doesn’t change much about that general debate. Glenn
Greenwald <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/392757097009397761">stated</a>
that the report shows that the report shows ‘far more civilians than the USG
claims’ have been killed. But thats been pretty much accepted by everyone
outside of the US government. A <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/civilians-in-post-911-wars-and-us-policy.html">meta-analysis</a>
showed the civilian casualty rate to be 8-17% (when you took out the lowest
estimate). The main concern is civilian casualties not what the U.S says – and
on that count, they are low. In fact, if you look at the appendix of the Amnesty
report which lists drone strikes, only two (the ones documented below) are said
to have killed civilians only (p.62). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The Amnesty report is not
completely irrelevant as it can, however, raise specific incidents in attempt
to spark a debate about those incidents. This is despite the general debate
being settled. But it is my view that even in this narrower endeavour it fails.
The report draws particular attention to two incidents: the drone strike on October
24 2012 which killed Mamana Bibi and the drone strike on 6 July 2012 which
killed 18 individuals. Amnesty is, to its credit, aware of the limitations of
their conclusions:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Because the US
government refuses to provide even basic information on particular strikes,
including the reasons for carrying them out, Amnesty International is unable to
reach firm conclusions about the context in which the US drone attacks on
Mamana Bibi and on the 18 laborers took place (p.8)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But, as we will see, this doesn’t
go far enough. Mamana Bibi’s grandson told Amnesty that his grandmother was
outside her home ‘gathering okra to cook that evening’ on October 24 2012. It
was then that ‘before her family’s eyes, Mamana Bibi was blown into pieces by
at least two Hellfire missiles’ (p.18-19). Amnesty states the following about
the incident:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Witnesses and
family members, interviewed separately and by different research teams at
different times, all denied that any militants were anywhere near Mamana Bibi
at the time of the attack. Amnesty International’s investigation found no
evidence of military or armed group installations or fighters. (p.22)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It goes without saying that an
innocent civilian’s death is regrettable. There does, however, seem to be more
to the incident than Amnesty describe. The only thing that Amnesty cites that
can be construed as a defence of the action is that a Pakistani source states
there was signal intelligence which placed a Taliban fighter on a nearby road.
Amnesty states that this is not enough to go on because (i) drones would have
had time to see that Mamana Bibi was not a militant and (ii) the nearest roads
were over 930ft away. I’m not sure how persuasive these responses really are
(the first requires an assessment of the evidence and the second doesn’t seem
relevant at all) – but that’s not the main thing thats wrong with their
description.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
After the drone strikes, source
after source came out saying that there were militants not only in the area but
were killed in the strike. As noted by the <a href="http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/program_pages/attachments/2012-10-24.pdf">New
America Foundation</a>, different sources told <i>CNN, AFP, Dawn, Associated Press </i>and <i>The News </i>that militants had been killed. I stress that this (and
everything that follows) is not conclusive. There are, however, two main
reasons for siding with the New America Foundation over the Amnesty (and,
unfortunately, the family of the victim). First, is the general trend of drone
strikes and U.S military policy toward civilians. I have already written <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/civilians-in-post-911-wars-and-us-policy.html">a
full post</a> on that so will only state the conclusion: U.S policy does not
target civilians and does everything to minimise the loss of civilian life. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Second is a fact that Amnesty
draws attention to. The reliability of witnesses is in doubt particularly on
the question of whether militants are in the area (this response is, for
reasons that will become apparent, extremely pertinent to the next incident).
Amnesty gives the following example of a drone strike on 24 May 2012:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
It is <i>virtually impossible</i> for residents to
complain to the authorities about armed groups. For example, four foreign
fighters and four local Taliban were killed instantly in a village in Esso Khel
when a series of drone strikes hit the building they were resting in on the
evening of 24 May 2012. While local residents confirmed details of the
incident, most refused to confirm the presence of these fighters or whether
they had any choice about them residing in their village (p.34) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There are no good reasons for
thinking that the situation changes when Amnesty and their researchers enter
the town, it remains ‘virtually impossible’ for people to share what really
happened. Additionally, we <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/10/us_drones_kill_4_mil_1.php">know</a>
that militants were operating in Tappi over the long term, using the area as a
shelter. Again, I stress this only gives good, not conclusive, reasons for
discounting the Amnesty account.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Amnesty’s account of July 6 2012
incident has the same shortfalls. According to Amnesty a ‘group of laborers
from Zowi Sidgi village had gathered at a tent after a long day of work in the
summer heat’ (p.24). Then multiple drones carried out strikes against the
individuals in this tent. After this first strike, individuals gathered to
‘search for survivors.’ A few minutes after this initial strike, more strikes
were carried out and killed, according the Amnesty account, 18 people – going
on to state:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
All of the
people who spoke to Amnesty International – each interviewed separately in
detail and at different times and locations to corroborate testimony as
accurately as possible – were adamant that all of those killed in the strikes
were ordinary villagers, not fighters, and that none had engaged in attacks
against US or Pakistani forces. Most of the victims worked as labourers (p.26)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In this incident the two reasons
why we should discount the Amnesty account converge. According to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/world/asia/15-killed-in-us-drone-strike-in-pakistan-aimed-at-taliban.html?_r=0"><i>New York Times</i></a><i> </i>account of the incident<i>: </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
At least 15
people suspected of being Taliban militants were killed by an American drone
strike late Friday in northwestern Pakistan, according to a Pakistani
intelligence official and <i><u>local
residents</u>.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This goes to underscore the point
about the reliability of the witnesses that Amnesty interviews. This is not
just a general accusation about the reliability of witnesses but clear
inconsistency. Aside from local residents, as the <a href="http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/program_pages/attachments/2012-07-06.pdf">New America Foundation</a> notes
different sources – including ‘local tribesman’ - told <i>AFP, The Guardian </i>and <i>Dawn </i>that
militants were killed in this attack. To really reinforce the point – and to
give explanation for the second strike - compare these two statements from the
Amnesty account and the <i>New York Times: </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Local
residents said that soon after the strike Taliban militants cordoned off the
area around the compound and searched for bodies in the debris (New York Times)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
While
residents said the area is not under the direct control of any armed group, it
is not effectively governed by the Pakistani state either. Residents of Zowi
Sidgi said some locals were sympathetic to the Taliban (Amnesty, p.26). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The last factual element of the
report is about the effect of drone strikes on the Pakistani population. Amnesty
quotes an individual stating the following:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Local tribal
people generally live in fear and stress and feel psychological pressure. They
think they could be the target of a drone attack because wrong information
might be given to drone operators” (p.31)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This is quite strange because I
have only seen one poll asking about the accuracy of drone strikes and the
results do not confirm this at all. A poll carried out by the <a href="http://archive.is/IRCOf">Aryana Institute for Regional Research and
Advocacy</a> carried out a poll of <i>those
that lived under drone strikes </i>and found the following:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
– Do you see
drone attacks bringing about fear and terror in the common people? (Yes 45%, No
55%) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
– Do you think
the drones are accurate in their strikes? (Yes 52%, No 48%) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
– Do you think
anti-American feelings in the area increased due to drone attacks recently?
(Yes 42%, No 58%)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There is no doubt that if you
poll across Pakistan, the last <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21588142-surprising-number-pakistanis-are-favour-drone-strikes-drop-pilot?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/drop_the_pilot">result</a>
is the opposite. But the quoted results do align with a general trend of other <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/03/are-drone-strikes-killing-terrorists-or-creating-them/274499/">accounts</a>
and <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/~jns/publications/BFMS_2012_Poverty_Militancy_Pakistan_AJPS.pdf">academic
papers</a> of people who actually live under the Taliban and other Al Qaeda
affiliated groups (i.e., those who live under drone strikes). <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21588142-surprising-number-pakistanis-are-favour-drone-strikes-drop-pilot?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/drop_the_pilot"><i>The Economist</i></a><i> </i>recently went around the area and found that ‘surprising number of
Pakistanis’ (‘many’) support drone strikes. Hussain Nadim found the similar
results when asking individuals who actually suffer under the Taliban as he
wrote in <a href="http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/14/the_quiet_rise_of_the_quetta_shura"><i>Foreign Policy</i></a><i>:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Although no
official polls have been conducted in Balochistan due to the lack of access in
the area, I conducted an unofficial survey of 1,500 people from Balochistan, of
which only 38% had a negative stance towards the United States.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
While these reports should bring
some comfort to people who support the use of drones, they should not be used
as a determining factor in supporting strikes. If the question of efficacy
(handled below) and civilian casualties (handled in these posts and above) is
sorted to put it as diplomatically as I can: we must act in self-defence
regardless and by ‘we’ I do not just mean the West. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Efficacy of drone strikes<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There are two separate positions
on drone strikes – the first is that they lead to radicalisation and thus
further militancy and the second is that they reduce violence. For breadth,
both claims will be handled quantitatively and qualitatively – and in proving
the second, the first is further weakened. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The academic literature and
research on drones is fairly conclusive on the first question: drones do not
lead to blowback. In a meta-analysis of the available research (specifically)
on drones, <a href="http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1167">Walsh
(2013)</a> concludes ‘from the existing research is that drone strikes that
result in civilian deaths appear to have little relationship with subsequent
insurgent violence’ (p.45). His own research is consistent with this view. By ‘plotting
the number of civilians killed in drone strikes along with the number of
terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan,’ Walsh finds that ‘no clear
patterns emerge[s]’ (p.32). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The qualitative element of this
first point has <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">been</a> handled
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">before</a> and I will not repeat it (needless to say that the poll results
quoted above are further evidence of the positions I have previously outlined:
people do not suddenly become militant when they perceive themselves to be
wronged). But both elements lead to the same conclusion stated by Aaron Y Zelin
in <a href="http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/31/dodging_the_drones_how_militants_have_responded_to_the_covert_us_campaign"><i>Foreign Policy</i></a>: ‘there is scant
evidence that drones strikes have been mobilizing AQC to conduct attacks in
response.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
On the question of whether the drone strikes reduce violence, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html">Johnson and Sarbahi </a>find that ‘drone strikes are associated with decreases in both the frequency and the lethality of militant attacks overall and in IED and suicide attacks specifically.’ Walsh own
research finds that (i) pre-2011, the relationship between drones strikes and
terrorist activity is the converse of what is claimed (thereby proving the
first statement to be correct) and (ii) post-2011, drones strikes lead to a
decline in terrorist activity:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
[Until early 2011...] the
pattern is one in which <i>increases in
terrorism are <u>followed</u> by more drone strikes</i>. Something similar
characterizes the data for Pakistan through 2010. After this date, though, a <i>spike in drone strikes is closely associated
with a decline in terrorist activity</i>, suggesting that drones may have had
their desired effect.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s worth stressing that drones were intensified
in the periods where Walsh finds that they had their deterrent effect. Despite
these two findings Walsh’s meta-analysis of available research (which includes
the aforementioned empirical findings) states that ‘research efforts have not
yet produced a consensus on how drones influence insurgent organizations’ and
that ‘between drone strikes and terrorist attacks in Pakistan are quite
variable’ (p.38, 46). This conclusion still supports the first proposition but
not the second. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why has Walsh concluded, contrary to his own
findings and Johnson and Sarbahi, that it has little positive effect? Because
of a paper by Jaeger and Siddique which finds that drone strikes have different
effects on different organisations in Pakistan – including negative effects. My
view is that less weight should be given to this paper for two reasons –
firstly because as Walsh notes ‘Jaeger and Siddique’s findings on these relationships
are not very robust’ (p.38) and secondly because it is inconsistent with the
wider academic literature. Indeed, when we look at the academic literature
outside of drone use, we see that wiping militants out works. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead of just linking to <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">two</a> old <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">posts</a> which show that this
is the case, the study undertaken by Johnson which looks at 90
counter-insurgencies since 1970 <a href="http://www.rand.org/blog/2012/08/drone-strikes-keep-pressure-on-al-qaida.html">finds</a> that<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
when militant leaders
are captured or killed militant attacks decrease, terrorist campaigns end
sooner, and their outcomes tend to favor the government or third-party country,
not the militants<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bearing in mind <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139453/daniel-byman/why-drones-work">that</a> ‘an estimated 3,300 al
Qaeda, Taliban, and other jihadist operatives in Pakistan and Yemen’ have been
killed, the second proposition seems to be a reasonable conclusion on the basis
of all the quantitative evidence.[1] The qualitative evidence is just as clear
and answers the questions as to why violence in FATA is still so frequent. The <a href="http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-asia/pakistan/247-drones-myths-and-reality-in-pakistan.pdf">International Crisis Group</a> in their report on
drones makes the following conclusion:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
The main causes for the
spread of militancy in FATA are not drone strikes but domestic factors. These
include the absence of the state and insecurity due to resulting og political,
legal and economic vacuum; and the military's support of, provision of sanctuaries
to, and peace deals with militant groups (p.24)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This really shouldn’t be controversial: not only is it the conclusion of our very own <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jul/12/arab-spring-british-intelligence-report">MI5</a>,
rather surprisingly it is the conclusion of <i>The
Guardian. </i>In an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/27/pakistan-sharif-taliban-kicking-can-editorial">editorial</a> they state that<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
The public discourse in
Pakistan suffers from a false binary that the TTP is a function of the drone
strikes. The challenge it poses the state is more fundamental than that.
Fundamentalism is a product of decades of official complicity, cowardice and
appeasement. Sooner or later, Mr Sharif will be forced to realise that. Until
then, he is merely kicking the can down the road.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It must have been Seamus Milne’s day off. Incidentally,
this is exactly the same as the academic literature on the terrorist campaign
in Yemen. Gregory Johnsen has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/opinion/john-brennan-is-the-wrong-man-for-the-cia.html?_r=0">repeatedly</a> stated drones have
increased Al Qaeda membership in Yemen on the basis of interviews he conducted.
This is wrong not only because of the academic literature of drone strikes and
leader incapacitation and the <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html">far larger samples</a> of interviewers who
found the opposite result but because it ignores the real causes of increased
militancy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/policy/drones.pdf">Watts and Cillufo (2012)</a> in a brilliant paper note that ‘several phenomena
occurring outside Yemen’s borders have been the primary catalyst for AQAP’s
emergence.’ First, after the Surge took effect in Iraq, foreign fighters
returned home – and for many fighting in Iraq, home was Yemen. Second, Saudi
military operations pushed AQ members from Saudi Arabia to Yemen. Third, the ‘intermittent
military commitment’ of the Yemeni military has helped Al Qaeda. As <a href="http://peterbergen.com/al-qaeda-in-yemen-on-the-ropes-cnn-com/">Peter Bergen</a> notes when the Yemeni
military, in conjunction with the use of drones, conducts military operations
Al Qaeda ‘lost all of these gains within about a year.’ Watts and Cillufo
conclude the ‘logic behind this assertion [i.e., Johnsen’s] appears horribly
backwards.’<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Footnotes</i> <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[1] One further study which helps
support this conclusion (beyond the vast academic literature in my previous
posts) is this <a href="http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/08/21/0022002713499720.abstract"><i>Journal of Conflict Resolution</i></a><i> </i>paper which finds that ‘(1) when the
leader of a rebel group is captured or killed, wars are 398 percent more likely
to end, (2) conflicts are less likely to end while rebel groups are being led
by their founder.’ The reason that this is not quoted in the main body is that
this study is specifically about <i>leaders </i>but
the logic, it is submitted, is the same. Indeed, even if it weren’t, 51
militant leaders have been knocked out. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-50174021879685590462013-10-26T15:24:00.001-07:002013-10-27T11:37:33.693-07:00The Fall of the Soviet Union and Suicide Bombing<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roads to the Temple: Truth,
Memory, Ideas and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991 </i>by
Leon Aron (Yale University Press, 2012), pp.483</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Myth of Martyrdom: What
Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters and Other Self-Destructive
Killers </i>by Adam Lankford (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp.272</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This post will be
kind-of-reviewing the two books listed above. I say kind-of-reviewing because
the review of the first book is more of an overview but with a few comments.
The reason for the overview is twofold: first I think the book’s arguments can
and should be used in future debates. Second, it is the approach of the first
book that shows how wrong the second book really is. This is despite the fact
they have no similarities aside from attempting to provide qualitative accounts
of their subject matters (the Russian Revolution in 1991 and the trend of
suicide bombers). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roads to the Temple</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The reason why I own and read
this book is, I hope, obvious: I want to learn lessons from the Russian
experience of bringing down unabashed socialism so that when Ed comes to power,
I know how to act. Just kidding, <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7c6f9fb0-253c-11e3-b349-00144feab7de.html#axzz2hoXCiXbl">I’m
not a maniac</a>. The real reason is because Leon Aron wrote one of my favourite
essays. In that essay published in <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foreignpolicy.com%2Fnode%2F848301&ei=0IBdUsrZCsPC0QXnjIHoCg&usg=AFQjCNG0C1dyyu7VonusQP-PDqyz-yOO5Q&sig2=Omky98D28o_-dsfy9O6H4Q&bvm=bv.53899372,d.d2"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Foreign Policy</i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, </i>Aron persuasively rejected the material explanations for the Fall
of the Soviet Union and stated that it was a ‘intellectual and moral quest’
undertaken by writers, intellectuals and then the population </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
beginning with
a merciless moral scrutiny of the country's past and present [which] within a
few short years hollowed out the mighty Soviet state, deprived it of
legitimacy, and turned it into a burned-out shell that crumbled in August 1991.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roads to the Temple </i>is an elaboration of this essay and it doesn’t
disappoint. Aron is now the author of not just one of my favourite essays but one
of my favourite non-fiction books. The book is an attempt to explain the collapse
of the Soviet state as a result of the ideological change that warped the
country in the aftermath of Glasnost policy which, finally, allowed a modicum
of freedom of speech and press. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
First, Aron seeks to explain why
the economic and (materially) political factors were not significant in the
downfall. As he points out, ‘no key parameter of economic performance prior to
1985 pointed to a rapidly advancing disaster’; GDP while slowing was still at a
respectable 1.9% throughout the period (p.13). None of this should be taken as endorsing
Soviet economic policy, merely that the material conditions cannot be a
persuasive explanation for what happened and particularly how it happened.[1]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Incidentally, you’ll find the
same record if you look at Arab countries prior to the Arab Spring in 2011. GDP
growth slowed – not least in the aftermath of the 2008 – but their growth
levels were not different from the late 90s and earlier 2000s (see <a href="http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=66&c=eg&l=en">here</a>).
That the economic explanation for the Arab Spring seems wrong is apparent when
you ask <a href="http://mevs.org/files/tmp/ArabSpring.pdf">the people</a>
themselves: 59% of Egyptians say the main reason for the uprising was freedom
and human rights, only 25% say economic. This is in line with empirical
evidence (which Aron unfortunately doesn’t quote). As Jay Ulfield, a brilliant
forecaster of regime downfalls has <a href="http://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/why-the-communist-party-of-china-is-right-to-worry-about-popular-protests/#comments">said</a>:
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Statistical
forecasting of democratic transitions supports the supposition that, far more
than leadership change or a slumping economy, the mobilization of nonviolent
uprisings is what could tip China toward deep political reform</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But it is not just the empirical
record that shows that arguments like this are lacking – it is the approach
itself, the ‘structuralist approach.’ As Aron explains structuralists ‘emphasise
[the] state... as collective political actors’ and the causes of social
revolutions are ‘traced back to state’s inability... to effect the necessary
economic, social and political reforms.’ The main point is that these events
are ‘independent of (or ‘exogenous to’) people and people’s ideas.’ This is a
Weberian development on Marx’s historical materialism - the idea that the
‘causal scheme is centred on the ‘forces of production’ (the economic system)’
(p.16-17). The reason this approach fails? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
If a
revolutionary process is represented by a line on which letters from... <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a </i>to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">d
</i>mark the stages of the revolution from first stirrings to triumph, the
structuralist approach may be very helpful in uncovering what happened in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">c-</i>to-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">d
</i>stretch [but not...] what happens between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">c... </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
There were
plenty of structural reasons why<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>the
Soviet Union <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">should </i>have collapsed
but these fail to explain fully how it happened. In explaining the Soviet
collapse we have no choice but to stray outside the universe of the ‘objective’
factors and take into consideration the enormous and subversive influence of
ideas (p.17-18). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It is Aron’s approach that makes
this book great. The structuralist idea has permeated public discourse. It
exists in the idea that crime or terrorism is caused by poverty or foreign
policy, that the choices of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">individuals </i>are
of little relevance. It is clear from my posts that I have an issue with structuralism
(see my post on <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/brooms-vs-crowbars.html">the
riots</a> and every single one of my posts on terrorism). The reason English
law has given is because it ignores the role of an individual’s ‘free, informed
and deliberate action’ and the authorship of that act (a view I <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/torts-and-wrongs.html">adhere</a>
to). Aron says much the same: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘it is
‘ideas and actors’ rather than structures... that are the primary engines of
revolution.’ As Issiah Berlin has stated</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
these great
movements began with ideas in people’s heads... We cannot confine our attention
to impersonal forces, natural and man-made, which act upon us (p.18-9). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It is these ideas that ‘provide
alternatives to the current view’ and explain how ‘pre-revolutionary situations
become revolutionary crises’ (p.20). Freedom of speech allowed ‘every
institution – political economic and social – to be subjected to trial by truth
and conscience’ (p.51). It is following this process of self-discovery and
criticism that surveys showed ‘solid majorities favour some key features of
liberal capitalism’ (p.32-3). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Aron then engages in a
comprehensive social history of the change of ideas. So comprehensive is Aron’s
study – it is based on ‘8,000 pages of Russian originals: newspapers, magazines
and books’ (p.4) – that it is better described as a rigorous qualitative study.
