Re-contextualizing “The White Man’s Burden” to Understand France’s Recent Xenophobic Policies

On August 23, 2016, police forced a woman relaxing on the beach in France with her family clad in a blue long-sleeved tunic with black pants and a blue headscarf to either leave the beach or take off her headscarf and tunic; meanwhile, onlookers yelled “go home” and applauded the police while her daughter cried. This incident is just one exampleof the backlash on burkinis that began when a water park closed to only allow women covered from chest to knees. The opposition to burkinis further spread when many towns banned burkinis from their beaches, resulting in women being fined or asked to leave for wearing burkinis. The burkini waterpark day would provide an opportunity for women to observe their beliefs while enjoying typical summer activities such as going to a waterpark, which was the motive for the Lebanese-born Australian woman who created the burkini in 2004: to accommodate conservative values while still allowing observant women to swim. A local Member of Parliament (MP) voiced his concern that veils represent fundamentalists who want to control women, while the mayor of Les Pennes-Mirabeau opposed the Burkini Day because he thought it was threatening to public order. Even the French Prime Minister supported cities and resorts banning burkinis, stating that burkinis affirm “political Islam” in a public space. France has 5 million Muslims, about 2000 of which wear full veils. The burkini reveals an ideological battle in France over French identity and the influx of Muslim immigrants from France’s former colonies.

France has a unique identity, which, like all other national identities, was established in a mainly homogenous society through a perceived difference from other identities and nationalities. The origins of French identity mean that fully-assimilated French citizens possess a high propensity for xenophobia, which causes citizens to view different identities as intrinsically opposite to their own identity. “The White Man’s Burden,” a poem written during the Scramble for Africa in 1899 expressing the sentiment of the colonial time-period, stated that colonies are a burden that empires should acquire in order to “civilize” inferior, or non-European, populations. While “The White Man’s Burden” originally influenced Europe’s colonial agendas, contemporary French policies toward immigrants, particularly Muslims, demonstrate that the poem’s ideological core continues to reproduce itself in French policies, including bans on burkinis, niqabs, and headscarves, surveillance of immigrants, and assimilation efforts.

Europe began colonizing Africa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in a race to secure profits in the slave, sugar, gold, and spice trades. France’s colonies were mainly in North and West Africa. France continued to consolidate their colonies in the late nineteenth century in order to secure their colonial economic system. In order to do so, the French government harshly implemented their hegemony in order to maintain their oppressive system. “The White Man’s Burden” expressed the rationalization for these oppressive policies, but by 1960, French-controlled West African states had gained independence, which spurred an increase of migrants in France.

Since 1960, there have been two streams of immigration: return, consisting of those of mostly European descent, and labor migration, resulting mainly from those indigenous to former colonies. After the independence of French West Africa, most labor migrants native to the former colonies were male workers looking for employment, whose settlement in French cities began postcolonial migration to France. However, these indigenous immigrants were not well-received, in part because of their history of exploitation which helps produce current prejudices and, in some cases, the fights for independence. Thus, colonization still impacts immigrants’ lives today: indigenous immigrants from former colonies face racial or ethnic discrimination and stereotypes as a result of colonization and might view the host country with suspicion because of their history of colonization. Many immigrants therefore find it difficult to assimilate into French society, and the history of exploitation during colonization becomes a present reality in employment discrimination. Oppression of indigenous labor migrants in France has occurred since the colonial era and continues today.

Much of the present discrimination stems from xenophobic, racist, or islamophobic sentiments dating back to French colonization. One of the events highlighting this discrimination in recent French history was an investigation in 1943 based solely on immigrants’ ethnicity. The 1943 investigation surrounded a rumor in French bureaucracy that Arab cafés in Paris were playing Arabic radio broadcasts that criticized French immigration policies. This rumor incitedinvestigations into civil status, political affiliation, nationality, and other qualities of the immigrants going to these cafés, marking the start of surveillance of immigrants in France that continues today. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, French surveillance became subtly and symbolically violent because authorities were alarmed at the perceived radicalization in the African immigrant community because of the potential to destabilize French society and politics. French surveillance emphasized control and undesirability of immigrants from former colonies in addition to understanding the immigrants and how to best assimilate them into French society. Since the 1980’s, radical right-wing parties campaigning on xenophobic platforms have grown in popularity in Europe, and these parties take advantage of citizens’ fears of threats from immigration in order to gain power and enact discriminatory legislation.

