US Power and International Finance

I was reading Stephen Walt's Taming American Power (published in 2005) and it spoke of the importance of other states replicating US financial practices in order to stabilise the international financial system and prevent shocks. 

This would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic. The US and its allies (both states and institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank) have pressed states around the world to adopt economic and financial policies which benefit US capital. 

What did this achieve? A mutually-beneficial financial stability? Far from it, as the 2007-9 'American crisis' (Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin's apt phrase) which resulted in considerable shocks worldwide demonstrates. 

All it has done is entrench structural global inequalities based on institutions and practices which overwhelming benefit the already-dominant United States.

It's time those of us who want a world based on equality of opportunity, human rights and democracy to recognise that Western governments are not the advocates of these principles except in rhetorical terms. That they talk about political freedoms as a means of obscuring us from the area where human rights and democracy are most important: in the socio-economic realm. 

The Importance of Economics

This morning I was watching last Thursday's edition of the BBC's Question Time. As with most times I watch a political programme on the television, I was overcome with the desire to throw my mug at the television.

The 'discussion' around the government's economic policy was entirely uneducated. The audience repeatedly made comments about how borrowing in order to solve our economic problems was 'illogical' which was faced with no challenge by the panel. This is basic economic knowledge. If the government were to borrow £10bn and invest it in infrastructure (for example, much-needed housebuilding) they would see a return on this money by way of taxes through the creation of jobs and boosting of economic growth. This is seriously basic and it is what is being recommended by the IMF and espoused by the Labour Party. This is especially advisable policy given the lack of economic growth and the very low interest rates on government borrowing.

That even the Labour representative on the panel didn't speak up about this demonstrates how far this government has framed the debate on economic policy to its own outdated dogma.

What the 2008-9 crisis demonstrated to us is the extent that states are fundamental to the economy. In fact, the whole category of 'the economy' is a false one. This categorisation (which goes back to the classical economists of the nineteenth century at least) presents 'the economy' as something natural, autonomous and somehow external to society. Through this, elites are able to present the economy as something which 'we' cannot control, only understand. Thus 'economics' is studied as though it were a natural science. In fact, it is highly political and highly social.

We need to challenge this alienation of the economic. We need to demonstrate how 'the market' and 'the economy' are neither irresistible forces nor immovable objects but fundamentally human creations. Because of this, they change all the time and are much more complicated than basic concepts such as 'balancing the books' suggest. Governments do not follow the logic of households: that if you spend less, you will have more. In fact, they are more like businesses in this sense: you need to spend money to make money and then you can use that money for the goods you want. For business leaders that may mean private jets and diamond rings, for the government it means healthcare, welfare and education.

All of this convinces me further that I want to pursue a career in the field of political economy. It is time we recognise the political and historically-contingent nature of 'the economy'. My dream would be to write a series of books on political economy aimed at children, teenagers and those without a formal education. Only through educating people about political economy can we hope for real progressive global change and a world where we are not at the mercy of the whims of international financial leaders.

Democracy in Africa

There are two prevalent themes in literature and general observation about democracy in Africa. The first is heavily influenced by modernisation theory and assumes a teleological development of the state toward liberal democracy. It is observed that the liberal democracies of Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand (commonly shorthanded to 'the West') developed gradually over time from feudalism through industrialisation and slowly into the flowering beds of freedom, liberty and equality they are today. The countries of Africa, indeed of all the Second and Third Worlds, will soon and slowly but surely develop into the same kinds of liberal democracy we see in 'the West': strong protection of individual freedom, elected (for the most part - see UK's House of Lords) leaders, along with social and economic liberty. The connection between liberalism and democracy is 'natural' and the presence of both is inherently good: so good, in fact, that Western governments are justified in killing thousands of civilians abroad in the name of protecting and spreading these values. Adherents of this theory used to say that all African countries needed were elections and they'd naturally vote for more liberty (both social and economic) and before long there'd be a bunch of lovely, stable liberal democracies. When the so-called democratisation of Africa began after the Cold War, there were a huge number of elections in 1993. Did these bring peace and stability to Africa? No. The reasons why, many liberalists concluded, revolved around lack of economic growth and lack of civil liberties. As Bratton and van de Walle argued in 1997: elections were not enough in themselves to demonstrate democracy: they must be conducted within a matrix of civil liberties.