Prior to Glasnost, it was not just the concealment of the truth but the ‘hourly
construction and maintenance of a parallel, brilliant reality’ (p.64). The
first element of the qualitative study, then, is justifiably targeted the Russian
people, ‘relearning Soviet history became a national pastime’ (p.72). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Aron <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>spends three chapters on the deconstruction of
the myths of the Soviet Union – each page of these chapters tries to move away
from the monotonous history that everyone knows to fascinating details that
were being published in newly liberated Soviet papers. Each Soviet construction
crumbles: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the myth of outstanding
healthcare (‘the number of scalpels made in the country was 62% of the amount
needed’ (p.119)); the myth that the U.S paled USSR poverty levels (‘131 million
people, or 46% of Soviet citizens were [earning around $200 per month]’ (p.127));
the myth of technological development (‘India was said to have more paved roads’
(p.136)); the myth of worker efficiency (the Soviet worker ‘had to labor 10-15
times [longer] for eggs, 18-25 times for bananas and oranges’ (p.137)).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In the third part of the book,
the question of who is to blame for this state of affairs is handled. For
Russian intellectuals and the people the blame lay with Stalin and <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marxist-Leninist ideology. Stalin’s death
didn’t affect his legacy which was found ‘in the economic, political and
ideological and moral threads that riddled the society’ (p.200). The ‘cause of
communism’ justified everything for Stalin (p.219) – and here ‘everything’
included the consequences described above. This ideological framework had two
fundamental consequences: ‘de-individualisation’ and the complete control of
the economy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
‘De-individualisation’ or the
‘nationalisation of conscience’ was a process by which the people lost their
rights to define their own interests, autonomy and rights to liberty. One cause
of this illiberal process was directly related to an orthodox interpretation of
Marxist thought:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
His [the
Soviet man’s] “petty bourgeois” insistence on a better life <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">now </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for himself </i>was an impediment to history’s glorious future for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i>. [It was based on] the coming of the
kingdom of peace and justice (p.212-3).[2]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The Soviet economy – based on
centralisation and nationalisation of the means of production – was also a
cause of the deepening misery of the people. It was both a cause of the
de-individualisation and a consequence. The political act of
de-individualisation can only be completed by taking away of people’s private
property and the scope to take control of their own lives – which inevitably
leads to nationalisation of property (p.206-7). But, similarly, the economic
control (which led to de-individualisation) was a ‘fundamental principle’ of
the ideology (p.202). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The solution, realised by the populous
and printed in newspapers, was a liberal democracy: ‘the individual was not to
be the means of the party-state’s aims but a key objective himself’ and they
were the rightful ‘subject[s] of the national economy’ (p.272-3). And this was
translated into the political sphere: Yeltsin called for the regime to be
dismantled. The Communist Party, of course, stood in the way but by now, the
legitimacy of liberal democracy had made their position untenable:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The revolution
culminated in August 1991 in the rallies and strikes throughout Russia in
support of Gorbachev and Yeltsin against the communist coup.[3]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Despite a couple of minor
gripes[4], this is, without question, one of the best non-fiction books I have
read. Aside from my point above about the Arab Spring, I have only one more
comment to make. Last year Chris Dillow and the late Norman Geras were debating
about free speech. Norm echoing John Stuart Mill <a href="http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2012/09/alibhai-brown-as-philosopher.html">stated</a>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
It is a
commonplace of political liberalism that discussion and debate are good; we
learn through considering different points of view, including those to which we
are opposed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Chris Dillow <a href="http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2012/09/freedom-learning.html">disagreed</a>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Discussion and
debate lead not so much to learning as the mere exchange of prejudice. Free
speech gives us not a rational pursuit of truth but rather the mindless and
often dishonest venting... Mill's defence of free speech seems to have been a
rationalist Victorian optimism which isn't supported by the evidence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And, as if by magic, the <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/248025981078614017"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>had a summary of the evidence of what happened when people were
exposed to opposing views in that same week:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
You might
expect that people’s views would soften and that divisions between groups would
get smaller. That is not what usually happens. On the contrary, people’s
original beliefs tend to harden and the original divisions typically get
bigger. Balanced presentations can fuel unbalanced views.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Above I referred to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roads to the Temple </i>as a qualitative
study – and I did so deliberately. This book supports the idea that free speech
matters – it changed the views and then the actions of the Russian people. The
studies that Chris cites are evidence of what seem to be short term
confirmation bias. When confronted with the truth consistently, with good
evidence and outside of short term lab conditions where results don’t matter,
Norm and Mill are right. Recent human development – the <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/284273555393368064">constant</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/279925353877733376">moral</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/240766152261922816">progress</a>,
declining <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0141034645/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382396358&sr=1-1&keywords=pinker+better+angels+of+our+nature">war</a>
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22275280">and</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/390816479173545985">crime</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-End-History-Last-Man/dp/024196024X">the rise
of liberalism</a> and the <a href="http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/06/24/british-youth-reject-religion/#sthash.GBxUSeDS.uxfs">decline</a>
of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197">religion</a>
- is a testament to their correctness. Rest in peace, Norm. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Myth of Martyrdom </i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This was a disappointing book. Lankford
is arguing against the prevailing view in the academic literature on the
psychology of suicide terrorists. These are not normal terrorists but specifically
the three percent who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kill themselves </i>as
well as others (p.12). As Lankford explains: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
[Experts] made
the logical leap that in terms of their psychology, suicide terrorists were
essentially just like ordinary people. “Sure, the 9/11 highjackers had extreme
political and religious beliefs,” the experts admitted. But were they unstable?
No. Were they suicidal? No (p.4)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Lankford believes that the
“experts got it wrong” (p.2). And on his main thesis, he is right that the
experts overstated that view. Robert Pape for example claims that in his study
into suicide terrorists he ‘found no documented mental illness, such as
depression, psychosis or past suicide attempts’ (p.29). Lankford notes the
absurdity of such a position: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
How likely is
it that you could walk into a room with 462 people anywhere on the globe and
not a single depressed person would be present? [The odds are] 1 in
19,574,665,823... Either Pape has unintentionally discovered that suicide
bombing is the most remarkable cure for... mental illness or something is
seriously wrong with his so-called “comprehensive and reliable research.”
(p.30)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Lankford draws on a study carried
out by Ariel Merari whose research looked at 12 regular terrorists (that is
non-suicide bombers) and 15 suicide bombers who were stopped. The results show
that Pape is wrong: 53.3% of would-be suicide bombers had depressive tendencies
compared with 8.3% in regular terrorists; 20% of them had post traumatic stress
disorder compared to 0%; 13.3% previous suicide attempts compared to 0%. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Clearly, despite Merari’s small
sample, this is enough to disprove Pape’s idea that there are no documented
cases of past suicide attempts or instances of depression. But Lankford goes
beyond this and suggests that it is part of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">explanation </i>for terrorism. Lankford is clearly aware of the study
carried out by <a href="http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/brym/suicidal.pdf">Bryan
and Araj (2012)</a> (he quotes it on p.50) – and yet does not take their
criticisms seriously. Here is what they say in their response to Merari:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Merari finds
that one of four respondents who tried to activate their explosive device
displayed suicidal tendencies in interviews, compared to five of eleven
respondents who did not try to activate their explosive device. [But taking
into account the margin of error] there is no statistically significant
difference between the two categories of respondents in terms of their
likelihood of displaying suicidal tendencies (p.435). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This severely weakens an attempt
at ‘explaining’ terrorism using mental illness. Moreover, as Lankford rightly
notes, even if we take Merari’s findings at face value, it is still only half
of suicide terrorists that have depressive tendencies.[5] Lankford’s mistake is
ignoring the role of ideas in these individuals. Clearly mental illness does
not cause terrorism (not even Lankford makes this claim) and clearly it is not
a necessary component in suicide terrorism (as Merari’s research shows). Indeed,
it doesn’t even seem to follow trends of suicide terrorism (the author notes
that there has been a 300% increase in suicide terrorism between 2001 and 2010
on p.20 – but there is likely no tangible difference in (i) incidence of mental
illness compared with other countries and (ii) change over time in the Middle
East itself, ignoring the issue of home-grown terrorists – see <a href="http://www.nature.com/nmiddleeast/2012/120724/full/nmiddleeast.2012.103.html">here</a>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Rather, the main cause is the
acceptance of the idea that terrorism is an acceptable form of conduct and is
essential to fight that forms a necessary and sufficient explanation (see <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/why-do-they-hate-us.html">here</a>
for evidence and elaboration). Indeed, Lankford is right note it is a
misconception to say that ‘suicidal people are crazy and irrational’ – as he notes,
‘there is a broad spectrum of people who struggle with suicidal urges and
mental health problems... [some] have no grasp of rationality, but many [do]’
(p.31). But he doesn’t seem to realise that this means that the suicide-terrorist
population, then, is able to have individuals committed to the cause who happen
to be suicidal – and hence in terms of explaining their actions or culpability,
there is no difference. And this fits in with the statistics: 5% of the general
population are depressed and roughly half of the 3% of terrorists who attempt
to blow themselves up are depressed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
If we ignored this ideological
element, these individuals could kill themselves in their rooms but they choose
not to – why? Lankford claims that the answer lies in the cultural stigma of
suicide:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
When a
community strongly condemns conventional suicide as a certain path to hell, it
virtually disappears as potential escape route. And when a significant
percentage of people believe that suicide terrorism is justified, a new door
opens for desperate individuals (p.153) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I have argued against this idea
before: as the <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">research</a>
on attitudes to suicide terrorism shows, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">there
is no significant difference between communities around the world. </i>Israeli
Jews are 1% more likely to approve compared with Palestinians – and way above
both groups are Mormon Americans. Lankford’s argument does not fit with the
empirical record (presented above and in these <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">two</a> <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">posts</a>) and inevitably requires him to
rely on cultural views in one respect (on suicide) but ignore it in another (on
suicide terrorism). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Aside from the aforementioned
empirical research and failings, Lankford has to contend with a further point.
If suicide terrorists are stopped from committing plain suicide in their rooms
because of the religious sanctions, we would expect them to have high
religiosity. But they do not. Faiza Patel in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rethinking Radicalisation </i>notes that ‘the religiosity-terrorism
connection is simply not borne out by empirical research’ (p.10) – and an there
is an indirect connection according to Lankford.[6] That Lankford is wrong is
shown in another way. In his chapter on the psychology of the 9/11 terrorists
he says the following: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Other members
of Atta’s group acknowledged their sexual desires, flirted with women on the
street [in Las Vegas] and even boasted of sexual conquests... sometimes it is
those who appear to be most repressed on inhibited who are actually most likely
to engage in risky sexual behaviours (p.78)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Lankford posits that culture
presents a closed door for people who want to kill themselves – and the only
way they can is through terrorism and so ‘a new door opens for desperate
individuals’ – and yet, the culture against promiscuity doesn’t stop terrorists
from having premarital sex. This makes yet another thing that Lankford has to
ignore to sustain his argument. As these criticisms build, it is unsurprising
why the view of the ‘experts’ which Lankford derides stands in stark contrast
to his view. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Still, Lankford is extremely consistent
in his view so much so that he applies his reasoning to Oprah Winfrey. But this
wrong-headed consistency goes to show how much Lankford is ignoring ideas. Oprah’s
destiny – nor a terrorists -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was not
decided by her own views, deliberations and actions. Lankford states that she
attempted suicide after finding out that she was pregnant (out of wedlock) and
wanted to avoid her father’s disapproval. He goes on to say:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Oprah Winfrey
is not a suicide bomber... But if a teenage Oprah had been in the wrong place
at the wrong time, she may have snuck out of her house, filmed a martyrdom
video, cursed the infidels, strapped explosives to her chest and blown herself
up (p.51) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
At times Lankford seems to
contradict himself or is not clear enough to understand. He (rightly) rejects
the ‘foreign policy’ causes terrorism viewpoint (p.160). But he does believe
there is a link because of the (i) psychological effects of war which increase
suicidal people and (ii) the influx of weapons. If my criticism of his view
above is convincing then we can clearly reject even this indirect argument
about foreign policy – however the reason I raise the point is for two reasons.
Firstly, inexplicably, he goes on to state to ‘these types of conflict will
likely boost social approval of suicide terrorism against nearby enemies’
(p.161). This is an empirically false statement (see, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">in
particular</a>, the reduction in support for terrorism following Operation Cast
Lead). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Secondly is a non-empirical
point. Lankford’s prose throughout the book is barbed against his opponents –
and even more than that, he believes their work brings happiness to terrorists:
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
You’re a
terrorist leader. In front of you sits stacks of newspapers from around the
world. You can’t believe your good fortune... You couldn’t have hired a better
publicist. [The world’s leading academic scholars] say that suicide terrorists
are psychologically normal and their attacks are caused by West’s military occupation
of your lands... And you laugh. (p.38-9)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It is as though Paul Krugman
wrote a book about suicide terrorism. But the point I’m making is this:
Lankford’s views on foreign policy – both as an indirect cause and then his
empirically false statement about support – is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">exactly </i>the kind of thing that makes terrorists ‘laugh.’ Lankford
should not be so barbed if he is then going to say the same thing. At times the
author makes other ill judgments and extrapolates on the basis of facts where
he really shouldn’t. He says ‘powerful evidence that suicide terrorists’ are
not psychologically normal can come from ‘Zuheir’ (a single individual) on page
48.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an attempt to show that a
terrorist was suicidal, he cites her statement that ‘she [the terrorist] should
have died in [her dead brother’s] place’ (p.56).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He even starts whole paragraphs of
speculation knowing what he is doing (p.79).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Finally, the book is extremely
badly written and filled with self-aggrandisement – it not only as though Paul
Krugman wrote the book but also Nick Hornby. Here are a few of the stellar
statements that are representative of the books cringe-worthy writing style: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Answers are
sexy and true enlightenment can be orgasmic (p.148)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
As Michael
Jackson explained in his critically acclaimed song “Man in the Mirror”
sometimes the best you can help others is to “take a look at yourself, and then
make a change” (p.154) </div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.5pt; border: none; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
I wrote
that “the best scenario might be if [Bin Laden] is killed by soldiers in a
surprise attack...” Looking back, these words now appear prophetic. If Bin
Laden wanted to see what was coming... maybe he should have read my book
(p.152). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><i><b>Footnotes </b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[1] Aron dedicates a whole
chapter to the inefficiencies of the Soviet economy: ‘redundant material items
(that is, thing made but not utilised) reached an estimated 570 billion rubels
or about half of the national economy’ (p.181). While the causes of failure are
well known and noted by Aron (‘this system could not but reproduce economic “disproportions”:
they were “built into the very principle of centralized planning”’ (p.203) +
the bad incentives), he does not explain why the Soviet economy grew so much
despite this backward economic system. For an answer to that question, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power,
Prosperity and Poverty </i>provides a good answer. As Acemoglu and Robinson
explain in the book</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
There was
unrealised economic potential from reallocating this labour [i.e., peasants in
the countryside using primitive technology] from agriculture to industry. Stalinist
industrialisation was brutal way of unlocking this potential. By fiat, Stalin
moved these very poorly used resources into industry, where they could be
employed more productively, even if the industry was very inefficiently
organised relative to what could be achieved (p.127)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
As they note, institutions like
the Soviet system cannot be maintained over extensive periods of time because
they cannot generate ‘technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic
incentives and resistance by<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>elites’
(p.128). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[2] Another cause was the idea
that there was no objective morality. Virtue was defined by how much it was a
‘tool in the “service of the cause of communism”... it “accepted and justified
everything”’ (p.217). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[3] It’s interesting to contrast
the book with Francis Fukyama’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The End
of History </i>where the non-structuralist approach is seemingly adopted: ‘critical
weakness that eventually toppled these strong [authoritarian] states was in the
last analysis a failure of legitimacy – that is a crisis on the level of ideas’
(p.15). But the inconsistency arises in the details: ‘the absence of legitimate
authority has meant [when there is] some failure in some area of policy, there
was no higher policy to which the regime could appeal’ (p.39). For the USSR, ‘economic
failure’ could not be ignored because the regime ‘based its claims to
legitimacy on its ability to allow for a higher standard of living’ (p.28).
Fukyama’s timeline, like Aron’s, draws attention to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">glasnost </i>and the liberalisation that stems thereof – but Fukyama’s
timeline starts well before: ‘the beginning of the end [can be] traced to...
period following the death of Stalin [1953]’ (p.31-2). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Fukuyama does explain that it was
only after the 1980s liberalisation that civil society began reconstituting
itself (and thus contributed to preventing the Communist coup from taking over
in 1991) (p.31, p.28) but the differences between two authors are (i) when the Soviet
people became aware and (ii) the effect of Krushchev in 1953 (p.32). These two
questions deserve further study. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[4] The connection between
ideology, Marxism and the consequences could have been a lot clearer. Aron
doesn’t distil the connection adequately because, in my view, his book is
reporting what people were saying – and therefore an analysis of ideology does
not seem apt. Secondly, at times Aron’s own ideology comes out. For example, in
a chapter entitled ‘The Disintegration of Souls’ which is aimed at showing the
“moral degradation” of the Soviet people (p.191), he marshals the following as
evidence: “Abortions were pandemic” (p.193). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[5] Lankford attempts to argue
against this by talking about suicidal tendencies. That is not the same as depression.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[6] This connection is belied by
Marc Sageman’s study (‘a lack of religious literacy and education appears to be
a common feature among those that are drawn to [militant] groups’) and also the
work of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/06/2013681251485552.html">Rich
Nielsen</a>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Rich Nielsen
of Harvard University recently published a study in which he found that the
main factors driving radicalism were not poverty or ideology of teachers.
Rather, it was the poor quality of academic and educational networks. Based on
his research, Nielsen found clerics with the best academic networks had a 2-3
percent chance of becoming self-styled jihadists, as opposed to a 50 percent
chance for those who were badly networked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It is not religion that matters,
but an ideological view on religion. A more recent example to exemplify this trend
was the Tsarnev brothers, see this comprehensive report from the <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/19/scholars-caution-against-drawing-easy-religious-conclusions-about-suspects-boston-marathon-bombings/a5Iucv4ntQHgSvXchQqKOM/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boston Globe</i></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com98tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-56624462577960732832013-10-05T07:37:00.000-07:002013-10-05T15:51:58.607-07:00Civilians in Post-9/11 Wars and U.S Policy <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
One of my <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/baloney.html">earliest posts</a> argued
against those who claimed that the U.S was offered Bin Laden on a plate in
September 2001. This idea wasn’t particularly popular - it was restricted to
elements of the “anti-imperialist left”. The argument handled below is somewhat
more pervasive – you may even hear it in a pub. It is the idea that the U.S (and more broadly,
Western) military does not care about civilians when operating in war zones.