Presently, France’s population is comprised of 6% immigrants, 61% of which are from outside the EU; however, most immigrants of non-European descent remain poor due to segregated institution, failing school, low upward mobility, and racism and discrimination in employment, which are all remnants of the colonial era. France has limited immigration data since the French census or other data sources pose no questions of ethnic origin in order to adhere to France’s efforts to promote social cohesion. French citizens are generally more tolerant towards immigrants, but they demand more public order, which leads to intolerance, as they consider immigrants producing social disorder.

French colonial history has shaped the French government’s attitude toward this wave of immigration, viewing immigrants as unlikely to fit into France’s rigid society. France surveils its immigrants, as it surveilled indigenous peoples during colonial times. North African groups seek to be recognized as equal citizens instead of being viewed as natives because of their colonial history. Gaining citizenship as an immigrant from the Maghreb is difficult because of colonial history, and the colonial past is downplayed by justifying delays of granting citizenship as practical considerations. In order to obtain citizenship in France, candidates must prove they support the Republic’s values and cultural standards in public and private life. The French government uses surveillance techniques not only to understand the immigrant populations, but also to determine how to develop or alter policies regarding their presence in France and to shape immigrant communities in France. Thus, surveillance contributesto conformist policies. Xenophobic Frenchman view cultural difference as an obstacle to integrating immigrants into French culture and society.

French authorities have low regard for African immigrants because they believe African migration poses problems for a cohesive French society, illustrating the need to assimilate immigrants into French society. Authorities also viewedimmigrants as apolitical and grew concerned when immigrants became more politicized, thinking that African workers were radicalizing and thus threatening French society. This thought process justified the increase in efforts to detect radical or dangerous African immigrants. Recently, the populist extreme right has taken advantage of less social cohesion and status uncertainty by creating exclusionary policies, including the recent burkini bans, the 2004 headscarf ban in schools, the 2011 “burka ban” which banned face coverings from public spaces, and the May 2016 law passed in the National Assembly, giving police and prosecutors extensive power.

The 2004 headscarf ban protected the French Constitution’s interpretation of “libérté de la réligion,” which literally translates to two possibilities: freedom from religion or freedom of religion. The French government is organized around the interpretation, freedom from religion, which is the basis for their secular policies, or laïcité. According to the French government, the headscarf banprotects France’s policy of laïcité. The 2004 law that bans headscarves also bans other conspicuous, religious symbols including wearing a turban or a cross in school. Supporters of the ban argue that France must start the notion of secularity in schools. This law was made in reaction to tensions between ethnic or religious groups in France and in order to cement ideas of laïcité. Despite the controversy of the headscarf ban, it remains in place.

Additionally, in 2011, former President Sarkozy banned the niqab in all public spaces, meaning full face coverings are not allowed in public. Some women who wear niqabs or burqas are essentially under house arrest because they are not allowed to go outside wearing niqab or burka but value it such that they will not appear outside without it. Exemptions from the face-covering ban includemotorcycle helmets, face masks for medicinal reasons, and traditional face coverings such as for carnivals or religious processions. One woman filed a claim that the ban violates her rights and freedoms, but the European Court of Human Rights upheld the ban in 2014. With the face-covering ban in place, Sarkozy hinted at banning all headscarves in public places if he wins the French presidential election in 2017.