As you may have guessed, I am not totally convinced by this teleological view of liberal democracy. I do agree that, as far as political regimes go, the one I live in is more or less as good as it gets: I love my freedoms, I love that I can write a blog post about how much I disagree with David Cameron's policies and that he would proudly uphold my right to do so, I love that I can have a say in the policies of my government through the ballot box. What I disagree with is that the situation I am in is somehow 'natural' or 'inevitable'; that humans objectively desire freedoms and liberties for other people or even for themselves; that there couldn't possibly exist a better political system than a liberal democracy in which I live. I do think it is possible to hold these doubts about liberal democracy whilst also seeing the oppression of other people and wanting it to end. What I want is that those oppressed people can create their own futures - free from what their dictator tells them or what a Western aid agency or government thinks they should want.

This is not to say that I fall into the other dangerous camp of literature on democracy in Africa: the racist one. The one that says Africa cannot have liberal democracy because of its 'culture'; because it is naturally traditional, patrimonial or any other political scientific euphemism for 'backward' you want to throw in. Which isn't to say that the only adherents of this view see it is a necessarily bad thing: there are plenty of African romanticists who view the African system as naturally different from 'the West', as naturally 'traditional' and adverse to modernisation.

The two problems common to both of these theories is that they posit a 'naturalness' or 'objectivity' about a particular political reality which is in fact situated in a highly volatile and fluid historical context. Because one can posit similarities between different regimes or societies across time and space does not make them objectively natural - it makes them comparable and in some way useful to study but does not render them inevitable. The second problem with both of these views of democracy in Africa is that they allow no room for variability within the continent. This is the most common problem I find with literature about politics in Africa and in fact I am wholly unconvinced that there are any generalisations that can be made about the continent. Swathes of articles will make sweeping generalisations based on ten, five or even one country. That there are 57 countries on the continent gives one the sense that the scholarly act of making generalisations should not be taken lightly. This is especially true of democracy where, in Africa, there exist countries which have pretty well-entrenched multi-party democracies (Benin, Ghana, Botswana) while there are also others whose elections have seemed, if anything, to worsen ethnic tensions, violence, and corruption (Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Zimbabwe).

The answer to these issues for scholars is to analyse carefully historical, political and socioeconomic factors of a given state or society, using comparative analysis where appropriate but not as a solve-all tool. The answer for international policy-makers is a whole lot more complicated, but it has to start by shifting their focus from the central and single importance of elections; ending the characterisation of the states of the world as either 'friends' or 'enemies' with the former to be appeased no matter what ills they cause (e.g. Yoweri Museveni in Uganda or Joseph Kabila in DRC); and placing greater responsibility on the corporations who pay taxes to their states while making money off the backs of death, destruction and corruption in authoritarian regimes.

A New Environment

I haven't posted in two months because I have started an MSc in International Politics at SOAS and this has not only taken up a lot of my time and mental capacity but has also had a very profound impact on the way I think about the international (didn't take long!) I can already see that some of my previous posts would be written very differently if I were to write them now - but I shall leave them up for the sake of demonstrating how the way I think has changed and will change again I am sure.

I'm taking modules in theory, Africa and the Middle East - I'm sure these issues will shape my posts to come. 

Why people think aid doesn't work

There are three main reasons behind the commonly-held (and demonstrably false) belief that aid is ineffective and wasteful.

The first, and most obvious, is that people want a reason not to give money abroad. Simply saying 'we don't want to give away our money' understandably sounds rather harsh (although it would be much more honest if these people just admitted as such). So people like to jump on any instance of corruption, ineffectiveness or simple mismanagement (admittedly all these three occur far more often than they should, as we will see) to excuse being stingy with aid.