This, it is claimed amounts to what is in effect a policy of targeting civilians
either through wilful actions or gross negligence. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
To deal with some admin: I want
to make clear that I am really only talking about U.S actions in the last
decade or so. This is for brevity not necessarily because I want to avoid the
issue of pre-9/11 actions. The end-notes are elaborations, the sources are
contained with the text itself. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Kahl (2007) in <i>International Security</i> gives us a
framework for evaluating whether the norm of not killing civilians is being
violated:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
[The] three
types of measures... used here to assess the degree of U.S. military compliance
with the norm of non-combatant immunity [are] (1) levels of civilian casualties
(an indirect measure); (2) conduct during military operations; and (3)
responses to instances of noncompliance (p.10)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Numbers</i></b><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The first is a relatively easy
argument to make and I have made it several times: in Afghanistan, coalition
forces are responsible for less than <a href="http://www.isaf.nato.int/article/isaf-releases/facts-disprove-insurgents-claim-of-avoiding-civilian-casualties.html">14%</a>
of civilians deaths so far in 2013 (a <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">consistent</a>
trend). In Iraq, Kahl estimates that coalition forces were responsible for
roughly 10% for the period 2003-2006 (p.11-2). A more recent study by <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html">King’s
College London</a> for the period 2003-2008 found coalition forces responsible
for 12% of civilian casualties [1]. In relation to drone strikes, a<a href="http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/07/a-meta-study-of-drone-strike-casualties/">
meta-analysis</a> of several estimates found that, <i>if you take out the lowest estimate, </i>the civilian toll is between
8% and 17%. If the world’s most powerful
militaries had a wilful policy of killing civilians, they are failing
miserably. But the argument that the policy exists by way of negligence may
still be correct which is where we use conduct and responses to instances of
non-compliance.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Note that the mere killing of
civilians is not sufficient to warrant moral condemnation. As will be obvious
from the second and third sections below, while the loss of life is regrettable,
it often comes about because of militant activities (operating in civilian
areas, not wearing uniforms) and the fog of war which can lead to errors. Even
these errors should not be morally blameworthy – soldiers must act according to
the best evidence and it is simply a fact of war that acting reasonably and making
reasonable assessments can lead to the death of civilians (see particularly
section three, sub-section one). In essence, these are <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/torts-and-wrongs.html">R v
Pagget</a> situations. <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Why are the casualties so low?
Partly because of improvements in technology which mean that we can avoid
civilian casualties. Our weapons are becoming more and more sophisticated which
allows for precision. The overwhelming majority of munitions used in Iraq and
Afghanistan are precision guided (p.21). But this is not the main reason. There
has been a radical change in the internalisation of the rules of engagement:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Military
culture is institutionalized, routinized, and reproduced in several ways,
including education and training, career incentives, doctrine and war plans,
budgetary priorities, procurement programs, and even force structures (p.38)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Military conduct<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
One of the ways we see this
military culture of protecting civilians is through their conduct (other
examples of post-operation matters which indicate that this culture exists will
be handled in the third section). In the run up to the Iraq War, Kahl points
out that <b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
every
potential target was vetted by judge advocates for compliance with the Law of
War before it got on the list, and then vetted again after the list was
complete. Certain operations directed against Saddam Hussein’s regime were
deemed off limits if they targeted civilians or risked producing
disproportionate damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure. Early in the
planning process, the Pentagon drew up “no-strike” lists that included schools,
mosques, sensitive cultural sites, hospitals, water treatment facilities, power
plants, and other elements of the civilian infrastructure (p.16)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
These efforts have even been
noted by Human Rights Watch. In their <a href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/usa1203.pdf">report</a> on the
invasion stage of the Iraq War concluded that ‘U.S.-led Coalition forces took
precautions to spare civilians and, for the most part, made efforts to uphold
their legal obligations’ (p.5) The HRW report goes on to list worries in the
targeting of dual-use buildings, particularly media buildings but that remains
their main conclusion (p.54). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Even after the invasion stage,
U.S military policy attempts to mitigate against civilian casualties. Kahl
notes that before targeting, there is a standard ‘collateral damage estimation
method’ (CDEM) which involves assessing the target’s military use, alternatives
in terms of weaponry and attack, the number of civilians in the area that are
likely to be killed and then authorisation from senior personnel. During air
phase of combat in Iraq, each target ‘had been vetted by dedicated intelligence
officers and reviewed three or four times by judge advocates for potential Law
of War violations’ (p.18). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Authorisation is required for
operations which lead to ‘high collateral damage.’ Where this was the case, the
military took steps to avoid civilian casualties – for example through carrying
out operations at times civilian numbers were low. And, unsurprisingly, it
worked: both a ‘study by Human Rights Watch and a RAND study commissioned by
the U.S. Air Force suggest that there were not significant numbers of civilian
casualties from preplanned strikes’ (p.18). This same policy is reflected in
U.S rules of engagement and unplanned operations: everything from surveillance
drones going ahead to identify civilians to the policy of warning shots. General
McChrystal enhanced these rules in Afghanistan. As the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/02/world/la-fg-afghan-civilians-20100803"><i>Los Angeles Times</i></a><i> </i>reported, 'commanders could not fire on buildings or other sites where
they had reason to think civilians might be present unless their own forces
were in imminent danger of being overrun.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Further indirect evidence is
provided by the fact that the military does not use artillery systems in urban
centres. As ‘artillery systems have a large radius of destruction’ firing them
would lead to a higher loss of civilian life - which is why it is avoided
(p.20). Kahl goes through countless ‘mitigation techniques’ – this covers minor
things like avoiding operations during the day, different attack angles to
avoid civilian areas, giving pre-warning to civilians etc. etc. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It might be said that all of this
is propaganda, some chump academics got fooled into printing the faux
procedures and studies into compliance. This would be an error as it’s simply
too farfetched to suggest so: we see these procedures play out not just in the
numbers, correspondent accounts, rules of engagement, weaponry use and peer
reviewed studies – but from accounts where they are simply mentioned as an
after-thought. Here are a few of my
favourite examples: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 38.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><!--[endif]-->President Obama was presented with several plans
for knocking Bin Laden off when his hideout was discovered. One of the plans
included using ‘a pair of B-2 bombers to drop “a few dozen 2,000-pound bombs”
on the compound.’ As Spencer Ackerman (who has recently deservedly moved to <i>The Guardian</i>) <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/video-inside-bin-ladens-drone-proof-compound/all/">noted</a>
‘the plan was called off, for [inter alia] fear of civilian casualties’</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 38.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span><!--[endif]-->In 2007, the U.S thought it had located Bin
Laden. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/asia/06binladen.html?_r=1&hp"><i>New York Times</i></a><i> </i>reported that ‘The military set into motion one of the largest
strike missions of its kind, with long-range bombers, attack helicopters,
artillery and commandos.’ The strike was called off, not only because of doubts
about intelligence but because of ‘concerns about civilian casualties from the
bombs.’ </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 38.25pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span>This one isn’t from the U.S military but it’s
still a favourite of mine because it shows that Seamus Milne is brazen with his
sources. Milne, in an attempt to malign the British military linked to a
database of UK drone usage in order to show how they “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/29/americas-drone-campaign-terror">deliver
death and destruction in Afghanistan</a>”. That database actually showed <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html"><i>constant</i></a><i> </i>suspension of military operations where even a <i>single </i>civilian life was in danger.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Given the data, procedures,
studies, weaponry use etc., is it likely that these accounts are false? Before
moving on to the final section, I want to discount one prominent example.
‘Collateral Murder’ was perhaps one Wikileaks’ first big exposes – and it is
claimed to support the meme that I am arguing against - except it supports what
I’m saying. Here is what Julian Assange said
when confronted with the fact that there were men with AK47s and RPGs in the
group on the <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/260785/april-12-2010/exclusives---julian-assange-unedited-interview">Colbert Report</a>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<b>Colbert</b><i>: What were these men doing in the streets carrying rifles and rocket
propelled grenades?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; text-align: justify;">
<b>Assange</b><i>: ...</i> <i>The permission to
engage was given before the word RPG was ever used.</i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
This is misleading for several reasons. First, in the first few minutes of the
video, several men are identified as having AK47s and “weapons” (at <a href="http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/transcript.html">00:27</a>). It was <i>then </i>that permission to engage was
sought – and only then. Second, there are good reasons for thinking that the
reference to “weapons” was a reference to RPGs. U.S military personnel ask over
the radio who requested permission to engage and Hotel Crazyhorse One Eight responded:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
I just also
wanted to make sure you knew that we had a guy with an RPG cropping round the
corner getting ready to fire on your location. That's why we ah, requested
permission to engage (15:28).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There had been a fire-fight in
the area (something Assange tries to downplay by calling it a “small-arms
skirmish”) – why wouldn’t you request permission to engage with these
combatants? Civilians were killed but as collateral damage, they were not
targeted and it does not show – in any sense – “murder”. It is a video of
military personnel following procedures and engaging combatants. How
wide-spread is this commitment to not killing civilians? The evidence above
indicates that it’s extremely widespread but there is one further which, when
taken with all of the information so far given, confirms the argument I’m
making: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
4 percent of
soldiers and 7 percent of Marines reported unnecessarily hitting or kicking a
non-combatant, and 5 percent of soldiers and 7 percent of Marines reported a
willingness to ignore ROE to accomplish a mission (Kahl, p.33)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
These figures are too high but
they at least go to show that the procedures outlined above are internalised by
more than 93% of military personnel. And sure, it’s a survey of the soldiers -
that comes with all the disadvantages of polls you learned in your sociology
class. But again, <i>given all this
information, </i>isn’t it likely that the gist of what it conveys is true? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Responses to norm violations<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This is a good point to point out
what I am categorically not saying: I am not saying that the U.S always adheres
to the procedures given above. The U.S military falls short of them – while the
US military is reluctant to use artillery in residential areas, it has used
them (they are still directed at military targets but just placed in
residential areas). Human Rights Watch makes an arguable – but still convincing
- case that the use of other weapons would be more proportionate (see <a href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/usa1203.pdf">p.91-2</a> for a
criticism of British military). Members of the military have engaged in
interpreting merely suspicious activity as hostile – Kahl notes that the use of
a phone has led to engagement (p.25). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But two points should be
emphasised. Firstly, not meeting the standards admits that that the standard,
the policy is not wanton murder. Indeed, many of these cases can be justified
on the basis of the ‘fog of war.’ Second, the <i>response </i>of authorities showed is vital. The responses – listed by
Kahl - are varied: that particular problem with artillery was rectified through
technological advancements; after a HRW report into the use of checkpoints,
procedures were quickly changes (p.27); the restrictions of the rules of
engagement (listed above). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
(i) <i>Investigations</i>;
where there is a civilian death or other ‘escalation of force’ (I think in a
non-planned attack) there will <a href="http://www3.ausa.org/webint/DeptArmyMagazine.nsf/byid/TEUE-7FNM7L?OpenDocument&Print=1">usually</a>
be an AR 15-6 Investigation. The American Civil Liberties Union has obtained
many of these<a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/webroot/natsec/foia/log.html">
AR 15-6 investigations</a> through freedom of information requests. There are
far too many to go through each one of them – but the overwhelming majority
show proper practices were employed: many involve civilians ignoring warnings; activity
that a reasonable person would think makes them a combatant. Don’t take my word
for it – read through a random sample of the summaries given by the ACLU. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The reason I’m not going to go
through them in detail (aside from the sheer volume which only covers 2004-6) is
because the simple fact these investigations exist is sufficiently indicative
of the aforementioned military culture. To repeat: given the low numbers, all
the military conduct listed above, the attitudes of military personnel – doesn’t
the fact these investigations exist say something? It is too time-consuming and
inconsistent with all of the evidence to suggest this is merely lip service. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
(ii) <i>Prosecutions</i>: This has proven to be an area the U.S is lacking and
the one that poses a challenge to my view. There have, of course, been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20321090">several</a> prominent
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/11/kill-team-calvin-gibbs-convicted">examples</a>
of prosecutions – but as the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700770.html"><i>Washington Post</i></a><i> </i>notes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
[In the period
between 2003-6 in Iraq] only 39 service members were formally accused in
connection with the deaths of 20 Iraqis from 2003 to early this year.
Twenty-six of the 39 troops were initially charged with murder, negligent
homicide or manslaughter; 12 of them ultimately served prison time for any
offense (noted in Kahl, p.35). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Some of this can be partly
explained by the simple standards we expect in prosecutions: beyond reasonable
doubt and regular problems with prosecuting individuals. A good comparison to make that would mitigate the shock of these figures would be <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/11/male-female-rape-statistics-graphic">rape statistics</a> in Western countries. But then there are specific problems in the military context. As the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/us/an-iraqi-massacre-a-light-sentence-and-a-question-of-military-justice.html?pagewanted=all"><i>New York Times</i></a><i> </i>notes, ‘collecting
physical evidence and finding witnesses can be difficult because the killings
often occur in unstable and dangerous areas, and the cases often come to light
only after time has passed.’ In Iraq and Afghanistan, the practices of quick
burial mean that autopsies cannot be carried out which <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/23/justice/afghanistan-legal-hurdles/index.html">places
further burdens</a> on prosecuting individuals. Witnesses will often <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/23/justice/afghanistan-legal-hurdles/index.html">refuse</a>
to give testimonies if it involves travelling (despite financial assistance
with travelling).<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
But this cannot be a full explanation. The
aforementioned <i>Washington Post</i> article
contains a quote from Major serving in the military which isn’t picked up by
Kahl: “I think there were many other engagements that should have been
[criminally] investigated, definitely.” It should be emphasised that this is
problem is not limited to killing civilians but goes to the core of any
prosecution in the military [2]. Both Kahl’s paper and the WaPo’s report were
published pre-2007, it is not clear how much the situation has changed since
then. For the UK’s position see [3].</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Conclusion<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.5pt; border: none; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The idea
that the U.S military is killing civilians left, right and centre is wrong. The
idea that the U.S. military does not have sufficient regard to the protection
of civilians is wrong. The only conclusion that comes from the fact that the
numbers are low, the studies, the whole host of measures taken, that the rules
of engagement are drummed in, that they spend an inordinate amount of time
investigating these events is that the U.S does have sufficient regard to
civilians. There are improvements that should be made – not least with
prosecutions – but even without them, the argument still stands. Anti-imperialists
will try to point to individual examples whilst ignoring the trend outlined
above – and it is that trend which tells what U.S policy really is. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext 1.5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[1] <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.html?_r=0">The War Logs</a>
released by Wikileaks which revealed civilian casualties (Iraq Body Count <a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/warlogs/">estimates</a>
that there were 12,438 new civilian deaths revealed) does not change this
figure in any real sense because as the <i>New
York Times </i>notes ‘most civilians, by far, were killed by other Iraqis.’ (I
have addressed the perverse argument that the West is responsible for the
actions of these militants <a href="file:///C:/Users/Mustafa/Desktop/anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/torts-and-wrongs.html">elsewhere</a>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[2] Aside from the rape example in domestic context, the following example should leave no doubt that it's more to do with norms surrounding prosecuting individuals rather than not caring about civilians. The problem with military prosecutions extends to incidents involving U.S military personnel. As the <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/opinion/dont-trust-the-pentagon-to-end-rape.html">New
York Times</a> </i>reported in relation to the awful record of the U.S military
in prosecuting servicemen and women for acts of sexual assault: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Though the
Defense Department estimates that there were 26,000 sexual assaults in the
military last year, fewer than 1 percent resulted in a court-martial conviction.
Why? There is a deep institutional bias in the military’s justice system;
senior officers can — and often do — intervene to prevent cases from being
investigated and prosecuted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Perhaps somewhat perversely after
President Obama tried to – rightfully speak out against this – the situation
didn’t improve, in fact his words were used to exonerate individuals. Again,
from the<i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/us/politics/hagel-tries-to-blunt-effect-of-obama-words-on-sex-assault-cases.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0">New
York Times</a></i>: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
... lawyers in
dozens of assault cases have argued that Mr. Obama’s words as commander in
chief amounted to “unlawful command influence,” tainting trials and creating
unfair circumstances for clients as a result. Their motions have had some
success. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
At Shaw Air
Force Base in South Carolina in June, a judge dismissed charges of sexual
assault against an Army officer, noting the command influence issue. In Hawaii,
a Navy judge ruled last month that two defendants in sexual assault cases, if
found guilty, could not be punitively discharged because of Mr. Obama’s remarks</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
[3] Unfortunately, there isn’t
much evidence on the trends of prosecution. <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/oct/04/uk-forces-afghan-civilians-deaths">The
Guardian</a> </i>reported in 2011 that ‘the Royal Military police (RMP) had
launched 99 investigations into "incidents in which Afghan civilians have
allegedly been killed or wounded by British military personnel in
Afghanistan" [for the period 2005-March 2010].’ That there were 99
investigations into British forces despite their lower numbers in Afghanistan
is an indictment of the American military prosecution record which managed 39
in Iraq despite their far larger numbers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In 2009, the Service Prosecuting
Authority took over the role of UK military prosecutions but they have ‘refused
to say how many prosecutions have been mounted against troops alleged to have
killed or wounded civilians.’ Incidentally, the reason they gave for not
providing the figures to The Guardian is one I have sympathy for: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
When asked by
the Guardian to provide this information, the authority's deputy director,
Brigadier Philip McEvoy, said: "I am afraid that our dealings with your
newspaper do not fill us with the confidence that our response will be fairly
represented.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The reason for my sympathy is
because I have shown <i>The Guardian</i>
misrepresenting documents on more than one occasion (see <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/dogs-of-war.html">here</a>,
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/her-majestys-spooks-mi6-in-middle-east.html">here</a>,
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/spooked.html">here</a>
and <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/problematic-intelligence.html">here</a>).
It does not excuse the SPA entirely – I can see no valid reason why these
figures should not be in the public domain. In 2012, <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/mar/29/afghanistan-british-army-crimes">The
Guardian</a> </i>reported that there had been 126 criminal investigations but
also reported that</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
documents
obtained by Wikileaks revealed US army reports of 21 occasions in which British
troops are said to have shot or bombed Afghan civilians. At least 46 Afghans
were killed or wounded in those incidents. Only of one those incidents, in
November 2007, led to an investigation by the Royal Military Police</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It may be the case that there is
insufficient evidence to prosecute or the actions taken were within the rules
of engagement but sadly there is not enough information in the public domain to
state whether the British do or do not have a problem with military
prosecutions. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-42192623426713084782013-09-02T13:25:00.001-07:002013-09-07T13:51:15.342-07:00Failure <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VbpwwjaS5BY/UiTx4F4AK0I/AAAAAAAAACs/wotfBLK8jns/s1600/Brookes_31_447010c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VbpwwjaS5BY/UiTx4F4AK0I/AAAAAAAAACs/wotfBLK8jns/s400/Brookes_31_447010c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>The failure of Ed Miliband<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The only reason I am writing this
post is because of Ed Miliband. His position on Syria is fundamentally
misguided. I will handle the arguments against intervention below but I want to
handle the abdication of responsibility that Miliband caused. He wrote an
article for <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/30/britain-still-difference-syria"><i>The Observer</i></a><i> </i>after the vote in which he outlined his position. He writes:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
First, whereas
the temptation for some was to move to judgment before the evidence was in, the
country demanded a more reasoned and considered approach... They know that
evidence should always precede decision, not decision preceding evidence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The decision was made based on
evidence. The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/235094/Jp_115_JD_PM_Syria_Reported_Chemical_Weapon_Use_with_annex.pdf">Joint
Intelligence Committee</a> came to the conclusion that it was “highly likely”
that the regime carried out the chemical weapons attack on August 21. The
Chairman of the JIC stated that the conclusion of the JIC was clear: there are
“no plausible alternative scenarios to regime responsibility.” British
intelligence is not some aberration. As the Prime Minister mentioned in his
remarks before the House</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
in no way does
the Opposition motion even begin to point the finger of blame at President
Assad. That is at odds with what has been said by NATO, President Obama and
every European and regional leader I have spoken to; by the Governments of
Australia, Canada, Turkey and India, to name but a few; and by the whole Arab
League. It is at odds with the judgment of the independent Joint Intelligence
Committee, and I think the Opposition amendment would be the wrong message for this
House to send to the world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
We have <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/27/exclusive_us_spies_say_intercepted_calls_prove_syrias_army_used_nerve_gas#.Uh53LQu11N0.twitter">intercepts</a>
and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23827950">medical
reports</a>. We have <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-intel-knew-assad-regime-was-preparing-chemical-attack-3-days-in-advance/">signals
intelligence</a>. The regime was, by its own admission, operating against that
area at the time. The regime has chemical weapons – the JIC clearly states that
there is no evidence that the opposition do – and so has the means. Then comes
the ridiculous question of ‘motivation’ – why would the Syrian regime do
something to aggravate the world? One <a href="http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/28/a_highly_plausible_explanation_for_why_assad_would_launch_a_chemical_attack#.Uh51i_a8ek0.twitter">answer</a>
has been given: chemical weapons help the regime clear out areas and given that
the international reaction to past Syrian action has been lacklustre, why would
Assad not do so? But I would suggest we don’t need to engage in this line of
questioning that conspiracy theorists would ask. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
So, given that we have sufficient
evidence – why did Miliband insist on waiting for a UN team which doesn’t have
the mandate to determine who was responsible? His <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm130829/debtext/130829-0001.htm#1308298000001">answer</a>
during the debate: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
If the UN
weapons inspectors conclude that chemical weapons have been used, in the eyes
of this country and of the world that will confer legitimacy on the finding
beyond the view of any individual country or any intelligence agency.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The evidence set out above is
crystal clear.