Other French politicians have reiterated Sarkozy’s suggestion to ban any headscarves from public places. French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, has suggested a ban on headscarves for universities, asserting that the majority of the French people think that headscarves contradict French values. However, the education minister opposes this suggestion, asserting that banning headscarves would unjustly deny access to foreigners attending French universities and that university students, as adults, can independently decide to wear a headscarf. In defense of the headscarf ban at universities, Valls told a French publication, Libération, that banning headscarves would prove that Islam is compatible with the French Republic’s values and that he thinks it is possible for Islam to be compatible with the values of the Republic. Valls’ statements imply that he currently thinks that Islam is not compatible with the French Republic and its values. These statements showcase the growing xenophobic and islamophobic sentiments among government officials, which both reflect and are reflected in the public opinion towards similar policies. Islamophobic sentiments trigger oppressive policies such as headscarf and niqab bans, which reflect sentiments of “civilizing an inferior population” in “The White Man’s Burden.” This poem continues to portray public and government opinions on immigration, and in this case, particularly immigration to France from former colonies in North Africa.

Triggered by the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, another law, passed in May 2016, now gives police and prosecutors extensive new powers. Police can now detain a person for up to four hours without a lawyer to check his or her identity and can place someone returning from a terrorist hotbed on house arrest for up to a month, promoting racial or religious profiling and targeting those with immigrant backgrounds. Additionally, police have access toelectronic eavesdropping technology that was previously only used by intelligence agencies, and prosecutors can approve phone tapping, communication surveillance, and hidden cameras to observe suspects. Police can detain a suspect for 144 hours without a charge. Opponents of the law argue that it would allow exceptional measures used for states of emergency to become commonplace and that France is trying to institutionalize extended powers for when the state of emergency ends. This law further institutionalizes the already systemic issue of xenophobia, racism, and islamophobia that are all reflections of France’s colonial past.

The large influx of immigrants to France has created a feeling of uncertainty in French society, so right-wing parties are campaigning on xenophobic platforms are gaining support. For example, the Front National makes immigrants from North Africa scapegoats, and under Sarkozy, France tightened criteria for immigration, including good language skills, minimum base of knowledge of French history, and accepting major norms and values. The idea that immigrants, particularly those with Muslim backgrounds, must be monitored and controlled as much as possible for France’s safety stems directly from the ideas put forth during the colonial era. “The White Man’s Burden” portrays opinion during colonization, and, as many immigrants in France originate from former French colonies, these sentiments still resonate today. Although much concern was placed over the burkini ban, the motivation for bans takes precedence. These bans and regulations are rooted in the dangerous and uninformed idea that immigrants, particularly those of another race or religion, are inferior populations and must be controlled and monitored.

France reproduces ideology from “The White Man’s Burden” today through new laws extending police and prosecutorial powers over targeted immigrant groups, bans on headwear, and other discriminatory and exclusionary laws. French politicians are capitalizing on the public’s fear of the “other,” or the unfamiliar, by designing xenophobic, islamophobic, and racist platforms. However, this phenomenon is not only specific to France. The United Kingdom has announced plans following its referendum to leave the EU to make immigration from India, a former colony, more difficult in order to protect business. Germany has been accused of offering money to asylum seekers to return to their countries of origin, including former colonies such as Ghana. Other European countries are experiencing similar results in terms of both elections of xenophobic parties and implementation of xenophobic policies. Recent terrorist attacks fuel these kinds of policies and xenophobic and islamophobic sentiment; however, the majority of these recent policies targeting immigrants stem from “The White Man’s Burden” ideology, portraying the need to control and civilize “inferior” populations.

Microwork: A New Approach for Labor Disparities

Labor disparities across the world have gained attention recently, regardless of income level. In wealthy countries like the United States, recent elections have addressed the “losers” of trade, with the unavailability of ‘blue collar’ jobs taking center stage. In many lesser-developed countries (LDCs), workers are historically excluded from global supply chains due to lack of education or technological knowledge. A new approach to labor development may be revolutionary in providing workers entry (or re-entry) back into the labor market, and it is similar to a development buzzword: microfinance.

Employing ‘Micro’ in the Labor Market

To combat the challenge of lower-income people’s exclusion from access to capital, microfinance was created by Mohammed Yunnus and his colleagues at Grameen Bank. Just a couple of decades later, thousands of microfinance institutions are providing small loans to low-income populations, connecting them to capital markets and economic opportunity. The idea of splitting up a loan into bite-sized, accessible portions was revolutionary when it was proposed. In 2012, Leila Janah, founder of “Samasource”, begged the question—why not create a similar model for labor markets?