The second reason is down to the media's distorting nature. The wonderful achievements that have been made are ignored and the failures are plastered over the front pages. Now I'm not saying that the media should be rosy about what has been achieved. Enough has not been achieved while there are still people going hungry and people dying of curable diseases. However, it would be helpful if, when new statistics are published that are positive, these were also given press coverage. For example, in its Millennium Development Goals report from last year, the UN announced that 12,000 fewer children are dying each day compared with 1990.

The biggest issue is the most difficult one to address: in many instances, aid is ineffective. This is mostly a result not of corrupt leaders in developing countries (although these do exist) but of incorrect allocations and uses by donors. The receiver countries have historically been chosen by donors not based on where need is greatest, but on where is deemed most beneficial to the donor country concerned - as if aid should be about individual self-interest rather than the collective good. Before 1990 this meant aid directed at dictatorships in Africa and Latin America who were seen as stalwarts against communism. More recently it has meant aid directed at countries that could be hotspots for terrorism - India and Pakistan for example - with the hope of winning over the 'hearts and minds' of the local people to the Western way. Always it has meant donating where there is deemed an economic or trade advantage.

Furthermore, aid has always been about foreign 'experts' teaching local people what to do based on what they have done elsewhere or theories they have studied. It very rarely involves a proper consultation with the genuine needs of the poor on a local level.

Aid has already achieved a lot for individuals and communities worldwide - and the statistics in the UN MDGs report from 2011 speak for themselves. It could achieve an awful lot more if it shed donor interests and priorities, adapted to local conditions and knowledge, and took on the simultaneous goals of local and global development.

'A truce means they stop killing each other. It doesn't mean they stop killing us.'

There has been some commentary of the gang truce in El Salvador (which has been in place for five months) in mainstream Western media, including most recently a leading article in the New York Times. The articles focus on the significant drop in murder and kidnap rate in the country (from around 18 murders per day to around 5) and apparent scepticism that exists around how long the truce is likely to last.

What I haven't read in any of this coverage is anything approaching the vast majority of opinion I encountered when talking to ordinary people in El Salvador: the gang truce is not generally considered a good thing. Firstly this is because a lot of Salvadoreans - free from Western sensibilities over the death sentence - actually would like to see all gang members (or at least the leaders/most violent) dead and gone. Sympathy for their actions and situations is very low. Secondly this is due to a perception that the gangs have stopped killing each other, but continue to kill innocent people not involved in gangs. There is also huge concern about the increasing numbers of disappeareds: are the gangs simply covering up their murders better? For an act cannot legally be classified as a murder in El Salvador unless a body is found - regardless of the other evidence that may exist. This, many argue, is skewing the official figures.

The sight of the government, church leaders, military leaders, and gang leaders all having a cosy chat frankly seems to send chills up the spines of many: these are all people considered to be waging a war not against each other but against the rest of the Salvadorean people in both the sense of actual murder and violence and in the economic sense. Unless this war comes to an end El Salvador will not see true peace.

A Salvadorean Summer

It's been almost three months since I've posted anything on this blog but I've had a good excuse. I've been in El Salvador teaching English for social justice through an organisation called the Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad (CIS). I've been teaching adults who are involved in the social justice movement in El Salvador, are keen to learn English, but are unable to afford the astronomically high costs of English schools in the country. The experience was eye-opening to say the least and I learned far more from my students about the Salvadorean reality than I could ever teach them about English grammar.

The country is an interesting one: highly linked to the USA, it uses the US dollar as its currency and 20% of its economy is based on remittances from the Salvadorean diaspora - largely in the US. The country is the destination for most migrants - some legal, many illegal - and held up as a dream destination for those struggling to keep up a way of life in a country with a low minimum wage and ongoing political disillusionment.

The two main political parties in El Salvador - the right-wing ARENA and left-wing FMLN - are the same two sides who fought a bloody civil war in the country during the 1980s. Those who committed atrocities have been granted amnesty and no justice has been sought for those innocent people who were slaughtered or 'disappeared' during that time. In order for the country to move on politically these things must be addressed just as they must be in all other countries with recent civil wars.

I learned a lot with this experience: I now speak functional Spanish for one thing. But mostly I learned what a broad range of views and insights there are out there waiting to be heard if only someone would listen.