Facts are facts, legitimacy of which is determined by empirical support. Either
raise an issue with the intercepts, blood samples, soil samples and signals
intelligence – or don’t demand the need for more evidence (which wouldn’t even
help). I would suggest there is no greater legitimacy than “there are no
plausible alternatives to regime responsibility.” To repeat: this UN team only had a mandate to determine use. Ed Miliband <i>accepts </i>that chemical weapons were used. If he holds himself out as having sound judgment then there is no reason for we,
the British people, to wait to conclude that chemical weapons were used either.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The second major issue is that
Miliband has accused Cameron of “rushing” to war, and of being “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23896034">reckless and cavalier</a>.”
Again, absolute nonsense. British
intelligence <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/britain-france-claim-syria-used-chemical-weapons/2013/04/18/f17a2e7c-a82f-11e2-a8e2-5b98cb59187f_story.html">concluded</a>
that Assad had used chemical weapons all the way back in March. Post-August 21,
Cameron was still willing to (i) wait for the UN inspectors to report their
findings, (ii) wait the UN Security Council to have a vote for a Chapter VII
Resolution and (iii) have Parliament authorise the use of force. <i>Rushing to war? </i>Given that we have ample
evidence of regime responsibility, there is no need to wait for the UN
inspectors. Given that we know Russia and China will veto a Resolution – does
the fact that Cameron is taking these steps really show he is <i>rushing to war? </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Here is the reason that Miliband
gave for not voting for the government motion during the debate: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
I would point
to the fact that the Government’s motion does not mention compelling evidence
against President Assad, and I will develop later in my remarks the fifth point
in our amendment, which is very, very important—the basis on which we judge
whether action can be justified in terms of the consequences.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
That is the reason Ed Miliband
drew Labour MPs away from voting for the government motion: because it does not
mention something that we already have. It does not mention something which is
obviously required. Leaving that aside, there was <i>still </i>another vote to be given in the government motion so if they
did not feel that adequate attention had been given, they could have voted
against action. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
No. 10 sources state that the
government acquiesced (in my view, wrongly) to Miliband’s demand and they still
decided against him. I am not going to speculate as to his motives whether they
are to show that he is different from Blair or to humiliate Cameron, what is
clear is that his actions are unjustified. That his actions were
party-political is supported by the fact that his actions are so unsupportable
– and the statements he made after the debate. One which I found pretty
egregious was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23896034">this</a>:
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The United
States is our friend, we do have a special relationship with it, but I don't
think the conduct of British foreign policy is about saying we always do what
the United States thinks we should do.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This is a re-writing of history –
in exactly the same way that Blair was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8hxFW6l3Q1g#t=224">falsely</a>
portrayed as Bush’s ‘poodle’ – Cameron was <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article3852386.ece">pushing</a>
for Obama to act, not the other way around. And that is exactly what happened
in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/21/AR2011032102365.html">Libya</a>.
And it was France, with extensive British support that led in <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/mali-liberation-of-new-afghanistan.html">Mali</a>.
Even now, Obama’s position has been summed up by the New York Times’ Roger
Cohen like this:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I said I'd do this, I don't want to do this, doing this feels lonely, is there a way out of doing this, help me. Obama's red line on <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Syria&src=hash">#Syria</a><br />
— Roger Cohen (@NYTimesCohen) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYTimesCohen/statuses/374097660468133888">September 1, 2013</a></blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>The failure of non-intervention<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Almost every single post I’ve
written in the last year on this blog has been aimed at arguing that Western
intervention does not cause terrorism – and that is part of the reason why I’ve
considered the case against intervention to be fundamentally weak. Erica
Chenoweth of The Monkey Cage posted three posts – each containing a study. I
want to focus on the one that is most pertinent for the Syrian issue: the <a href="http://themonkeycage.org/2013/08/27/do-military-interventions-reduce-killings-of-civilians-in-civil-wars/">Wood,
Kathman and Gent (2012)</a> study which finds that ‘military interventions in
favor of the rebel faction (as opposed to pro-government or neutral
interventions) tend to increase government killings of civilians by about 40%.’
I do not consider this a blow to my general interventionist position for
several reasons. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
(i) <i>Disadvantages of the study:</i> Firstly, Wood et al’s sample is huge –
it covers ‘armed intervention in intrastate conflicts from 1989 to 2005’ –
which is usually great but not in this case. I have no doubt that there are bad
interventions – but when you look specifically to Western interventions
directed, funded and organised properly, you find different results. As Voeten <a href="http://themonkeycage.org/2013/08/28/how-much-does-history-help-us-predict-the-success-of-a-syrian-intervention/">wrote</a>
in response to Erica’s posts:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Conflict
situations similarly differ enormously. The correlations are thus average
associations between a very heterogeneous “treatment” (interventions) among
very heterogeneous units of analysis (cases of civil war/conflict). Think of it
as trying to estimate what effect medicine has on your health when we group
together patients with different diseases and thus different medicines. We may
find a positive effect of “medicine” but we don’t know if this was because all
medicines on average improve health or if there are some that work
exceptionally well while others leave patients worse off.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And the fact that these studies
relate to correlation, not causation is particularly important because it may
be the case that the places we intervene happen to be the worst places for
civilian casualties. In which case the data that Wood et al present make
complete sense – the places intervention happens are those where there is an
exponential growth in civilian deaths. Moreover, as Voeten notes, Syria is
vastly different from many interventions in the sample in the sense that mass
killings occurred before intervention. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>(ii) Inconsistency with the bulk of research:</i> Secondly, I have
presented several studies show a causal link between military action and
reduction in violence. These studies are better not only because they point to
causality but they talk about specific interventions, not an amalgamation of
several interventions over the years. I wont repeat what I have already said,
so see <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">here</a>,
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">here</a>,
<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html">here</a>
and <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/bad-fences-and-bad-neighbours.html">here</a>.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Even if we wanted to ignore the
issues mentioned in the point before, it would be no avail because there is
clear empirical research contradicting Wood et al’s research. <a href="http://psci.unt.edu/~demeritt/research_files/dd.pdf">DeMeritt
(forthcoming)</a>, finds that ‘intervention against the government leads to
decrease in death tolls.’ Where costs are imposed on decision makers, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12009/abstract">Kydd and
Straus (2013)</a> find modest benefits of international intervention. </div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><br /></i>
<i style="text-align: justify;">(iii) Normative considerations: </i><span style="text-align: justify;">There is no way that military
intervention by the West can be blamed for the third party intervention of
another where that action is free, informed and deliberate. This is a basic
point of what we mean by ‘cause’ which I have </span><a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/torts-and-wrongs.html" style="text-align: justify;">discussed
before</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> and wont repeat.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The question really comes down to
this: is Assad more or less likely to use chemical weapons if we do not attack?
I would suggest he is more likely to use them. There are no guarantees that he
would stop using them – but it would at least hamper his ability to do so.
That’s usually what happens when you strike against military command centres. I
happen to think that we should go beyond just punishing and deterring Assad for
using WMD. That’s not to say I am for arming rebels (it would be ineffective at
changing the tide of war as the<a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/300225690555518976"> CIA acknowledges</a> and runs the risk of going to Al
Qaeda affiliates who would use it against Syrians) or no-fly zones (they would
not protect civilians because most of the combat zones are in civilian
population centres unlike Libya where Gadaffi’s men could be targeted - see <a href="http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_PressureNotWar_Lynch.pdf">this report</a> for a better explanation for why such options would fail). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But I am for securing Syrian WMD
so they do not fall into the wrong hands – as the I<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23258792">ntelligence and Security Committee</a> said in its annual report, a failure to secure them represents "the
most worrying emerging terrorist threat" to the UK. But this is not what
the debate in the House of Commons was about – that was directed at a narrow
goal of deterring chemical weapons <i>use</i>.
To that end, Miliband first imposed conditions which are irrational and then
split the vote for intervention unnecessarily.<br />
<br />
<b><i><u>Update 07/09/2013</u></i></b><br />
<b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
We now have good reason to think
Ed’s actions were party political – not based on concerns about evidence or ‘rushing
to war.’ <i><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/ed-miliband-may-look-strong-but-accidental-commons-victory-has-its-pitfalls-8798841.html?origin=internalSearch">The
Independent</a> </i>reports, with reference to a ‘Labour insider’, why Ed
Miliband changed his mind about supporting the government motion which
responded to his concerns: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
The Shadow
Cabinet expected Mr Miliband to trumpet the concessions he won from Mr Cameron
and support the Government. But after a summer in which the Tories spent
attacking him as “weak”, Mr Miliband decided not to risk a messy split in which
many Labour MPs would have defied him by voting against military strikes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The insider states that ‘[Labour]
were relying on the Tory whips to win the vote and the Tories were relying on
us to support them.’ What this means is that Ed supported the government motion
(why wouldn’t he – it included all his ridiculous demands) but voted against it
and proposed his own <i>because he put his
own and his party’s interests above concern for Syria, Syrians and chemical
weapons proliferation</i>. We can direct some of the responsibility for the
Commons failure toward the Tories and Lib Dems who voted against the government’s
motion but the overwhelming majority goes to Ed Miliband for unnecessarily splitting
the vote. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is a silver lining to this
fact: it wasn’t that Ed was ignorant, it’s that he was conniving. And the
reason that’s important is because it should quieten down some of the anti-war
pundits who see this as a lasting victory. The government’s motion only
required <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23892783">fourteen
votes</a>. Without looking at which motion was supported, majorities in all
three parties supported, in principle, military action. It has only been 2
years since we intervened in Libya where there was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12816279">near consensus</a> in
Westminster. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This has a further implication:
why did Cameron suggest that Parliament ‘had spoken’ in favour of
non-intervention? Parliament, by the numbers, remains interventionist. Cameron
doesn’t seem to understand the contradiction between the two statements. He
stated both of them within seconds of each other during <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm130904/debtext/130904-0001.htm#13090424000005">PMQs</a>:
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
Last week the
House of Commons voted clearly, and I have said that I respect the outcome of
that vote and will not be bringing back plans for British participation in
military action... My only regret from last week is that I do not think it was
necessary to divide the House on a vote that could have led to a vote, but he
took the decision that it was.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Miliband’s error of judgment and cynical
moves has given Cameron the opportunity to make this, his own, error of judgment.
Unfortunately, neither seem likely to backtrack. And while the silver lining is
that our parliamentarians have not become isolationists, I doubt that we can
be taken as seriously by Iran or another nation which we have to put ‘all
options on the table with.’ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The British people have not
turned into Stop the War coalition either. YouGov asked a representative sample
of the British people (including me) about seven different situations and what
course of action we should take. Those who responded that we should definitely
take action or consider taking actions (as opposed to definitely not take
action/not consider taking action) were in <a href="http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/e3mn8j0hh5/YouGov_SundayTimes_VI_Syria_130831.pdf">the
majority</a> for all seven situations posed. These situations included </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
(a) To
overthrow a dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction to kill 100,000
of his people</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
(b) To attack
bases used by terrorist groups such as Al Q'aeda</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
(c) To stop an
unfriendly country acquiring nuclear weapons</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why were the British people, then,
unsupportive of the attack? The YouGov poll showed that 51% thought the Syrian
regime or its forces were responsible for the chemical weapons attack but a
significant 43% said ‘don’t know.’ YouGov <a href="http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/09/01/voters-tell-cameron-dont-bomb-syria-do-help-obama/">suggests</a>
had ‘voters been convinced of Assad’s guilt, their attitude to military action
might well have been different.’ That may be the case, it cannot be said for
certain. That is a failure of the government in getting its message across but
I would suggest three things. Firstly, that message was muddied by Miliband by
implying that the UN team would enrich our understanding in any sense. Secondly,
these polls should not dictate policy. I’m a believer in the trustee model of
representation – and given that YouGov suggests the result may had been
different had they known the correct state of evidence, no parliamentarian
should have felt their constituencies would oust them.<br />
<br />
Thirdly, even now, we still - in complete contradistinction to the wishes of the Stop the War coalition - support the United States in taking action and we support the following actions:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36pt;">
By huge
majorities we want Britain to share intelligence information about Syria (by
70-15%) and to support the US at the United Nations (by 64-16%). By a smaller
but still clear margin (48-31%), we would be happy to give access to Britain’s
military base in Cyprus to US forces attacking Syria.</div>
</div>
</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-66577975691178742722013-06-29T03:12:00.001-07:002013-06-29T07:03:19.821-07:00Mali: The Liberation of a New Afghanistan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Last summer, long before anyone even thought
that the French would intervene in Mali, I began writing a post that I never
published on the situation there in which I called for military intervention.
That is the reason why some of foregoing analysis appears to stop before the
French intervention – although, Glenn Greenwald’s article on Mali (</span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/14/mali-france-bombing-intervention-libya" style="line-height: 115%;">Monday
14<sup>th</sup> January 2013</a><span style="line-height: 115%;">) made me cringe so much that I’ve been forced
to edit the post where relevant. In the post (now this post), I wanted to
address three issues: the connection between the Mali situation and Libya, West
African counter-terrorism policy pre-2011 and whether the situation posed a
threat to the West. This last issue has, I hope, become obsolete to the extent
that I do not need to address it (but I will touch on it).</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>The situation<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Briefly stated, the situation is as follows:
in the northern part of the country, there are (mostly secular) Tuareg
separatists who wish to have their own state of Azawad. They managed to fight
the government out of the Northern areas and <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/all-hail-azawad/?ref=mali">declare
a state</a>. After public outcry in Mali at the state’s incompetence to deal
with the trouble in the North, the Army <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/world/africa/mali-coup-france-calls-for-elections.html">conducted</a>
a coup – leaving Mali without a proper democratic government. The <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/13/two_cheers_for_malian_democracy?page=full">response</a>
of African nations and the West was to put sanctions on the junta forcing it to
cede power back to a civilian government. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The gains that the Tuareg separatists had
made had been <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hbWBd7POqE2-1lId3vvOEc3WGrzQ?docId=CNG.0388439444a7105d87f81dee1cd762ec.d1">highjacked</a>
by an Islamist group called Ansar Dine. The Tuaregs and the Islamists had been
fighting together against the central government – but their goals and
ideologies <a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/rift-appears-between-islamists-and-main-rebel-group-in-mali/?ref=mali">are
far apart</a>. The Islamists do not want an independent state but a medieval
interpretation of Sharia to be <a href="http://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/iyyc481d-agh-ghc481lc4ab-22read-out-over-local-radio-in-timbuktu22-en.pdf">implemented</a>
across Mali – which is exactly what they did: <a href="http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/07/30/islamist-group-executes-two-in-northern-mali/">publically
executing civilians</a>, <a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/world/africa/mali-islamists-exert-control-with-attacks-on-mosques.html?ref=mali">destroying
non-Islamic ancient monuments</a>, <a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/world/africa/jidhadists-fierce-justice-drives-thousands-to-flee-mali.html?pagewanted=2">chasing
women without male companions</a>, and <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/04/30/mali-war-crimes-northern-rebels">more</a>
of what you’d expect. Given this record,
it should be unsurprising that the group is <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-05-24/news/sns-rt-us-mali-qaedabre84n1bi-20120524_1_sahara-sahel-band-mali-tuareg">linked,
working with and giving support</a> to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) –
an Al Qaeda Central affiliate. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
According to <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137796/yahia-h-zoubir/qaddafis-spawn?page=show"><i>Foreign Affairs</i></a><i>, </i>Timbuktu was taken by Ansar Dine with the “assistance of AQIM.”
As detailed below, this relationship has extended to giving sanctuary to AQIM
in the areas of Mali where Ansar Dine have taken control. Needless to say, the
imposition of such laws and hosting of terrorists has led to a <a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/world/africa/jidhadists-fierce-justice-drives-thousands-to-flee-mali.html">major
refugee crisis</a> in the region. [Despite all of this, the international
community <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/27/us-un-assembly-mali-idUSBRE88Q02H20120927">was</a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/249659493393240064">paralysed</a>.
Then, in January, the French stepped up – and carried out the liberation of the
country. There are now elections planned for July 28 – but, as this <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/03/mali-election-more-harm-than-good">article</a>
in <i>The Guardian </i>persuasively argues,
there are good reasons for that date to be pushed back. The Tuaregs have not
only dropped their <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/maliNews/idAFL6E8IF2DJ20120715">goal</a> of
separation, but have <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22961519">agreed</a>
to Malian troops to be stationed in the North.]<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Greenwald on Mali<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Greenwald in his article, written in the wake
of the French liberation, makes five different claims – and I don’t have space
to handle them all. His first claim is the idea that the Libya intervention
‘caused’ the political crisis, coup and terrorism in Mali – because it allowed
an influx of arms and men. This is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/libyas-unintended-consequences.html">not</a>
a claim limited to Greenwald or a fringe (unlike the next argument). But it is
still wrong. I can add nothing but to quote the <a href="http://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/did-libya-cause-mali/">brilliant
post</a> by Jay Ulfelder:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The accounts
I’ve read from people who closely study the country generally attribute the
crisis in Mali to two things: 1) the resumption of armed rebellion in northern
Mali in January 2012; and 2) the mutiny and coup that ensued in March. To make strong claims about the importance of
Libya to Mali, though, we have to believe that one or both of these things—the
rebellion and the coup—would not have happened if Libya hadn’t imploded. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The first of these was not caused by the
Libyan intervention because “the resumption of rebellion had been planned for
some time, suggesting that Libya’s collapse was not a necessary condition for
its occurrence.” What about the coup? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The
connection between Libya and the March 2012 coup is even more tenuous.
Statistical models I developed to forecast coups d’etat identified Mali as one
of the countries at greatest risk in 2012 before the coup happened, and that
assessment was not particularly sensitive to events in Libya.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Greenwald’s second claim:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
The
overthrow of the Malian government was enabled by US-trained-and-armed soldiers
who defected... In other words, the west is once again at war with the very
forces that it trained, funded and armed. Nobody is better at creating its own
enemies<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There are three things wrong with this.
First, is the implication that the US was involved in the coup that dislodged
the democratically elected Malian government. It was not; as should be apparent
from above, the U.S and its allies imposed <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-03-26/mali-coup/53780320/1">sanctions</a>.