Janah recently spoke at the World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington, DC, and explained on a panel for cutting-edge innovation how a concept she created—microwork– is revolutionizing the labor market. She founded “Samasource,” a NGO from San Francisco that uses technology to break up the job of one highly-skilled worker into ‘bite-sized’ pieces. Workers worldwide, with only a knowledge of reading and writing in English, receive on-the-job training, and easily program one part of a digital role in the supply chain. By focusing on just one aspect, they pass on the job to the next person, who completes their specific role, and so on. The end result is fully programed technology that costs the same, if not less, as hiring a highly-skilled programmer. Many more people from the “bottom of the pyramid” are employed, and at higher wages than their peers.

Challenges with Microwork in LDCs

Of course there are many challenges to this approach, as any new idea in development. First and foremost is local ownership. Convincing people to take part in a new, unfamiliar technology poses a challenge. Samasource, while the most famous, is not the only organization exploring “Microwork.” In the scholarly realm it is referred to as “Impact Sourcing” (ImS). A study by Sandeep and Ravinshankar found that it is difficult for impact sourcing companies to translate their objectives to local communities, but framing the endeavor as mutually beneficial will give ImS ventures the most success possible. Samasource believes their role is simply to be a middleman. They compete for contracts with large tech companies, break up the work, and send the pieces to centers in lower-income countries. Local entrepreneurs who know their communities and have invested their own capital in the centers staff these centers. They complete the trainings and oversee operations to ensure ownership.

Another major challenge is access to technology. Samasource is based on the motto “Give work, not aid,” advertising that “all [workers] need are laptops, connectivity, and training.” While technology, especially mobile phones, are widespread in lower-income countries, there is still a digital divide that separates low-income populations from access to technology. Phone ownership is commonplace, but laptops are much more expensive. By requiring each worker to have his or her own laptop, Samasource risks rewarding the young middle and upper classes, and excluding the most disparate populations. Impact sourcing boasts business objectives in addition to a social component. It is designed to create social value by providing lower-income people access to markets they would not have access to otherwise. Samasource accounts for this social value through their extensive on-the-job training, but they (and other ImS organizations) should also consider financing necessary tools such as laptops.

A macroeconomic challenge to microwork is infrastructure development. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa where Samasource works do not have access to the internet, or consistent electricity that allows them to complete their jobs on time. At the World Bank Meeting mentioned above, Janah appealed to policymakers not to view infrastructure as roads and bridges alone, but to provide connectivity through fiber-optic cables and a stronger electrical grid in lower-income countries.

Overall Impact Sourcing has proved effective in lower-income countries to provide higher-paying jobs to those who have ‘lost’ from globalization by exploiting the lucrative, globalized high-tech markets. However, in the past couple of years this model has also been accepted in high-income countries like the US with large populations of displaced workers due to globalization and outsourcing.  Janah stated in an interview with Readwrite “I’ve been to parts of America like Mississippi where it’s as difficult to access high speed Internet as it is in Africa.” This infrastructure failure contributes to a domestic digital divide, and further separates populations from the high-tech labor market. Samasource and other companies are targeting the most at-risk populations in America (mostly in the Midwest and Rust Belt) where displaced workers are frustrated and have fueled the protectionist sympathies evident in our recent presidential election.

Challenges to Microwork in the American Context

The biggest employer of technological microworkers is Amazon Mechanical Turk. It lacks a social component, which categorizes it as a ‘crowdsourcing’ platform, rather than Impact Sourcing. It offers opportunities to complete ‘human intelligence tasks’ for small tasks for money, but with less structure. A 2012 article in the Portland Press Herald frames microwork as a self-employment mechanism, like Uber or dog-walking app Barkly: “”Crowd-sourced labor started off as this weird thing with people doing these funny little jobs in their spare time, but now it’s really catching on.” This approach, unlike Samasource’s, does not offer retraining skills or social value propositions. So while microwork does exist in the US, Samasource identifies the necessity of their nuanced model in addressing displaced workers.

While those who engage with microwork earn an income and new transferrable skills, there are still challenges that accompany this alternative approach to labor in the U.S. Microwork is nuanced and contract-based. For many displaced workers who may miss walking into a physical building every day, there is a cultural adjustment to self-starting each job and working on the computer, outside a physical space. Some workers may enjoy the independence, while others may feel further isolated. The establishment of microworker communities or meet-up groups could address this challenge.

A study that followed Amazon Mechanical Turk also found that workers may not be treated as fairly, especially as they are non-salaried and do not physically interact with their superiors. Jorg Flecker’s book “Space, Place and Global Digital Work” also reports that microworkers are less likely to create collective action, leading to exploitation. Samasource calls for those involved in Impact Sourcing to remember their social bottom line, as well as financial. Microwork, in the way Samasource originally founded it, is meant to lift communities out of poverty through access to the modern, digitized labor market. Social investments may need to be made in the communities of impact sourcing (such as health care access, financing local schools etc.), even when it does not maximize profitability.

Conclusion

Microwork, when carried out creatively and responsibly, is an effective approach to disparities in the global labor market. The target population—those who have ‘lost’ from free trade in both high and low-income countries—has seen an increase in income, as well as social capital through digital training. During a time of free trade skepticism, development solutions like microwork offer an alternative narrative, that personal losses from globalization may present new opportunities for growth.

Migration, Assimilation and Identity: The Effects of the Salvadoran Civil War and State Violence on Migration to the U.S.

INTRODUCTION

This research aims to investigate how the Salvadoran Civil War of the 1980s affected migration patterns from El Salvador to the United States of America and how these migrants have assimilated or are assimilating in the U.S. The research defines assimilation as the “[a]daptation of one ethnic or social group – usually a minority – to another. Assimilation involves the subsuming of language, traditions, values, morals and behavior or even fundamental vital interests.” Examining the change in the ethnic identities of migrants, specifically first and second generation migrants, will bring light to any future migratory patterns returning to El Salvador or potentially permanent plans to settle in the U.S. Interest in this topic stems from a lack of general awareness about the 1980s Civil War and its effects. In the Nations of Emigrants, the Salvadoran population in the United States has been conceptualized as the fifteenth department of El Salvador, because of its sheer size. Yet, there seems to be a lack of generalized knowledge on this population. Also, and significantly, the research aims to give a voice to the stories of many Salvadoran-Americans who have not been able to share their experiences, aiming therefore to create empathy and greater understands for their circumstances. The research does not differentiate between illegal and legal migration, but rather considers anyone who has emigrated from El Salvador to the U.S. as within the population of study.

This research’s data consists of existing personal accounts of migrants, relevant published statistics, and original interviews conducted with the local migrant population. The research will first present a comprehensive case study of the 1980s conflict and its subsequent effects on El Salvador with the goal of then identifying demographics and patterns with a better understanding of their origins.