In fact, it is illegal under U.S law to provide assistance to a military
government that has removed a democratically elected regime – which is why US
assistance in the French intervention went <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/26/world/africa/mali-unrest">directly</a>
to France, not Mali. Second, we worked <i><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21998398">with</a> </i>the
‘US-trained-and-armed soldiers’ – they are not our enemies. There is an uneasy
relationship between the civilian government and the military junta – and the
West, like the Malian authorities wishes to see them abdicate but they are not
AQIM, they are not the MLNA – and hence are not our “enemies.” Thirdly, the US
was the most reluctant Western power when it came to military intervention (see
<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/27/us-un-assembly-mali-idUSBRE88Q02H20120927">here</a>,
<a href="http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/12/11/rice_french_mali_intervention_plan_is_crap">here</a>
and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/26/us-usa-france-mali-idUSBRE90P04N20130126">here</a>).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The element where most of the original post
has been deleted is whether the situation in Mali, and particularly AQIM, posed
a threat to the West. It has been
deleted because I don’t think people will dispute it – for two reasons. First,
the history of the region became clearer. People could no longer ignore what
I’ve outlined below: the West has been attacked in Africa more than once; the
people of Africa have been attacked and Al Qaeda has been attempting to do what
it has always done. Second, though I doubt people need to be reminded, Al Qaeda
in the Islamic Maghreb’s leader chose to take innocent Western civilians
hostage working in Amenas - some were <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21115692">executed.</a> Of course, there is a common response - cue
Greenwald’s third claim <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Western bombing
of Muslims in yet another country will obviously provoke even more anti-western
sentiment, the fuel of terrorism.. As Bradford University professor Paul Rogers
told Jones, the bombing of Mali "will be portrayed as 'one more example of
an assault on Islam'".<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I refuse to dedicate another post as to the
‘foreign policy causes terrorism’ argument – but the circumstances of this act
of terrorism mean that the argument is even more ignorant. (i) The AQIM
militants caught by the Algerian authorities were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/world/africa/some-algeria-attackers-are-placed-at-benghazi.html">part
of</a> the Benghazi September attack (pre-Malian intervention); (ii) the
hostage taking was carried out by Belmokhtar and was linked to him attempting
to gain control over AQIM – <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/algeria-siege-is-motivated-by-al-qaida-in-fighting-not-france-s-intervention-in-mali.premium-1.494896#.UPnusEOY-J0.twitter">it
had little to do with Mali</a> (and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/19/algeria-crisis-terror-motives">here</a>);
(iii) AQIM’s demands were not limited to removal of Western forces from Mali,
like all Islamist militants they want Taliban-style states and more – including
the <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20130118-liveblog-hostages-remain-algeria-bp-gas-in-amena-france-mali-military?ns_campaign=editorial&ns_source=twitter&ns_mchannel=reseaux_sociaux&ns_fee=0&ns_linkname=20130118_liveblog_hostages_remain_algeria_bp_gas">release</a>
of a convicted terrorist Omar Abdul Rahman. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
(iv) Most importantly and generally, against
this argument, are the Malian people. There has been one news outlet which <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/237514650911129600">has</a> been <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/238970584921436160">reporting</a>
on Mali when it was largely muted in the rest of the media: Channel 4 – and
that is thanks to the work of Lindsey Hilsum. In one of her <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9_lsx3A3Uo&feature=youtu.be">reports</a>
post-liberation, she notes that Malians were persuaded that “the French are
liberators” and there was “massive enthusiasm for the French and the military
operation.” The BBC’s Andrew Harding<i> </i>aptly
summed up the situation <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21038856">noting</a> that the
“French are being seen as saviours.” These are not Western propagandists
misrepresenting the views of the oppressed: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Strong
majorities in all surveyed regions support the use of force by foreign
militaries to target Islamist rebels. Respondents in Mopti, the region surveyed
that is closest to the conflict, are the strongest supporters – 89% support
foreign intervention while 8% oppose it (<a href="http://www.orb-international.com/article.php?s=new-poll-nearly-8-in-10-malians-support-international-military-intervention-in-the-north">ORB
International</a>, polling from Dec 2012).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The two issues are distinct of course; my
point has always been that foreign policy does not make people immoral. But my
point here is that it is not even true that people have an aversion to the
foreign policy. The only thing that has been portrayed an assault on Islam <a href="http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/features/2012/11/30/feature-02"><i>by Malian clerics</i></a><i> </i>is Al Qaeda. Indeed, an online poll of
Guardian readers showed the same resolve against the fringe arguments of Milne
and Greenwald: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2013/jan/11/support-france-military-intervention-mali-poll?CMP=twt_gu">79%</a>
of those polled supported the French intervention. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>U.S counter-terrorism policy pre-2011<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
AQIM did not show up in Mali in the last year
or even few years. After the U.S and her allies decimated Al Qaeda Central’s
haven in Afghanistan in 2001, many of the militants moved to Pakistan – but
many also <a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/world/europe/26iht-letter26.html?">moved</a>
to Yemen and Mali. In fact, in 2004, American Generals were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/11/world/us-training-african-forces-to-uproot-terrorists.html">speaking</a>
of a ‘new Afghanistan’ in Mali. <span style="line-height: 115%;">As the risk has been here for so long, its
worth asking why Al Qaeda haven’t been dealt a blow.</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/11/world/us-training-african-forces-to-uproot-terrorists.html"><i>New York Times</i></a><i> </i>reported that in 2004 the U.S Military tried to quell this upsurge
by “dispatching Special Operations forces to countries like Mali and Mauritania
in West Africa to train soldiers and outfit them with pickup trucks, radios and
global-positioning equipment.” The State Department has launched a $500million
programme in Africa – which includes not only the aforementioned military
dimension but also non-military element which invests in education, local
business and radio stations. Even then, the Malian military remained weak –
which is why they lost so quickly to the Tuareg militants. Moreover, the kidnappings
conducted by Al Qaeda did give it significant resources too – “Germany paid
[AQIM’s leader] a ransom of nearly $6 million -- equivalent to a quarter of
Niger's defense budget.” And thats probably the significant reason why the
efforts have not succeeded as they did in Afghanistan: the countries themselves
do not have counter-terrorism capability. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Gregory Mann attempts to argue in <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/05/the_mess_in_mali"><i>Foreign Policy</i></a> the opposite; it
wasn’t a lack of resources but the War on Terror itself that made things worse.
He writes:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Mali has already paid a high price for the failure of French anti-terrorist policies in the Sahara. Mali was
long spared the trauma of having its Western visitors kidnapped... After a
bloody 2010 Franco-Mauritanian raid aimed at rescuing a French hostage from
AQIM [-] that all changed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This is wrong. There were <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2009/12/20091287345403295.html">kidnappings</a> of Westerners <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8381200.stm">before</a> 2010; so much so the Foreign Office issued a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8373821.stm">warning</a> not to travel to Mali in 2009. Al Qaeda operated in Mali
long before 2010 – it arrived in 2001, acted on Malian territory and against Malian
authorities. According to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/world/africa/10terror.html"><i>New York Times</i></a><i>, </i>in 2009, AQIM murdered a “senior Malian army officer in his home”
and then a couple of weeks later, “attacked a Malian Army patrol in that
country’s northern desert, killing nearly a dozen soldiers and capturing
several others.” By the way, I would suggest that the presence of AQIM whether
actually attacking anyone or not is something that the Mali
government should not tolerate. Mann continues by saying<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
At the same time, both France and the United States were pushing the central government to reassert control in the desert... [A decade of] Special Forces training, cooperation between Sahalien armies and the
United States, and counterterrorism programs of all sorts run by both the State
Department and the Pentagon has, at best, failed to prevent a new disaster in
the desert and, at worst, sowed its seeds.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It is true that the French and Americans were
pushing for the Malians (and other African nations) to make efforts against
AQIM by clearing huge swathes of the desert that AQIM was utilising. The reason
why is obvious and shouldn’t need to be defended: their citizens were paying
the price of passivity of the African nations through the kidnappings, bombings
and attacks against Westerners. But thats where Mann’s correctness ends. There
are two reasons why Al Qaeda has maintained a presence: first, Mali’s poor
capability. As the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/world/africa/in-mali-coup-leaders-seem-to-have-uncertain-grasp-on-power.html?_r=1&ref=mali"><i>New York Times</i></a><i> </i>notes:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
There is
wide agreement among politicians, analysts and civil-society activists that Mr.
Touré had left his relatively small army unprepared and underequipped to deal
with a rebel force<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">Second, early on the central government did
not attempt to defeat them despite that American insistence. In 2008, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/world/africa/13mali.html?ref=mali"><i>New York Times</i></a><i> </i>quoted both American and Malian officials as saying that the
Malian government had “adopted a live-and-let-live approach to the Qaeda
threat, focusing instead on rebellious Tuareg tribesmen.” So the truth is the
opposite of what Mann implies: the zone was being militarised to undermine
Tuaregs – not for the Americans against Al Qaeda but of Mali’s own accord against
the Tuaregs. That said, despite its reluctance to start targeting Al Qaeda in
2008, Mali did <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/09/us-qaeda-sahara-idUSTRE5481GA20090509">start</a>
to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8104491.stm">carry out</a>
operations against Al Qaeda in 2009 – after being unable or unwilling to deal
with the threat from 2001-2008. But the point is that to portray a “decade” of
action against Al Qaeda is wrong. Directed military action – as in <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">Gaza</a>,
the <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/bad-fences-and-bad-neighbours.html">West
Bank</a>, <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html">Pakistan</a>
and <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">Iraq</a>–
works to decrease violence. This already makes it unlikely that
counter-terrorism didn’t work in Mali – as though it is some aberration. The
more likely reason for the lack of crushing of Al Qaeda, given the chronology
of events, is the incompetence and the low quality of the Malian army and the
strength of Al Qaeda. </span></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">
</span>
<o:p></o:p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-42489530647689396712013-05-27T03:34:00.000-07:002013-05-27T03:34:05.758-07:00Torts and Wrongs<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
By far one of the best decisions
I’ve made in my life is choosing to read Law at university. I understand there
is a tendency for people to think that their interests or professions are
somehow relevant to other topics, but I genuinely think that law can help people stop talking past each other. Tort law is essentially about bringing claims against people for
committing wrongs; it is the civil version of criminal law. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Causation<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
By far the most I’ve written
about on this blog has been about the causes of terrorism (and this should be last post on it in a very long time) – but everyone seems
to miss the definition of what causation means. Fortunately, the English and
common law courts have spent centuries talking about what constitutes a cause –
and I think they’ve got it right. If you bring a claim against someone in the
tort of negligence (for example), you need to establish not only that there was
a breach of duty (of acting in a non-negligent way) but also that the breach of
duty <i>caused </i>the loss you suffered. The
general test has been stated many times but here is a recent restatement from
Lord Phillips in <i>Sienkiewicz v Greif</i>
[2011] UKSC 10 at [16]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
It is a basic
principle of the law of tort that the claimant will only have a cause of action
if he can prove, on balance of probabilities, that the defendant's tortious
conduct caused the damage in respect of which compensation is claimed. He must
show that, but for the defendant's tortious conduct he would not have suffered
the damage.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
However, but for causation is not
appropriate as the only test: <i>but for </i>the
parents of the tortfeasor having sex and conceiving said tortfeasor, the tort
would not have occurred. Of course we would not say in any real sense that the
parents had <i>caused </i>the tort to occur.
A lot of people seem to think this is an absurd example, so I’ll give another:
a negligent driver speeds until he gets to a roundabout. He is then struck by lightning;
<i>but for speeding, </i>he would not have
been at the junction. This, again, is clearly not causally relevant. Hence, the
law superimposes a test that where there is an informed, deliberate and free
act, the chain of causation is broken (per Goff LJ in <i>R v Pagget </i>(1983) 76 Cr. App. R. 279 at 289). There are many cases
which show this principle in action, so I’ll only give a few of my favourite
criminal cases.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><i>R v
Pagget</i></b>: the defendant had taken his ex-girlfriend hostage using a
shotgun. The police were called to the scene where they were threatened and
fired upon. In the ensuing gun fight, triggered by the defendant, the police
shot the ex. It was held that the police were not responsible for the death of
the hostage because their action was not free. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Saunders
v Archer</i></b><i> </i>(1575) 75 E.R. 706:
the defendant was a husband and a father who poisoned an apple in the hopes
that his wife would eat it and die. The wife, without knowledge of the poisoning,
gave the apple to their daughter who died. It was held that the husband was
responsible for the death of the child because but for his act, the child would
not have died. The wife’s act was not a break in the chain of causation because
it was not informed action.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The reason English law does this is
because it values individualism and responsibility for one’s actions. To
suggest that someone else is responsible for an act <i>you </i>authored (i.e., you did it freely, deliberately and being
informed), is to significantly undermine free will and sense of control over
one’s life. Professor Simester (<a href="https://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2F8420_7773D34B34FF13708FDF4CB722CECBAB_journals__LEG_LEG1_03_S135232520000029Xa.pdf&cover=Y&code=176221d5aeccc71ee051a6bcc1b17fc3">Legal
Theory, 1995</a>) has explained this far better than I can hope to:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
... if we so
weaken the relationship between the consequence [of an act] and its author by
indiscriminately sharing responsibility for the authorship of each consequence
that sense of our individuality as people in a specific relationship to the world
is much diluted</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Simester is saying, in essence,
we express our autonomous lives by being connected with the choices that we
make. By separating out the connection between consequences and authorship
(either by holding me responsible for acts I have not authored or not holding
me responsible for acts I have committed), the ‘connection’ that makes real
autonomy and individual responsibility is gone. Hence, free, informed and
deliberate actions <i>should </i>be held to
be the work of only the individual involved. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Causation applied<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
So why is all of this relevant?
Because pundits who have spent so much time talking about ‘causes’ do not have
the wisdom of their Lordships in these cases. From Glenn Greenwald’s <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/25/andrew-sullivan-distortion-terrorism-woolwich">latest
column</a>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
if Person X
walks up to Person Y on the street and spits in his face, and Person Y then
pulls out a gun and shoots Person X in the head and kills him in retaliation,
one can observe that Person X's spitting was a causal factor in Person Y's
behavior without remotely justifying Person Y's lethal violence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This is not the position English
law takes and neither should it be the position of rational people. Lets ignore
that Greenwald is attempting to apply this analogy to terrorism (this is wrong
for <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/blowback-against-glenn-greenwald-1.html">three
reasons</a> I have already gone through), and just focus on the example given.
Is Person Y’s action a free, informed and deliberate response? Yes, it is.
Causation is not simply about ‘but for’ or ‘and then...’ And the fact that this
individual has authored an action means he is the cause of his action. It is no
use talking of ‘provocation’ because we do not allow provocations to vitiate
causation (thankfully, since the Coroners and Justice Act (2009)). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Again, to make it painfully
obvious that this is the right approach, consider an individual who is murdered
after her partner finds out that she was having an affair. The action was free,
informed and deliberate. Thankfully, like terrorism, it is not a course of
action that people usually take (and thus reinforces the idea that these
actions are not caused by anything other than by the individual). That this is
the case was put poignantly by the Supreme Court of Alaska <i>Hurn v Greenway </i>293 P.3d 480 (2013) (h/t <a href="http://www.volokh.com/2013/02/12/71247/">The Volokh Conspiracy</a>). Here
are the facts of the case:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Simone
Greenway and her friend Carrie Randall–Evans were dancing together in a
suggestive manner and teasing Jeffrey Evans, Carrie’s husband, when Jeffrey
left the room, returned with a pistol, and shot everyone inside, killing
Carrie. He then shot and killed himself. David Hurn, the father of Carrie’s two
minor children, sued, claiming that Greenway’s participation in the dance was
negligent either because it breached her duty as homeowner to control her
guests or because it created a foreseeable and unreasonable risk of violence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>But for the suggestive dancing, </i>in this specific case,<i> </i>the murders of all the individuals
would not have occurred. Does that mean the dancing caused the murder? The
Supreme Court of Alaska held</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
We reject the
idea that victims are responsible for the violence they endure in the home, and
we will not blame them for their otherwise reasonable actions simply because
those actions foreseeably result in violence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The same applies to racists and
terrorists; sure, a racists’ worldview means that but for the presence of the
black person, he would not have assaulted him, but his action was <i>free, informed and deliberate </i>and he is
the cause of that action. For the terrorist, <i>granting </i>that but for Western foreign policy he would not have
acted that way (which I don’t grant), it is <i>still
</i>not a cause of his actions. And unless we want to go around saying that the
colours of people’s skin, the choices people make about their sex lives, the
dances they happen to take part in are causes, we should resist Greenwald’s
wide definition of causation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And what if we dilute the claim
that Greenwald makes – namely, that we should still listen to the racists and
terrorists so we know the reasons <i>they </i>give
for their actions? Absolutely not: it is irrelevant (and insulting) to start
talking about the role of a battered woman, the role of a victimised minority
or our foreign policy because it ignores that the action was caused by the
defendant’s own action. Talk about the worldview that these people accept
because, to arrogantly quote myself, ‘to be within the grounds of recruitment
requires an aversion (or openness to an aversion) to a free society of consent’
– and as the empirical evidence shows, it has nothing to do with the reasons
pundits like Greenwald give. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Responsibility for third parties<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There is another reason why
causation is important; it also explains why, when human shields are used,
there is no responsibility attached to Western forces. <i>But for </i>the terrorists’ use of a certain area, it would not have
been targeted (assuming, for now, the action is proportionate). It is
unconvincing to argue that there was a free, informed and deliberate action
because the situation matches <i>R v Pagget</i>.
The IDF, acting in self-defence, targets an area from which a threat emerges
and if it kills civilians, the responsibility should like solely with Hamas. Of
course, states should take the presence of civilians into account when working
out what is ‘proportionate’ (in the same way that the police in <i>Pagget </i>should not have used a rocket
launcher to target the defendant) – but where they act proportionately, their
action is not free. I am not going to spend the rest of this post explaining
whether this was or was not the case in Israeli counter-terrorism operations
because I merely want to justify the principles I’m talking about. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Perhaps one of the most perverse
responses I’ve heard to statistics about coalition forces being responsible for
a tiny minority of civilian deaths is that the insurgents and terrorists who
cause the overwhelming majority of deaths would not have happened but for the
Western invasion. The argument is essentially saying that ‘you unleashed the
forces.’ That this is wrong should be clear (empirically, it is wrong to say
that it was cause; normatively, it is wrong to blame actions authored by
someone on an individual). But there are further cases which help elucidate why
such a view is incorrect.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Lord Hope made clear in <i>Mitchell v Glasgow City Council</i> [2009]
UKHL 11 at [15]<i> </i>that ‘the law does
not impose a duty to prevent a person from being harmed by the criminal act of
a third party based simply upon foreseeability.’ Accepting that it was
foreseeable that people would be attacked is not enough to impose an obligation
(this is partly for reasons give above about personal responsibility). Hence,
in <i>Hill v Chief Constable of West
Yorkshire, </i>there was no ‘general duty of care owed by the police to members
of the public at large to apprehend an unknown criminal.’ The coalition forces
in Iraq <i>could </i>have been responsible
for the actions of third parties <i>if </i>they
had control of them and negligently let them go. But because they did not, no
duty let alone causation can be applied if we are to respect personal
responsibility.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-47842454818737196752013-05-25T09:35:00.001-07:002013-05-25T09:35:11.708-07:00Blowback against Glenn Greenwald #1<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I’ve spent many posts trying to
explain why I don’t think foreign policy is really relevant in discussing the
causes of terrorism. Without wishing to dwell on the point for too long,
because I have addressed it, the language that one uses in these kind of
discussions really tells you a lot. In essence, ‘explaining’ and ‘understanding’
terrorism amounts to excusing it. Glenn Greenwald in his most <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback">recent
Guardian article</a> states: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Basic human
nature simply does not allow you to cheer on your government as it carries out
massive violence in multiple countries around the world and then have you be
completely immune from having that violence returned.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Human nature </i>means that you are not free from people roaming your
streets and beheading people. Perhaps I’m being overzealous, you can still say
something human nature means x occurs (which, I’ll discuss below) and still say
its wrong. And then came this exchange, pointed out to me by a friend:</div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
@<a href="https://twitter.com/sesmithesq">sesmithesq</a> Yes, the measure of how civilized someone is is how meekly they acquiesce to US aggression & how much gratitude they express</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/337361729728172033">May 23, 2013</a></div>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
So not only is it human nature,
those who refuse to respond by beheading people and blowing people up on their
way to work are <i>meek, acquiescent. </i>If you do respond in such a way, there can
still be a <i>measure of civility</i>.