CASE STUDY

Thus far, over two million people have emigrated from El Salvador as a result of the civil war. The civil war is said to have been a result of agricultural concerns that led to military action. Leading up to the civil war, El Salvador’s governmental power relied on the success of coffee exports and the relationships of coffee plantation owners with the military. Because of how the power was concentrated in the hands of the coffee exporting sector, the government began to pass reforms “aimed at creating splits in the middle and lower social groupings.” However, the concentration of power in the hands of the elite also created problems as the world became more globalized and modern technology began to play a larger role in coffee growing, thus disproportionately hurting poor, indigenous small-share landholders. This role meant larger rates of unemployment for those previously employed in the coffee industry, which led to increased strength and presence of labor unions in the late 70s. These labor unions combined with student groups and peasant organizations to rebel and seize several government buildings and embassies; however, they did not take into account the consequences of angering existing opposing armed forces. The Salvadoran military, known as the Fuerza Armada de El Salvador (FAES), countered with an armed attack against the perceived insurgency as tensions came to a climax on February 28th, 1977. Protests emerged, advocating for a fair election and military forces in response began to massacre opposing demonstrators, such as the main leftist group the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). Thus began a slew of massacres from both “terror squads of the ultra-right” and left-wing guerillas. People even in El Salvador’s middle classes were not spared and, under the guise of a “state of emergency,” the government justified sustained military action against those whom they perceived as leftist insurgents. One civilian wrote that “men were blindfolded and killed in the town’s center” and “young women were taken to the hill nearby, where they were raped, then killed and burned.” She further wrote that she listened to children being choked to death, three of whom were her own. Soon after, in 1979, when Carlos Humberto Romero’s government was overthrown, right-wing death squads increased their activity to about 1,000 killings per month. This directly resulted in the forced displacement of over one million Salvadorans, most of whom were expelled from the country and sought refugee status abroad; about 61,000 died in total. To put these numbers into perspective, close to one-third of the total population was either killed or forced into exile, and this does not include those killed by “government cleansings.” The government and military specifically targeted the peasant populations. Due to these mass movements of communities within El Salvador, communities began to go without water, sanitary services, and electricity, thus exacerbating the existing infrastructural problems. By 1985, over 70% of displaced households lacked permanent employment, and of those, 20% were depending on the employment of children under the age of 16.

*Note, this table is estimated to be 30x beneath actual values due to those who arrived illegally.

The U.S.A. was seen as the primary destination for exiles turned refugees, with Mexico following close behind. This choice is most likely attributed to the perceived economic opportunities in these nations. The Salvadoran government has attempted to recognize exiled citizens and migrants as “allies” rather than enemies because of the economic contributions they make to the home population. About half of all refugees have stated that they would like to return to El Salvador. However, for those that have already returned, conditions were so poor and United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) return camps had such awful conditions that most did not actually stay. Additionally, because those who have returned even just for a small amount of time tended to face discrimination and shame for lack of “patriotism,” most did not end up staying permanently. Most are also punished or targeted by the military upon return. Also, many who did at one point intend to return, have found that their villages have been completely destroyed. Leaving and returning is seen as a massive betrayal by the government and thus those who have been identified as returnees are usually targeted and killed. American deportations are seen as a source of increased conflict violence in El Salvador. Therefore, the cyclical migration process is much more feasible.

MIGRATION PATTERNS

Most Salvadoran emigrants who fled to Mexico or the U.S.A. were recognized by the UNHCR as having refugee status. However, between Mexico’s refusal to acknowledge the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Refugee Protocol, over 1 million Salvadorans were left at risk of deportation. Also, the U.S.A. did not help the situation as their immigration policy in the late 70s and early 80s only allowed in 20,000 immigrants from any one country in the Western Hemisphere.

Refugees of the Salvadoran Civil War and Salvadoran state violence have been categorized into three groups. Emigres are those who leave and do not return, while return migrants return to resettle and repatriate in El Salvador, and circulators, who migrate from El Salvador to various different countries with no specified end destination. Adrian Bailey and Joshua Hane cite most migrants from this crisis as being circulators who made “short-term myopic” decisions to escape the ongoing war. They also argue that the initial choices and forces behind this displacement affect future behavior due to higher rates of education and younger ages, providing them with the characteristics to continue to move from place to place. The majority of these circulators migrate with economic goals in an effort to “maximize family welfare and practice risk aversion.” These Salvadoran migrants relocate in one of the largest economic migrant circulation systems between the U.S.A., Mexico, and Puerto Rico. In the Washington D.C. metro area alone, a 1995 study cited a population upwards of 150,000 migrants from El Salvador.

However, despite sustaining themselves in a cyclical migration pattern, issues with English proficiency stunt migrants’ mobility. In a 1982 study by Guy Poitras, 259 Salvadoran refugees were interviewed and only 22% of the respondents could speak English “well” or “very well.” This, in combination with having less education than many non-Salvadoran-Americans, gives migrants limited social mobility in U.S. society. Also, their obligation to family members in El Salvador deters upward mobility. In terms of sheer numbers though, it is predicted that the Salvadoran population will continue to increase steadily as migrants gain legality and can begin to petition for family members.