Anyone who wishes to see a clear example of excusing terrorism need look no
further than Greenwald’s words. But even
on the human nature point, Greenwald is flat out wrong. I’ve already shown <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">many studies, polls and historical examples</a> of why his position is untenable,
but I thought I’d beat a dead horse by giving one more major example from the
literature and then attacking the logic of the argument.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Iraq and the Surge </i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
After the violence spiked in Iraq
in 2006, the U.S sent a ‘surge' of U.S personnel and there was a radical reduction in violence. I’ve changed my mind on the effectiveness of the
Surge three times – in fact you can even see it on some of the posts I’ve
written. In <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/dogs-of-war.html">one</a>
I describe the idea that the surge had a reducing effect on violence as a ‘frankly
propagandistic account’ because it did not take into account the Sunni cooperation
with the coalition and the U.S diplomatic effort in curtailing human capital
for Al Qaeda (hereafter, the ‘November account’). In <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/why-do-they-hate-us.html">another</a>
I stated that the Surge ‘largely quelled violence’ in Iraq (hereafter, the ‘September
account’).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I changed my mind those times because I was
following the weight of the evidence. The evidence, I believe, has changed
again and so must my view. It should be noted, however, that if either one is
correct, Greenwald is wrong. If the Surge had no effect, the fact that violence
fell radically means foreign policy is mostly an irrelevance. If the Surge did
have effect, then foreign policy is relevant <i>but in the opposite way </i>that Greenwald and his friends claim. In quite
possibly the most comprehensive article on the <a href="http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/IS3701_testingthesurge.pdf">Surge<i>, </i>Biddle, Friedman and Shapiro</a> (2012, <i>International Security</i> put forward a new ‘synergistic’ model. They
explain (at p.10-11):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Without the
surge, the Anbar Awakening would probably not have spread fast or far enough.
And without the surge, sectarian violence would likely have continued for a
long time to come—the pattern and distribution of the bloodshed offers little
reason to believe that it had burned itself out by mid-2007... [However,] without
the Awakening to thin the insurgents’ ranks and unveil the holdouts to U.S.
troops, the violence would probably have remained very high until well after
the surge had been withdrawn and well after U.S. voters had lost patience with
the war. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The evidence they provide for
this position is incontrovertible: they utilise the declassified figuress of ‘significant
activities’ (essentially all military and insurgent activity in Iraq by
location, time and date), primary accounts of individuals involved and the Iraq
Body Count casualty figures. They then map out the differing explanations and
see if they match the pattern that was expected. The November account
emphasises the role of the Anbar Awakening (Sunnis agreeing to fight Al Qaeda).
Biddel et al explain that this is not the right view because between 2004-6,
the Sunnis did try to reach out to the U.S. Indeed, the U.S even made payments –
but each of these efforts failed because the Sunnis were not able to garner
protection, militarily, from the coalition which meant a relentless onslaught by Al Qaeda. And ‘without this protection [that
the Surge could provide], none of these efforts proved able to survive and
spread in the face of insurgent counterattacks’ (p.19). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This goes to show why the November
account cannot, by itself, explain the
decline in violence but this does not vindicate the September account. The Sons of Iraq (i.e., Sunnis who took part in the Anbar Awakening by joining with coalition forces) are
irrelevant to the September account; all that was important was American boots
on the ground. This would mean that before Sons of Iraq involvement, the Surge
should have worked to reduce the violence. Except thats not what we see in the
data; these are a random few data points from the study (at p.29): <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cTRdz9rGk3E/UaDh3u5O3EI/AAAAAAAAACE/FuWHEdRKvbc/s1600/iraqsoi.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cTRdz9rGk3E/UaDh3u5O3EI/AAAAAAAAACE/FuWHEdRKvbc/s640/iraqsoi.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Each graph charts the rate of
violence (y axis) over time (x axis) in different areas of operation. The
dotted line is when the Sons of Iraq began involvement in those provinces with
coalition forces. The data seems fairly clear: the Sons of Iraq did have an
impact. As Biddel et al note, ‘the average rate of reduction before SOI standup
was 2.5 percentage points per month; the rate after standup was 5.8 percentage
points per month, or roughly two and a half times greater’ (p.28).
(Incidentally, this is the kind of analysis that no blog can provide; simply
mapping figures of troop numbers and fatalities as <a href="http://i0.wp.com/www.loonwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/US-Troops-Vs-Fatalities-in-Iraq.jpg">Loonwatch</a>
has done is the kind of crude ‘blog economics’ demeans rigorous academic study). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But importantly, the SOI
involvement was only made possible because of the Surge and the protection the
Sunnis obtained. Furthermore<i>, </i>their
involvement <i>meant </i>that the military
component could properly work because it reduced the combatants the U.S had to
fight and the Sons of Iraq could give them information on hideouts, positions
and the locality. Neither the September account nor the November account are
therefore sufficient, but both are necessary. This explains why much of the
academic literature shows robust results in favour of the September view. Here
are just two examples from my Twitter feed: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
“The empirical
results show that troop levels and other policy changes associated with the
surge have a significant effect on reducing levels of civilian violence.” - ‘Relative peace in Iraq : a policy
evaluation of the surge in troop levels’ by <a href="http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/553921/smithMichael.pdf?sequence=1">Smith
(2009)</a> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
“Using new
panel data on development spending in Iraq, we show that violence reducing
effects of aid are greater when (a) projects are small, (b) troop strength is
high, and (c) professional development expertise is available.” - ‘Modest, Secure and Informed: Successful
Development in Conflict Zones’ by <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w18674">Berman
et al (2013)</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There is no need to deny these
studies according to the synergistic model – they make complete
sense. But the empirical record must also take into account SOI stand up
points. Which brings me back to the point of this post: U.S involvement was a
significant part of the reduction in violence in Iraq. Again, this really
shouldn’t be surprising: the whole point of these actions is to deter and
reduce violence. There is no ‘blowback,’ the people of Iraq aren’t rushing to
kill us all: the opposite occurred. We increased troops and involvement – and the
Iraqis were better for it (in <a href="https://twitter.com/anonmugwump/status/302585384473341952">more ways</a>
than just a reduction of violence). Perhaps Greenwald thinks that the Iraqis,
particularly the Sons of Iraq who experienced Al Qaeda’s brutal regime, are
meek and acquiescent? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>The faulty logic of blowback<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The logic of blowback appeals to
human intuitions: you’ve been hit, so why don’t you hit back? But there is no
way that those human intuitions can be applied to modern day terrorism. I have
already shown Palestinians (<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blowback-against-blowback.html">here</a>), Pakistanis (<a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html">here</a>) and Iraqis (above) do not
respond by blowing people up nor supporting it – so it clearly is an
empirically false statement. But even the logic of it is faulty for
three reasons. Firstly, the bulk of these grievances are caused by the
terrorist groups themselves. I can’t be
bothered to write it out again, so here’s what I’ve previously <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html">written</a>: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
According to a
study by King’s College London looking at civilian deaths from 2003-2008
concludes that of the 92,000 civilians deaths recorded by Iraq Body Count, 12%
were attributable to coalition forces. 74% were carried out by “unknown
perpertrators” described as “are those who target civilians (i.e., no
identifiable military target is present), while appearing indistinguishable
from civilians.”... [In Afghanistan,] civilian deaths caused by pro-government
forces decreased by 24% from 2009-2010, making them responsible for 15% of
civilian casualties. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And yes, those numbers have
barely changed and <a href="http://www.isaf.nato.int/article/isaf-releases/facts-disprove-insurgents-claim-of-avoiding-civilian-casualties.html">are
still accurate</a> in 2013. So why not attack the Taliban or Al Qaeda? Perhaps
this is what the Sons of Iraq did when they turned to the U.S - against Al Qaeda? I don’t think so.
As Loonwatch (without realising what this idea entails) helpfully reminds us:
the support for attacks against civilians is <a href="http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/08/surveys-show-muslims-in-every-country-less-likely-to-justify-killing-civilians-than-americans-and-israelis/">roughly
the same</a> around the world (and if anything, lower in Muslim-majority
countries). It seems being a victim of terrorism, or a nation which is the
victim of terrorism has little to do with supporting or carrying out violence. In
fact, there are many examples (that I haven’t already mentioned) of individuals
feeling aggrieved and not becoming violent: families of homicide victims and
support for the death penalty (see research <a href="http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v12n1/Mowen.pdf">here</a> and <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=233871">here</a>); the Tibetans whose
rates of violence match their oppression (see a ridiculous attempt to make the opposing argument <a href="http://thehasbarabuster.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/yes-but-what-about-tibet.html">here</a>); the black communities after the
reconstruction period etc. etc. Even if we step back – away from
terrorism – being anti-American is not related with foreign policy. In the
seminal <a href="http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/120/1/45.full.pdf">The
Political Economy of Hatred</a>, Glaeser (at p.46) rehteorically asks ‘why
would 34% of French but only 27% of Vietnamese have an unfavorable opinion of
the United States?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Secondly, even if we just focused
on the minority of Western-linked grievances, terrorism involves attacking
innocent third parties. Even if you want to grant (which I don’t), that
individuals become violent when they become aggrieved – why would you attack
someone innocent? This is why the human intuition point should strongly be
countered: you do not attack an innocent civilian (be it man, woman or child)
because someone who you consider guilty attacked you. To be fair, there is a common
response: there is no other way for them
to respond. This is commonly given in the context of Israel – they have nothing
but rockets and suicide jackets and so they cannot target the military. Leaving
aside for the moment that there may be ways of attacking military targets, this
is still faulty. It is faulty <i>for
terrorist groups </i>because they make it their modus operandi to target
civilians. They have time to think about their best method and they <i>choose </i>terrorism. Why does this mean the
argument is faulty? Because the empirical record is emphatic that terrorism
does not work:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8ETyObJ0fjo/UaDiFePaPGI/AAAAAAAAACM/P1N6zvOVi_Q/s1600/Terroreffective.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8ETyObJ0fjo/UaDiFePaPGI/AAAAAAAAACM/P1N6zvOVi_Q/s320/Terroreffective.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2108117660267051328" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2108117660267051328" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2108117660267051328" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>This graph is taken from a
lecture by Peter Neumann (at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR7GgeFmzzg">5:32</a>) and is
representative of the academic literature (<a href="http://www.tdistler.com/media/docs/whyterrorismdoesnotwork.pdf">Abrams
(2006)</a>, <a href="http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2010/fall/harmon.pdf">Harmon
(2011)</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strategy-Terrorism-Contemporary-Studies-ebook/dp/B001ROAJTK/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369496240&sr=1-5">Neumann
(2008)</a>). It might be said that this is an academic, not emotional/real
response – but that has already been shown to be a ridiculous argument by the
empirical record: the overwhelming majority of people can feel aggrieved, and
their emotional response is not one of terrorism. I noted how this is precisely
what happened after Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9 – and, surprise surprise, humans <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4366663,00.html">continue</a>
to have morals after Operation Pillar of Defense in 2013.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Thirdly, the logic is flawed
because it will leave us paralyzed from doing good. The Woolwich terrorist <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10074881/Mum-talked-down-Woolwich-terrorists-who-told-her-We-want-to-start-a-war-in-London-tonight.html">said</a>
that ‘I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan’ (see the
first element above). I have already spelt out the <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/victims-of-western-imperialism-1.html">benefits</a> of liberation of
Afghanistan but I want to add two things. Why are these Islamist terrorist more
aggrieved than the local population? As <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/04/what_went_right?page=full">Bergen</a>
notes, ‘favorable views of the Taliban in polling across Afghanistan over the
past several years are consistently no more than 10 percent.’ Second, the
government we are working with to fight against these unpopular terrorists is a
democratically elected government which has the support of its people (<a href="http://asiafoundation.org/resources/pdfs/KeyFindingsandSummary.pdf">75%</a> of whom give the central government a positive assessment). We
needed to carry out the liberation of Afghanistan – not just for the
eradication of Al Qaeda’s training ground but the liberation of the Afghan
people. <i>If </i>(and as should be obvious
by now, this is only an if), there is a response from those who seek to
maintain these Talibanised states, then we should accept it and continue to fight against it. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-44295849183830119752012-08-12T10:32:00.000-07:002012-08-13T06:08:00.134-07:00Blowback against Blowback<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I published a <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/why-do-they-hate-us.html">post</a>
on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 explaining my thoughts on why people became so
radicalised that they supported Al Qaeda and even became part of it. I
emphasised the importance of cultural dissonance, i.e., feeling apart from a
culture. I’m not going to go over the empirical support for my position again –
I wanted to give more empirical evidence against a position I dismissed. I did
not ignore foreign policy in explanation, but I did say it was neither
necessary nor sufficient for terrorism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">The assumption behind thinking foreign policy
leads people to lose their morality and start supporting a group that blows
people in order to implement regimes that would make whole races and genders
second class citizens is that they become aggrieved. This is typically used in
the Palestinian context as well: what do you expect the Palestinians to do
after their homes have been demolished and their cousins killed? What do you
expect the Iraqis to do when the U.S occupies their land? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">This assumption is wrong for multiple reasons
– it plays on <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/tout-comprendre-cest-tout-pardonner-2.html">racist
assumptions</a> of Arabs as agents moved by external factors. One can point to
several societies, including our own, where this faux analysis is not applied –
even if there have been comparable or worse atrocities. This post is aimed at
addressing that argument so I don’t have to repeat myself. As most of the
arguments are about Hamas and Al Qaeda, those are the groups I’ll be
addressing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">The Palestinians vs. Hamas<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Starting with the Palestinians, this extends
not only to IDF attacks but to Israeli policy – like the blockade. Except,
there is no empirical proof for it: the blockade was implemented in 2007 – and yet,
“according to a variety of polls, support for Hamas has steadily dropped
since... its election in January 2006. [P]ublic support for Hamas has not just
dropped in the West Bank but in its hometurf of Gaza” (<i>Myths, Illusions and Peace</i>, Ross and Makovsky, p.263).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">This result shouldn’t be surprising – it was
only after Hamas took over the Gaza strip, carried out a purge of Fatah members
and usurped the executive in Gaza that Israel imposed the blockade. Aside from
the social and economic woes that followed, this was an illegitimate move: often
it is pointed out that Hamas is democratically elected – but this ignores
everything that happened the day after the election. Hamas won the </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">legislative </i><span style="line-height: 115%;">elections and then proceeded
to take control of the </span><i style="line-height: 115%;">executive </i><span style="line-height: 115%;">functions
of government in Gaza – something they were not elected to do. The conflict that broke out between Fatah and Hamas in 2006 led the latter to go after Fatah
officials and </span><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/palestinian-gunmen-target-haniyeh-s-home-in-gaza-1.222703" style="line-height: 115%;">throwing</a><span style="line-height: 115%;">
them off buildings (for a full account of why Hamas took over and </span><span style="line-height: 16px;">initiated</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> a power grab, see</span><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804" style="line-height: 115%;"> here</a></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">).</span></span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Even then, ignoring all of that (which is
sufficient to lose all democratic legitimacy), elections have not been held for
the legislative or executive body since 2006. Even when the President, who has
the right to call them under Palestinian law, calls them, Hamas has
consistently <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/hamas-vows-to-prevent-palestinian-elections-in-gaza-1.5230">opposed</a>
them. Israel’s blockade was too restrictive before 2010 and that was wrong –
now, the security blockade in place would not be there (as it wasn’t when
the PA controlled the area) if there was not a security threat. Palestinians very
likely see that – which explains the Palestinians’ continuing opposition to
Hamas. Hamas and the other factions have also fired rockets which have led to
Israeli response – often in their own areas – which probably explains why <a href="http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=20109158&postcount=7609">70%</a>
of Palestinians want them disarmed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">And this brings us to violence in the Israel-Palestinian
conflict – does it really increase radicalisation and lead to more violence?
Again, the empirical support is simply not there. Before I get on to the
academic literature, I just want to give one example of one set of polling.
Operation Cast Lead was carried out from December 2008 to January 2009 – it’s worth
looking at polling before and after the attacks to see the support for Hamas. In
a December 2008 Near East Consulting poll (before Cast Lead started), support
for Hamas was low: Hamas would only have won <a href="http://www.neareastconsulting.com/surveys/all/p312/out_freq_p4.php">10%</a>
in the presidential elections, <a href="http://www.neareastconsulting.com/surveys/all/p312/out_freq_p5.php">11%</a>
in legislative elections and when asked to respond to the statement, “Some
believe that Hamas will win the next election,” a <a href="http://www.neareastconsulting.com/surveys/all/p312/out_freq_p6.php">majority</a>
obviously disagreed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">In the next Near Consulting Poll in March
2009, the results had not changed much at all: <a href="http://www.neareastconsulting.com/surveys/all/p43/out_freq_p7.php">11%</a>
believed Hamas only represented them, they would have received 14% of the vote
in presidential elections and they would have won <a href="http://www.neareastconsulting.com/surveys/all/p43/out_freq_p8.php">16%</a>
in the legislative elections. Operation Cast Lead seems to have no negligible effect
on supporting terrorist organisations. This also explains why Hamas
opposes elections: it would get blown out of Palestinian politics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">And this is a consistent finding in the academic
literature. In a <i>Journal of Public
Economics </i>article, <a href="http://www.djaeger.org/research/pubs/JPubE-201204.pdf">Jaeger et al
(2012)</a> investigate “effects of violence on the political preferences of an
aggrieved population.” The results are robust and show that “the overall effect
of Palestinian fatalities is not statistically significant.” And the same
results apply for not just supporting radical groups but their attacks on
civilians too. From <i><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/poll-palestinian-support-for-gaza-rocket-attacks-on-israel-dropped-by-half-1.356478">Haaretz</a>:</i></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">According to
the poll released by the JMCC [in 2011], </span><i style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">since
the Gaza war</i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> the ratio of Palestinians who opposed "military
operations" against Israel rose from 38.1% in January of 2009 to 51.8% in
April of 2011 (my emphasis).</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Indeed, Palestinians are no more likely to
support attacks on civilians than Israelis (in fact, across the Middle East,
attacking civilians is a </span><a href="http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/08/surveys-show-muslims-in-every-country-less-likely-to-justify-killing-civilians-than-americans-and-israelis/" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">minority
position</a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">). At the risk of pushing my point again – the same is true for the
“killing one of them makes more” argument. </span><a href="http://www.djaeger.org/research/pubs/aer2008.pdf" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Jaeger and Paserman
(2008)</a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> examine the statistical evidence and conclude “the direction of
causality... runs only from violence committed by Palestinians to violence
committed by Israelis, and not vice versa.” That is, Israeli casualties lead to
Palestinian casualties – but Palestinians casualties do not lead to Israeli
casualties. Again, this really shouldn’t be surprising: Israeli
counter-terrorism policy through targeted assassination, wide ranging military
action is </span><i style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">designed</i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"> to deter and comes
in response to terror.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Again, Operation Cast Lead is illustrative of
this policy. This came after Hamas first escalated violence in November during
the ceasefire and then refused to sign up to another one (see <a href="http://horsesanddefinitions.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/cast-lead-ceasefire.html">this
post</a> for a detailed analysis of the ceasefire). Israel responded – and the
result was not more violence: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NN4fAf_JJ3M/UCfn6sdfHJI/AAAAAAAAABs/jMGRHdoaAhk/s1600/rockets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="252" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NN4fAf_JJ3M/UCfn6sdfHJI/AAAAAAAAABs/jMGRHdoaAhk/s320/rockets.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">In fact, post Cast Lead yielded Israel’s “<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/analysis-gaza-war-brought-israel-its-quietest-year-in-a-decade-1.3799">quietest
year</a>” in a decade: there was a <a href="http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/today/09/12/2701.htm">90%</a>
reduction in the first year and even at its highest levels, rocket fire has not
matched even a third of 2007 levels. Something that is even more interesting is
how much the circle of violence argument gets it the wrong way around. Hamas,
after Cast Lead started <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/new-hamas-force-in-gaza-is-foiling-rocket-attacks-against-israel-1.429297">patrolling</a>
the areas to make sure rockets weren’t fired. They have fired rockets since
Operation Cast Lead, but the deterrence – not radicalisation - effect is clear from
the graph. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Al Qaeda and its allies<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">I have covered some of the ground on why
foreign policy is not the reason for support for Al Qaeda. Briefly, again, the
vast majority of Muslims across the Middle East <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-largely-among-muslim-publics-in-recent-years/">don’t
like Al Qaeda</a>. This gives prima facie evidence to the position I’m
advocating: if foreign policy is the cause, why do we not see a wide spread
response? To make an analogy: conservatives often argue that pornography leads
to violence (in fact, it does <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20100309205614/http:/www.the-scientist.com/2010/3/1/29/1/">the
opposite</a>) – but surely, there can be no causal connection by the simple
fact that most people can enjoy pornography without grabbing an axe. Even in
the West – just think about: a lot of people oppose American foreign policy.
They don’t start jumping for AK47s and start supporting Al Qaeda. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">And again, the <a href="http://www.volokh.com/2012/06/24/why-do-they-hate-us-4/">academic support</a>
for what I am saying is clear (the support for what is the cause is in the
aforementioned 9/11 post). Robert Pape claims to have evidence that occupation
leads to suicide terrorism – except his thesis has been thoroughly discredited:
the statistics are <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~kramsay/Site/research_files/ACMR_final.pdf">selective</a>,
the thesis inconsistent and stretched to find America at odds. <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/suicide-bomb_577292.html">Max Boot</a>
has discredited his “study” enough and I would have nothing to add to continue
to talk about Pape’s polemics. I would just give one example from Boot of why
Pape’s thesis is nonsensical. Over 12,000 people have been killed in Pakistan
by Islamist terrorists – and yet there is no occupation. Pape’s answer should
have everyone in hysterics: “the alliance between Pakistan and the United
States evolved into—what is better termed—an indirect occupation.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">The drone programme also provides another opportunity
to put the hypothesis to the test. I have already quoted <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-thought-id-getback-into-blogging-with.html">two
studies</a> on how the drone programme has not led to “blowback.” The <i><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/06/11/497173/peter-king-drones-righteousness-goodness/">Washington
Post</a> </i>recently claimed that the drone campaign in Yemen is “increasing
sympathy for al-Qaeda-linked militants and driving tribesmen to join a network
linked to terrorist plots against the United States.” This was based on “20
interviews with tribal leaders, victims’ relatives, human rights activists and
officials from four provinces.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Except, this does not seem to be the end of
the matter – Christopher Swift disagrees in an article published in <i><a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137760/christopher-swift/the-drone-blowback-fallacy">Foreign
Affairs</a>.</i> Swift interviewed “40 interviews with tribal leaders, Islamist
politicians, Salafist clerics, and other sources.” His conclusions are vastly
different from the <i>Washington Post’s:</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">As a group,
they were older, more conservative, and more skeptical of U.S. motives. They
were less urban, less wealthy, and substantially less secular. But to my
astonishment, none of the individuals I interviewed drew a causal relationship
between U.S. drone strikes and al Qaeda recruiting. Indeed, of the 40 men in
this cohort, only five believed that U.S. drone strikes were helping al Qaeda
more than they were hurting it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Both studies are limited because they are
based on interviews not data on recruitment, attacks and American drone
activity. That said, if I had to choose one of these two, I would naturally go
with the study with the larger sample. So do I think that “when a U.S. drone
missile kills a child in Yemen [or anywhere else mentioned above], the father
will go to war with you, guaranteed”? Nope. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-79546988912487115312012-06-04T07:16:00.000-07:002012-06-04T08:09:05.037-07:00Seumas Milne on Drones<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I thought I’d get
back into blogging with an easy post. It’s quite easy for me to find an article
by Seumas Milne and quickly fisk it in my head – not because of any great skill
that I have but simply because the man is a propagandist. His articles are
misleading, filled with falsehoods and driven by an ideological zeal that means
almost every single paragraph is filled with multiple lines of crap. <o:p></o:p>
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, I thought I’d
start with Milne’s <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/29/americas-drone-campaign-terror">latest
article</a> on drone strikes. For convenience, I’ve moved some of the
paragraphs around where I can respond to them together. I’ve had to cut out
some of the stuff because of space – but I’ve addressed all his substantive
points. Milne writes: </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More than a decade
after George W Bush launched it, the "war on terror" was
supposed to be winding down. US military occupation of Iraq has ended and
Nato is looking for a way out of Afghanistan, even as the carnage continues.
But another war – the undeclared drone war that has already
killed thousands – is now being relentlessly escalated.<o:p></o:p> </span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Except that nobody
expected it to wind down. All the statements of the officials at the time and
since point to a long, ideological drive against Al Qaeda and its allies. On
September 17<sup>th</sup> 2001, President Bush <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65079#axzz1wp0EhOSW">told</a> Pentagon officials that “It's going to
take a long time to win this war.” On September 20<sup>th</sup>, the President <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/">said</a> “this war will not be like the war
against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift
conclusion” but a “lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p>
Donald Rumsfeld <a href="http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08152008/profile2.html">stated</a> just 8 days later that Americans should
“forget about 'exit strategies'; we're looking
at a sustained engagement that carries no deadlines." Robert Gates <a href="http://www.jcs.mil/content/files/2009-04/041309155215_winter2008.pdf">stated</a> “many years of persistent, engaged
combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity”
referring to it as a “generational campaign” that Vice President Dick
Cheney <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4314234.stm">said</a> the War “like other great duties in history, it
will require decades of patient effort.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Milne refers to the “carnage
continuing” in Afghanistan. This is arguably untrue: NATO figures show that there was a <a href="http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/24/violence-spikes-in-key-afghan-regions/">9% reduction</a> in violence throughout the
country and in areas where the fighting increased, NATO had gone on the
offensive. Civilian deaths in the last 4 months have <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hYcaqLrQghEwF7gqX4bHXdW1_SOg?docId=CNG.d99aea8c4dec4723aea914b35c1dd520.3a1">dropped 21%.</a> There was a 2011 UN report
which suggested a significant rise <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-09-28/asia/world_asia_afghanistan-security_1_civilian-deaths-security-incidents-suicide-attacks?_s=PM:ASIA">but</a> their figures included arrests,
searches and “intimidation” as “security incidents.” This is not to suggest
that everything is fine or the NATO figures are sacrosanct but that it’s not as
one-sided as Milne always argues. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Milne is also wrong
by calling the drone campaign “undeclared.” John Brennan, an Obama official,
clearly <a href="http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/04/brennanspeech/">stated</a> that “the United States Government
conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qa’ida terrorists, sometimes
using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones.” The
administration has not only <a href="http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/pentagon-says-u-s-citizens-with-terrorism-ties-can-be-targeted-in-strikes/">acknowledged</a> the policy, but <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/03/06/148000630/holder-gives-rationale-for-drone-strikes-on-citizens">defended</a> it <a href="http://insidejustice.com/law/index.php/intl/2010/03/26/asil_koh_drone_war_law">many</a> times.<o:p></o:p> </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From Pakistan to Somalia, CIA-controlled
pilotless aircraft rain down Hellfire missiles on an ever-expanding hit list of
terrorist suspects – they have already killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
civilians in the process. <o:p></o:p>
Since 2004, between
2,464 and 3,145 people are<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/02/04/obama-terror-drones-cia-tactics-in-pakistan-include-targeting-rescuers-and-funerals/" style="background-repeat: no-repeat;" title=""><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">reported to
have been killed by US drone attacks</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in Pakistan, of whom up to 828 were
civilians (535 under Obama) and 175 children. Some Pakistani estimates put the
civilian death toll much higher – plausibly, given the tendency to claim as
"militants" victims later demonstrated to be nothing of the sort.</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, and the loss of
civilian life is regrettable – but that does not make the campaign illegitimate.
Al Qaeda operates in areas all over the world, they pose a threat not only to
the regimes in which they live but to the West (more on the effectiveness of
the strikes below). The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=3&_r=4">official policy</a> of the White House is that
there must be a “near certainty” of no civilian deaths – or they must gain
President Obama’s approval. Admittedly, I have a problem with the fact that the
administration considers <i>all</i> men of military age combatants. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p>
However, even when we
look to the independent figures for the civilians killed, the number is remarkably
low (keeping in mind that when operating in Pakistan, the population is quite
dense). At the low end, the <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php">Long War Journal</a> has 138 civilians being
killed from 2006-2012. According to <a href="http://www.rolc.sc.edu/images/Reading%20Materials/March%2015.16.2011/Drone%20Wars%20Article.pdf">Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann</a> who
use “reliable press accounts” 80% of those killed have been militants and 2010
that figure rose to 95%. </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At least 15 drone
strikes have been launched in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2012/05/14/escalating-americas-third-war-in-yemen/" style="background-repeat: no-repeat;" title=""><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Yemen</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>this month, as many as in the whole of
the past decade, killing dozens; while in Pakistan, a string of US attacks has
been launched against supposed "militant" targets in the past week,
incinerating up to 35 people and <a data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/national/25-May-2012/us-drone-strike-hits-mosque-10-killed" style="background-repeat: no-repeat;" title=""><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">hitting a
mosque</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and a bakery.</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes
– but killing who? In Yemen, the civilian death rate in 56 out of more 240
militants killed according to the <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/multimedia/Yemen/code/Yemen-strike.php">Long War Journal</a>. The example of the mosque
does nothing to further Milne’s point either. As the report which he links to
notes, “Uzbek insurgents made up the majority of the fatalities from the strike.”
Meaning that like other terrorists around the world, they are using places of
worship, civilian centres as a shield for their own military purpose. Milne’s
unsurprising response is not to attack those individuals, but the United States. </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The US president
insisted recently that the civilian death toll was not a "huge
number". Not on the scale of Iraq, perhaps, where hundreds of thousands
were killed; or Afghanistan, where tens of thousands have died. But they
gruesomely include dozens killed in follow-up attacks after they had gone to
help victims of earlier strikes – as well as teenagers like Tariq Khan, a
16-year-old Pakistani boy decapitated in a strike last November after he had
travelled to Islamabad to protest against drones.<o:p></o:p> </span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes – but who is
killing in Iraq and Afghanistan? According to a study by <a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000415">King’s
College London</a> looking at civilian deaths from 2003-2008 concludes that of
the 92,000 civilians deaths recorded by Iraq Body Count, 12% were attributable
to coalition forces. 74% were carried out by “unknown perpertrators” described
as “are those who target civilians (i.e., no identifiable military target is
present), while appearing indistinguishable from civilians.” This classing
encompasses “suicide bombers... sectarian combatants and Anti-Coalition
combatants.” A further 11% were carried out by identifiable “anti-coalition
forces.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
Afghanistan, “tens of thousands” of civilians have not died. At the high end,
the<a href="http://costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/articles/14/attachments/Crawford%20Afghanistan%20Casualties.pdf">
figure</a> is 14,700 and the low end is 12,500. And again – every single
report, every single statistic notes that almost all of these are killed by the
Taliban or its allies. Civilian deaths caused by pro-government forces
decreased by 24% from <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/victims-of-western-imperialism-1.html">2009-2010</a>,
making them responsible for 15% of civilian casualties. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/30/afghanistan-civilian-deaths_n_1557160.html">UN
figures</a> show that only 9% of the civilians killed in 2012 were attributable to coalition forces. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p>By
the way, Tariq Khan was killed by a drone strike but according to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/tariq-khan-killed-cia-drone/story?id=15258659#.T8yy9tVYvAI">American
officials</a>, he was a militant. Is this true? I don’t know but I think I’d
tell my readers about it – even if I was going to dismiss it. </span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, as the
destabilisation of Pakistan and growth of al-Qaida in Yemen shows, the impact
remains the same. The drone war is a predatory war on the Muslim world, which
is feeding hatred of the US – and fuelling terror, not fighting it.<o:p></o:p> </span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course Milne
provides no empirical evidence for such a claim. <a href="http://patrickjohnston.info/materials/drones.pdf">Johnston and Sarbahi (2012)</a> in their analysis of the
relevant data find that “drone strikes are associated with decreases in both
the frequency and thelethality of militant attacks overall and in IED and
suicide attacks specifically.” <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp6262.pdf">Jaeger and Siddique (2011)</a> find "strong
negative impacts of unsuccessful drone strikes on Taliban violence in Pakistan,
showing thedeterrent effects are quite strong." </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If, like Milne, you like
anecdotal evidence – then there is much of it. <o:p></o:p>
Tariq Azam (Taliban
official) has <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/0315/Pakistan-Taliban-US-drone-strikes-forcing-militants-underground">publically</a> told the press that meetings in
Pakistan have been driven underground. The same report notes that the
terrorists now suspect eachother of being spies. Pakistani General Mehmood
Ghayur “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/world/asia/10drones.html">acknowledged</a> the effectiveness of the
American drone strikes against foreign militants”<o:p></o:p> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The day after last
Friday's Houla massacre in Syria, eight members of one family were killed
at home by a Nato air attack in eastern Afghanistan – one of many such
atrocities barely registered in the western media.<o:p></o:p> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It says so much about
Milne that he believes the intentional murder of 92 civilians by cutting their
throats for the simple act of protesting an authoritarian is more newsworthy
than the unintentional killing of 8 civilians. Both are tragic and should not
have happened – but to condemn the press for allegedly not covering it (they
did) and suggesting an equivalence is flat out wrong. It goes without saying that these civilian deaths in
Afghanistan have not been confirmed by a UN monitoring body (as in Houla) but an Afghan
official (which NATO is taking seriously).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The US's decision to step up the drone war
again in Pakistan, opposed by both government and parliament in Islamabad as
illegal and a violation of sovereignty, reflects its fury at the jailing of a
CIA agent involved in the Bin Laden hunt and Pakistan's refusal to reopen
supply routes for Nato forces in Afghanistan. Those routes were closed in
protest at the US killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers last November, for which
Washington still refuses to apologise.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Pakistan’s
consent has always been elusive. The Prime Minister was quoted as saying in
2008 that “I don't care if they do it, as long
as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then
ignore it." President Zardari has also said that “Kill the seniors.
Collateral damages worries you Americans. It does not worry me." Milne’s
own paper <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/09/osama-bin-laden-us-pakistan-deal">alleged</a>
a secret deal about “violations of sovereignty” last year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p>
It
is true that there have been more vocal condemnations and demands to stop the
strikes in the last year. However, as the <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/pakistan-sends-mixed-signals-on-us-drone-attack">Associated
Press</a> noted there are still “mixed signals.” The Pakistani government, for
example, qualified their condemnation by saying it “should
be seen in light of the presence of Islamist militants on Pakistani soil.”
The AP goes on to say that “many analysts believe some in the government still
support the program at some level.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But lets assume all elements of the Pakistani government want
the drone strikes stopped unequivocally – so what? The
strikes are significant in decreasing the threat that Al Qaeda and it allies
proposes. If Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then the United States and
its allies should not have to justify themselves to anyone. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Milne mentions the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers. Firstly,
before the incident with the 24 deaths, there was a similar incident the
previous year. In that situation, a joint investigation found NATO at fault –
and NATO apologised and supply routes were re-opened. In this case, an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/world/asia/us-plans-no-disciplinary-charges-in-strike-that-killed-24-pakistanis.html?pagewanted=all">American
investigation</a> found no fault. It might be that the investigation is wrong –
but Milne doesn’t even discuss the possibility. Also, he refers to the “US
killing” – but doesn’t mention the context: a joint US-Afghan contingent.
According to an <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204630904577061270317324992.html">Afghan
official</a> – it was the Afghan personnel who requested the strike after being
fired on. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lawyers representing
victims' families are now<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/11/gchq-staff-war-crimes-drones" style="background-repeat: no-repeat;" title=""><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">preparing
legal action</span></a>against the British government –<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-bitly-type="bitly_hover_card" href="http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/uk-drone-strike-list/" style="background-repeat: no-repeat;" title=""><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">which carries
out its own drone attacks in Afghanistan</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>– for taking part in war crimes by
passing GCHQ intelligence to the CIA for its "targeted killings".</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of
course Milne has to involve Britain in some way for these apparent “war crimes.”