THE JOURNEY: TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

The journey of the migrants is not an easy one, with many forced to travel by foot for the majority of the way. Many people are lost along the way to coyotes, drowning, abuse, or murder when they return home. Some are literally dismembered by trains or have their fingers sliced while jumping fences. Mexican officials have also reported finding bloated bodies of those who have perished along the way, with their identification documents on their chest so that relatives at home can be notified. Their journey is classified as clandestinesince migrants travel below the radar for safety. Many are also subject to the will of smugglers, who can detain or extort them. Most migrants travel illegally, thus forcing them to keep quiet about any injustices committed against them along the way. These migrants are multidimensional. Some gain legality to travel through Mexico, but not to arrive in the U.S. Some also leave unbeknownst to the people of their hometowns, shrouding their journey in mystery and creating more dangerous and vulnerable circumstances for the travels themselves. Also, many take out loans to finance their travels, which can become a major burden even if the journey is successful. One man named Miguel Lopez Herrera worked for six months at an hourly wage of $4.25 to repay a $750 loan he took out to finance his journey. The majority of people are willing to undertake these risks. In an interview conducted in August 2000, every one of three Salvadorans was looking for a way to leave the country. The people who facilitate the smuggling are called coyotes, defined as smugglers or a smuggling group. The coyotes generally use illegal vehicles to transport migrants and sometimes force migrants to carry drugs across the border. Some have even begun to refuse to take women or children, because they believe they are too likely to die during the journey. In an interview with NPR, Rey Kowalski says the price of smuggling across the Mexico-U.S. border is about $2,500. However, after crossing, the coyotes sometimes hold migrants for ransom if they understand their family members are already in the U.S. waiting for them to arrive. Also, many who arrive do not even know they have illegally immigrated to begin with. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is trying to improve school infrastructure and educational resources about the dangers of coyotes to try to decrease this practice of human trafficking. They, along with other organizations and the host governments, are trying to limit migration and work on remedying the causes of migration in El Salvador itself.

As stated earlier, there is a level of multidimensionality in the journey from El Salvador to the U.S. Many migrants arrive to Mexico legally, and the problem arises in their crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border. It is not illegal to leave Mexico without papers, therefore, many migrants do not realize that crossing into the U.S. is illegal. I had a chance to interview Salvadoran case worker Marina Ortiz recounted the story of her three siblings who made the trek to the U.S. in 2013. Her three siblings were being threatened by the government and chose to walk from El Salvador to the United States. When they arrived in the U.S., none of them applied for asylum. Ortiz says they did not know applying for asylum was even an option, and therefore they still remain undocumented today. The three live in a community of people with stories similar to theirs in New York city. None of their bachelor’s degrees translated to the U.S. educational system, so between that and a lack of English proficiency, finding work is a difficult task.

On top of being unaware of their rights, if they make the journey, many migrants have access only to limited resources. According to an interview I conducted with United We Dream Policy and Advocacy Analyst Zenen Perez, oftentimes migrants will give the little money they have left to a business that will claim to help them with their asylum process. Later, the business will have disappeared entirely, along with their money. Perez said that, in 2014, an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse observed that less than 30% of Central American women and children had access to legal representation. Consequently, less than 1.5% of those were allowed to stay in the United States, compared to the 25% who were allowed to stay that did have attorneys.

AN ONGOING DEBATE: ECONOMIC MIGRANTS OR REFUGEES?