Yet, he provides no evidence whatsoever to support his claim. In fact if you
click on his second link in this paragraph, the care the British military takes
in avoiding casualties is shown. The <a href="http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/uk-drone-strike-list/">link</a> states
the following of several different operations:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[1] Over a period of
approximately 8 hours the Reaper crew maintained ‘eyes on’ before eventually
seizing the opportunity to strike [a “high value insurgent”] when there was no
risk of civilian casualties or collateral damage. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[2] The crew spotted
2 civilians, one of whom was identified as a child… Realising the danger the
crew diverted the missile towards an area of scrub land where it detonated
harmlessly</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[3] Reaper released
weapon against fast-moving target, firing on friendly forces – however weapon
diverted to avoid civilian casualties</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
is Milne’s own link. There is one incident listed where 4 Afghan civilians were
killed but that was in targeting “two insurgents” and “a significant quantity
of explosives being carried on the trucks.” And so far as involvement with the
Americans goes – there is no reason why we should shy away. These strikes are
effective and have low civilian casualties.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-6636206054395798112011-11-06T04:30:00.000-08:002011-11-06T05:40:13.537-08:00Dogs of War<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i>And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge,</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i>With Ate by his side come hot from hell,</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i>Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i>Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>1. No, we’re not gearing up for war (yet)<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I don’t really have time to be writing as much as I used to be but I thought I’d just write a post with an assortment of recent issues. Firstly, The Guardian has yet again managed to exaggerate and misrepresent British foreign policy. They start the article of their front page ‘<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/uk-military-iran-attack-nuclear">UK military steps up plans for Iran attack amid fresh nuclear fears’</a> with</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There are so many things wrong with the story, its hard to know where to start. Firstly, looking at the quotes of the officials, it is no big change in British government policy nor is it as apocalyptic as the Guardian is making it sound. One quote from the officials state</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">The British government believes that a dual track strategy of pressure and engagement is the best approach to address the threat from Iran's nuclear programme and avoid regional conflict. <b>We want a negotiated solution</b> – but all options should be kept on the table.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But what about the plans!? The Guardian admits ‘there are no hard and fast blueprints.’ But what about other preparations that Guardian mentions?! Well, here’s another quote:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">I think that it is fair to say that the MoD is constantly making plans for all manner of international situations. Some areas are of more concern than others. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And just to really drive the point home, a MoD source told <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8866022/Iran-the-damning-nuclear-evidence.html">The Telegraph</a> ‘We have contingency plans on everything... It doesn’t mean anything will come of it but at least someone is thinking about this sort of thing.’ And lets assume that there were full blown preparations for a military confrontation with Iran – it simply doesn’t mean anything. David Cameron would still have to lobby for support for the war. This isn’t a dictatorship where the UK can simply go into war without any recourse (people made the <a href="http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/12/blurring-blair.html">same misguided argument</a> about Blair).</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>2. Neither is the U.S<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I’m not denying that war with Iran won’t happen in the future, but the current apocalyptic vision seems to be misleading to me. Firstly, it should be kept in mind that the U.S has tried to <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4143788,00.html">downplay</a> any suggestion that its seeking a military confrontation with Iran, ‘saying it would rather exercise and exhaust "tough diplomacy" first.’ Secondly according to various reports in American and Israeli <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-military-official-we-are-concerned-israel-will-not-warn-us-before-iran-attack-1.393834">media</a> the ‘U.S. is "absolutely" <i>concerned</i> that Israel is preparing an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.’ Thirdly, it looks like the U.S is going to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/middleeast/white-house-says-data-shows-iran-push-on-nuclear-arms.html?ref=nuclearprogram">use</a> the upcoming IAEA report to ‘further isolate Iran’:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><b>Over the longer term</b>, several senior Obama administration officials said in interviews, they are mulling a ban on financial transactions with Iran’s central bank... Also being considered is an expansion of the ban on the purchase of petroleum products sold by companies controlled by the country’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The recent publicised links between Al Qaeda and Iran are only <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/01/the_enemy_of_irans_enemy">news</a> to people who haven’t read the 9/11 Commission Report. (This is not to entertain the frankly ridiculous idea that Iran had any foreknowledge of 9/11 – as the commission itself said). So, to repeat, there may be a war but the signals that people are reading into are simply not there. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>3. In defence of President Obama<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I wanted to talk about this <a href="http://british-neolibertarian.blogspot.com/2011/10/obamas-iraq-withdrawal-is-misguided.html">blogpost</a> on a website called ‘British Neo-libertarian.’ I read it a lot and I find myself disagreeing with it all the time. It tries to argue that the U.S withdrawal from Iraq is misguided – and it fails terribly to provide any sound reasoning. The first false assumption is:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">In 2006, when troop levels dropped in Iraq, there was an explosion of violence... [Then] President Bush decided to reinforce troops in Iraq to root out al-Qaeda through General Petraeus. It has been a large success (Study the US military troop level, and civilian fatalities). It is a simple fact that more US soldiers works in creating conditions for better results.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This simplistic view of the Surge simply withstand scrutiny. While it certainly played a role, as <a href="http://www.newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/policydocs/Ollivant_Reinterpreting_Counterinsurgency.pdf">Douglas Ollivant</a> has written, it was primarily the realisation of defeat for the Sunnis that allowed for a settlement:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">By late 2006, it was becoming quickly apparent to the Sunni that they were losing, particularly in Baghdad, as entire sectors of the city, and virtually the entire East side, were systematically cleansed of Sunni residents.. The mounting casualty count fundamentally changed Sunni outlooks and caused them to begin to look for a way to reach a settlement</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There are many factors in what led to the drop in violence – form concrete barriers to operations against Al Qaeda. It’s also worth noting that the U.S military found Al Qaeda documents and used them to convince Middle Eastern and North African nations to stop would-be suicide bombing leaving the country. General Petraeus <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Counterstrike-Eric-Schmitt/dp/0805091033/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1320579532&sr=8-3">credits</a> this diplomatic initiative as being the primary reason for the 85% drop in suicide bombings. So this simplistic and quite frankly propagandistic account of the Surge quelling violence is wrong. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The rebutting of this assumption goes some way in showing how the remaining presence of U.S soldiers will not necessarily make things better or worse. Iraq’s security woes wont be fixed overnight – but as Ollivant wrote in <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/09/30/obama_iraq_withdrawal_zero_sum_game?page=full">Foreign Policy</a>, ‘these technical gaps can easily be filled, and the market will respond quickly to Iraqi petrodollars.’ Surely someone with libertarian in their blog name will see the utility in this argument? The argument that Iran’s position should determine U.S presence is similarly misguided. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It’s based on the false notion that Iraq is or is going to be a Iranian client state. This is just nonsense; Iran’s staunchest ally won only 20 seats out of over 300 in the last election. Indeed, this was lower than they achieved in 2008 and <a href="http://www.aymennjawad.org/9886/iraq-iranian-satrap-american-puppet">Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi</a> credits this <i>to </i>the fact that the party was seen as an Iranian client. And, as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html?_r=1">New York Times</a> reported in July 2011, ‘Iraqi security forces have unleashed a sweeping crackdown on Iranian-backed Shiite militants responsible for most of the lethal attacks.’ American withdrawal wont stop these operations and wont change Iraqi reluctance toward Iran. If anything, withdrawal will take the rug out from under Iran.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It just seems hard to deny: Iraq is not a puppet state of Iran or the United State. The very fact that a sovereign Iraq has stood by its guns and refused to support even a mild presence also shows, yet again, that this isn’t some pansy puppet government. The security situation may get worse, there may be a series of bombs going off as has happened in the last two months, but they do no justify U.S presence any longer. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-61408426199078849682011-09-19T10:58:00.000-07:002013-03-23T06:10:17.432-07:00Wikisqueaks<blockquote>
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<i><b>Accused of being ‘irresponsible’ even by a fellow campaigner for transparency in public life, Assange mounts a freewheeling defence in his memoir: ‘<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">It was never my intention to be responsible</span><u>,</u>’ he says, before proclaiming: ‘We will shine a light into any murky corner…</b></i></div>
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-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography, <o:p></o:p>The Sunday Times</div>
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State secrecy is essential for any nation - certain things must be kept secret for the sake of national security, for the sake of lives, for a proper criminal process. Sure, <i>essential</i> information is vital for a functioning democracy but never at the expense of national security or human lives. Wikileaks does not take into account diplomacy let alone national security or people’s lives. It's not done in the name of transparent democracy, but spilling secrets because they are secrets. It doesn’t help that they release files to make a political point, not for the sake of openness or transparency. Julian Assange admitted as such when he went on the <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/260785/april-12-2010/exclusives---julian-assange-unedited-interview">Colbert Report</a> in the aftermath of releasing ‘Collateral Murder’:</div>
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<b><i>Colbert</i></b><i>: There are armed men in the group, they did find an RPG, the photographers who were regrettably killed, were not identified as photographers. You have edited this tape and given it a title 'collateral murder,' thats not leaking.. thats a pure editorial<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b><i>Assange</i></b><i>: So, the promise we make to our sources is not only that we defend them through every means we have available.. but we will try and get the maximum political impact..<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b><i>Colbert:</i></b><i> So collateral murder is to get political impact?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b><i>Assange</i></b><i>: Yes, absolutely...<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b><i>Colbert</i></b><i>: </i> <i>I admire someone who is willing to put collateral murder on the first thing people will see knowing they probably wont look at the rest of it..It's an emotional manipulation. This is "collateral murder" and now watch this objectively<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b><i>Assange</i></b><i>: That’s true, only one in ten watch the whole thing. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Assange has explicitly <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2276857/">stated</a> that his aim is to ‘end two wars’ – including the war in Afghanistan which <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.com/2011/06/victims-of-western-imperialism-1.html">liberated</a> the Afghan people from the Taliban and brought a government that the Afghans want to power. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Wikileaks-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=3">Bill Keller</a> has even written after meeting him that he ‘was openly contemptuous of the American government.’ Aside from leaking things for a political purpose, Wikileaks’ work leads to information being published that potentially and actually harms people. It doesn’t seem to bother Assange, that his information might lead to informants who aid the Afghan-supported American military force being killed. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/03/wikileaks-julian-assange-us-reaction">Declan Welsh</a>, one of the Guardian’s writers recalls<o:p></o:p></div>
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We went out to a Moorish restaurant, Moro, with the two German reporters. David Leigh broached the problem [of redactions] again with Julian. The response floored me. 'Well, they're informants,' he said. 'So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it.' There was, for a moment, silence around the table. I think everyone was struck by what a callous thing that was to say.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is why Assange’s personal beliefs are important: it means he simply doesn’t care about innocents. The Afghan War Logs were released in coordination with several papers including the New York Times and the Guardian. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Wikileaks-t.html?pagewanted=4&_r=3">New York Times</a> had a clear approach which took into account lives, intelligence and harm to personnel. Bill Keller, the executive editor, wrote<o:p></o:p></div>
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Guided by reporters with extensive experience in the field, we redacted the names of ordinary citizens, local officials, activists, academics and others who had spoken to American soldiers or diplomats. We edited out any details that might reveal ongoing intelligence-gathering operations, military tactics or locations of material that could be used to fashion terrorist weapons<o:p></o:p></div>
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Wikileaks, however, decided to release all the files without redacting people’s names. According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/24assange.html">John Burns</a>, another writer for the New York Times ‘several WikiLeaks colleagues say he alone decided to release the Afghan documents without removing the names of Afghan intelligence sources for NATO troops.’ Like normal people, some Wikileaks workers disagreed with what Assange had done. It turned out that they were right to be. They outed <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20011886-503543.html">hundreds</a> of Afghan informants, including a Taliban defector putting their lives at risk. The Taliban even <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/taliban+hunt+wikileaks+outed+afghan+informers/3727667.html">said</a> they would trawl through the documents, ominously adding ‘we know how to punish them.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is a clear example of Assange putting his politics above the lives of individuals (who he says ‘deserve it’). He could have redacted them like the New York Times, The Guardian and Channel 4 – but he didn’t. According to an <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20011886-503543.html">Afghan official</a>, Assange ‘put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
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This chain of events isn’t unique; when it released the U.S diplomatic cables, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11923766">BBC</a> noted that they published a document that had ‘long list of key facilities around the world that the US describes as vital to its national security.’ The loss of any of these facilities ‘could critically affect US national security.’ Again, a <a href="http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/32646.htm">Jihadist group</a> set up a ‘workshop’ to try to ‘categorize and pinpoint all U.S. interests worldwide.’ Wikileaks even published a map of U.S military bases in Iraq. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And this isn’t limited to the Middle East. In Africa, Wikileaks released a document which showed that Morgan Tsvangirai spoke to U.S officials about the possibility of sanctions against the barbarous Mugabe regime. As a result, Tsvangiri is <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/27/wikileaks-morgan-tsvangirai-zimbabwe-sanctions">facing treason charges</a> – a crime for which the punishment is death. More recently, two Zimbabwean generals will also <a href="http://wikileaks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/09/12/zimbabwean_generals_may_face_treason_charges_over_wikileaked_comments">face charges</a> for talking to U.S officials. It’s no surprise that Trevor Ncube, a media mogul, has <a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2011/02/08/guardians-david-leigh-wikileaks-collaborating-with-russia/">stated</a> that ‘It hasn’t aided the agenda for democracy or accountability. In fact, it has taken the country back five years.’ In Ethiopia, a reporter has <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/18/julian-assange-wikileaks-nick-cohen">had to flee</a> after a cable revealed that he had spoken to someone from the American embassy there. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In Eastern Europe, Wikileaks’ actions are equally deplorable. Assange passed documents to an anti-semite called Israel Shamir. According to Luke Harding and David Leigh of the Guardian, <o:p></o:p></div>
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Subsequently, Shamir appeared in Moscow. According to a reporter on Russian paper Kommersant, he was offering to sell articles based on the cables for $10,000 (£6,300). He had already passed some to the state-backed publication Russian Reporter. He travelled on to Belarus, ruled by the Soviet-style dictator Alexander Lukashenko, where he met regime officials. The Russian Interfax news agency reported that Shamir was WikiLeaks’ “Russian representative”, and had “confirmed the existence of the Belarus dossier”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This dossier alleged the Belarus opposition was working with the Americans. According to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaihexRnpvo">Jo Glanville</a> of the Index of Censorship, ‘Israel Shamir is using his position to support a dictatorship.’ Shamir then went on to <a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2011/02/03/julian-assange-enemy-of-internet-freedom-in-belarus/">provide</a> the authoritarian regime with cables. Shamir even assisted the autocrat Lukashkeno is <a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2011/01/15/luka-leaks/">setting up</a> his own Wikileaks. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/02/why-i-had-to-leave-wikileaks">James Ball</a>, a former Wikileaks worker, said in the aftermath of all this, ‘For an organisation supposedly devoted to human rights, the apparent lack of concern when faced with such a grave charge was overwhelming.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the name of openness, Wikileaks first denied that Shamir worked for them – a claim that has been proven false by an e-mail obtained by the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaihexRnpvo">BBC’s Panorama</a> programme in which not only did Assange say that Shamir would continue working for Wikileaks under a different name but that Assange did not find his writings anti-Semitic but after reading a ‘brief sampling’ of his writings found them to be ‘strong and compassionate.’ This is a man who was convicted by a French court for publishing anti-Semitic material and his writings are clear enough. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And its not just government officials and innocent civilians in war zones who have been affected by Wikileaks’ reckless behaviour. Wikileaks published an investigation in Belgium into a child killer, but because they did not redact any files, they left names of witnesses in the case. <a href="http://hurryupharry.org/2010/12/30/wikileaks-dutroux-and-freedom-of-information/">The</a> ‘dossier mentions names, telephone numbers, addresses and bank details of witnesses and people involved in the investigations.’ Asked if Wikileaks might remove some of the names of innocents and witnesses, a spokesman said ‘That has not been discussed.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span">Nor was this the only case involving child abuse. <a href="http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1888011,00.html">Time Magazine</a> notes that Wikileaks published a file that listed all the websites that the Australian government planned to block. This would have been okay – had Wikileaks minimised the harm caused and not published links to child abuse. I’m not going to link to the cables (as I haven’t throughout this post), but two documents published. Both documents have links to websites which judging by their URLs contain child abuse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span">Just a final word on Assange’s defences of his actions. The claim that Assange does enough is baloney: Amnesty International approached Wikileaks to redact names, Assange in response said he needed $700,000. Of course, Amnesty doesn’t have that money laying around – so the documents were published. Assange admitted that ‘if we were forced into a position of publishing all of the archives or none of the archives we would publish all of the archives because it's extremely important to the history of the war.’ According the <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CBwQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2011%2F01%2F30%2Fmagazine%2F30Wikileaks-t.html%3Fpagewanted%3Dall&ei=PXx3TuD9OI-o8QO2qJzHDQ&usg=AFQjCNHu0sGRCo3XiyiMVXajYk5Gt15wWw">New York Times</a>, he has even ‘prepared a kind of doomsday option’ where ‘if he was arrested, he would disseminate the key to make the information public.’ Information is released for political or for personal reasons, it would seem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span">His accusation against the American government being at fault are similarly dubious. When the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Wikileaks-t.html?pagewanted=5&_r=3">New York Times</a> released the diplomatic cables, as mentioned before, it redacted key information. In doing this, it gained a lot of help from American officials: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span">The administration’s concerns generally fell into three categories. First was the importance of protecting individuals who had spoken candidly to American diplomats in oppressive countries. We almost always agreed on those and <b>were grateful to the government for pointing out some we overlooked... </b>the Obama administration’s reaction was...for the most part, sober and professional.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span">Wikileaks has put people at risk and in some cases has led to their direct persecution. Assange has deliberately not listened to human rights groups who have asked him to redact names. His employees have aided authoritarian regimes – not brought them down. In the name of human rights. I don’t feel there is any other conclusion one can reach apart from that of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/02/why-i-had-to-leave-wikileaks">James Ball</a> – a writer who left Wikileaks because of its recklessness: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span">WikiLeaks has done the cause of internet freedom – and of whistleblowers – more harm than US government crackdowns ever could... These cables contain details of activists, opposition politicians, bloggers in autocratic regimes and their real identities, victims of crime and political coercion, and others driven by conscience to speak to the US government. They should never have had to fear being exposed by a self-proclaimed human rights organisation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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What is achieved by outing political dissidents working for freedom, witnesses to a child abuse case, publishing lists of child abuse sites, what government 'lie' is exposed by publish details of military bases, what is essential about lists of civilian sites essential to national security or credit card numbers of individuals - what is the use in all this? There isn't one. Wikileaks has made freedom fighters think twice about talking to nations which can help them. What more could you possibly expect from someone who never intended to be responsible?</div>
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<b>Update (04/10/2011):</b> I changed the quote and the top and I'm going to be updating whenever I think there is a story worthy of being shared. Here is one from <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/leaked-cables-spark-witch-hunt-for-chinese-rats/article2165339/">The Globe and Mail</a>: </div>
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Some of China’s top academics and human rights activists are being attacked as “rats” and “spies” after their names were revealed as U.S. Embassy sources in the unredacted WikiLeaks cables that have now been posted online. The release of the previously protected names has sparked an online witch-hunt by Chinese nationalist groups, with some advocating violence against those now known to have met with U.S. Embassy staff. </blockquote>
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Also named are some of China’s most outspoken intellectuals, including some known for pushing reform of the country’s authoritarian political system. They may now see themselves painted as “American agents,” their arguments for change shoved further to the margins. </blockquote>
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The unredacted cables also give the real names of some prominent Chinese bloggers and Twitter users, who previously were known only by their screen names.</blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2108117660267051328.post-75165232662117323442011-09-18T08:32:00.000-07:002011-09-18T08:45:24.120-07:00Don't Mention the War<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><i><b>I have never thought it helpful to refer to a "war" on terror, any more than to a war on drugs. For one thing that legitimizes the terrorists as warriors; for another thing terrorism is a technique, not a state. Moreover terrorism will continue in some form whatever the outcome, if there is one, of such a "war".<o:p></o:p></b></i></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 90.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>Eliza Manningham-Buller, Former Director General of MI5 </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">I disagree. 9/11 was a criminal and military act which could only be responded to with a military response. <a href="http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2011/09/911-notes.html">There is no contradiction</a>; something can be criminal and it can be a war crime. After 9/11, given the Taliban’s intransigence and alignment with Al Qaeda, the only way to remove that that threat was war. Afghanistan was and remains a war of self-defence against a group of transnational networked criminal terrorists. (It’s actually noteworthy that despite her insistence that 9/11 was a crime, Baroness Maninghmam-Buller <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article3155389.ece">states</a> that ‘we had discussed the near-certainty of a war in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda bases there and drive out the terrorists and their sponsors, the Taleban. We all saw that war in Afghanistan as necessary.’)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">However, one must take issue with the concept of a ‘War on Terror’ – or Global War on Terror (GWOT) - not because it gives them ‘legitimacy’ as some have supposed (when they fought in Afghanistan in the 80s, when they attacked Americans pre-2001 – they thought they were warriors). The criticism that the term is a tactic and therefore cannot be fought against is similarly misguided for reasons that I have <a href="http://anonymousmugwump.blogspot.com/2011/09/enemies-of-peace-thunderous-peanuts.html">blogged</a> before: Al Qaeda’s <i>ends </i>are terror: the use of violence to stop non-combatants from that which they have a right to do. A Talibanised Caliphate is exactly that: persecuting those of other religions, stopping women from going to school, stopping people from having the right to self-determination. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">It is misleading in a sense because it is simply not a war in the sense of a twentieth century war. We do not live under a constant state of fear, we are unlikely to be bombed, we are unlikely to have parades when ‘victory’ comes. To label it a war is to underestimate the role of the police, security and intelligence services in countering terrorism. But this is simply part of the evolving role of warfare: technology means that terrorists can no longer handles by just military means. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10728844">Drone attacks</a> carried out from Langley are part of warfare – it matters not that they are carried out by men in suits who <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/world/asia/04drones.html?pagewanted=all">drive home</a>. And even though our reliance on said services has increased – it does not change the fact that we have a prolonged military confrontation for a political purpose. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">My gripe with the ‘War on Terror’ is that it is simply too decisive and does not give us a clear goal. It is decisive because whether we like it or not, there are different definitions of terrorism. Instead of bringing people and nations together it maintains divisions. A better formulation is the War against Al Qaeda and its allies – simply because it is a call that people can get behind: support for Al Qaeda in the Arab world is low and decreasing. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743278933?ie=UTF8&tag=fopo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0743278933">Peter Bergen</a> sums up this approach by taking issue with another one of Bush’s phrases:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," said Bush. An alternative formulation could have been "If you are against the terrorists, then you are with us," and that formulation would have vastly increased the number of potential allies of the United States.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Most importantly, this also allows for us to have a clear goal: the paralysation of Al Qaeda and its allies. A War on Terror – even though, as I’ve argued, makes sense because for Al Qaeda terror is an end, does not embody that fight. A ‘War on Terror’ goes beyond on strategic resources: we will not be able, anytime soon, to destroy the nations which use violence to stop the right of self-determination. It goes beyond what Al Qaeda is – to nations like North Korea and Saudi Arabia and organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is so broad as to include an ideology. And that is inaccurate for what we are fighting in <i>those fights </i>with Al Qaeda and its allies.<i> </i>President Obama and his administration have got it right. This is an excerpt from an <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iHLAaZamQgt35p-txCK8nYwXNA3g">AFP</a> report:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">President Barack Obama is replacing the "global war on terror" with a new US strategy more narrowly focused on Al-Qaeda and relying more on a broader effort to engage the Muslim world... "It plays into the misleading and dangerous notion that the US is somehow in conflict with the rest of the world," he said. In a question and answer session, Brennan suggested that the new administration was prepared to reach out to groups like the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah that move away from their "terrorist core."</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">President Obama in a speech has even used something precisely like the recommended formulation above in a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-a-New-Strategy-for-Afghanistan-and-Pakistan/">speech</a> he gave in 2009 as part of his strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify;">The single greatest threat to that future comes from al Qaeda and their extremist allies, and that is why we must stand together.... So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future... And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: We will defeat you.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">This is despite the fact that Obama <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Inauguration/story?id=6689022&page=1">agrees</a> that we are ‘at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.’ Indeed, Obama’s foreign policy in attacking Al Qaeda is better than Bush’s in that it has <a href="http://newamerica.net/node/41927">increased</a> drone attacks, carried out <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13257330">raids</a> and <a href="http://in.news.yahoo.com/pakistan-captures-al-qaeda-external-operations-commander-joint-042056690.html">arrests</a> against Al Qaeda and has <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8389778.stm">increased</a> the troop presence in Afghanistan. President Obama is clearly not a man who disagrees there is a war going on. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0