To this day, Salvadorans are mostly labeled as economic migrants and thus still face a great risk of deportation in the United States. Many come to the U.S. seeking protection from threats or possible death back home, but U.S. policymakers cite their illegal entrance via Mexico as evidence of their economic goals, rather than their legal eligibility for asylum under the 1951 Refugee Convention. However, asylum seekers Maria Yolanda Mejillo and Pedro Antonio Leibo strongly contest this point. I had the opportunity to talk to Maria and Pedro, and in late 2013, their second son was targeted by the military for having graduated and earned his bachelor’s degree. As such, he made the decision to walk from El Salvador to the United States, where he believed he could be granted asylum. At the Texas border, due to increased border controls, he was turned away. In 2012, the Consequence Delivery System (CDS) was implemented by border enforcement, in which people caught crossing the border were less apt to be allowed their request for political asylum and underwent “expedited removal” instead. As an educated individual who knew about the asylum process, one can assume he fell victim to this system at the Texas border. Border patrol officers have also more than doubled in number since 2004, and even drones are being implemented to survey the area. Most of the people who arrive at the border are also abused, with up to 25% of arriving migrants reporting such instances. In the same year that border patrol doubled, a panel presentation was held in El Salvador where many people posed the question “If they say it’s a crime for us to travel to the United States without papers, then why don’t they give us papers?” As of right now, one can only apply for asylum once inside the United States. It is not economically feasible for people to arrive by plane or other safe means though, and sometimes travelling by foot is the only option.

The Salvadoran military kidnapped and killed the interviewee’s son upon his return on February 18th, 2014. To this day, his family does not know the kind of death he suffered or where his body was buried, only that he is dead. Following this, the oldest and youngest sons, who also have bachelor’s degrees, fled the country. The two walked from El Salvador to New York, successfully crossing the border. The two have not had their bachelor’s degree translated and currently work at a local bakery, waiting for their parents to immigrate and hopefully be granted asylum. In March 2016, Mejillo and her husband arrived in New York and applied for asylum with the help of a case worker, hoping to be a part of the over 60% of cases that are granted asylum in New York.

Stories like these are at the heart of heated policy debates, as the children of Mejillo and Leibo came to the United States to utilize the education they had acquired. They knew if they remained in El Salvador, they would face government persecution, but at the same time, would risk economic stagnation without the opportunity to use their bachelor’s degrees. As William Stanley states, “The motivations of individuals are complex: some individuals who leave El Salvador out of fear may also hope for economic success in the United States.” Additionally, migration from El Salvador is not exclusively rooted in the conflict of the civil war. Before 1980, people were already migrating for economic reasons on a seasonal basis. Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) statistics show a sharp increase in migration following the start of the war, however, indicating motives that are greater than just economic goals. Reports from many global organizations point to fear as the primary motive for migration although it is difficult to find precise data on this. Also, more than one thousand Salvadorans were killed by military forces in 1979 alone, and since then, those numbers have only grown. The current atmosphere of fear makes it easy to label people as economic migrants and deny them asylum, but the extreme human rights violations occurring in El Salvador force huge numbers of people into exile and illustrate the deeper fear that exists.

MIGRANT DEMOGRAPHICS

A 2009 study found a strong correlation between major depressive episodes and downward social mobility of migrants. Since most migrants are not able to bring their papers validating their education over to the U.S., cannot fund returning to college, or cannot afford to take a recertification exam, many are forced to work jobs for which they are highly overqualified. Unfortunately, this comes in the form of menial jobs such as manual labor or janitorial work. This creates extreme downward social mobility. In this study, most migrants felt they faced downward mobility as opposed to stable lateral or upward mobility. This means that these migrants were far more likely to experience at least one major depressive episode, controlling for exogenous effects. This was also found to be especially true for migrants to which finding a job was of major importance to them.

Most of these migrants are in the lower classes of the U.S. economy because of institutional discrimination. Since many employers are aware that these migrants are unauthorized, there have been reports of them sending empty checks to migrants or forcing them to work overtime. The knowledge of their lack of authorization can also lead to worksite raids and sometimes deportation. This is incredibly problematic because, for those with American-born children, their children legally have U.S. citizenship. This fractures families and has severe traumatic consequences. Furthermore, a Migration Policy Institute (MPI) study shows that second-generation Salvadorans actually see a lower level of employment than their parents. The second-generation population cites 70% of those under eighteen working, and this number drops exorbitantly to a mere 30% after the eighteenth birthday. This is especially interesting as the second generation tends to see higher education levels than their parents. However, overall, their median household income was about $10,000 less than the average American household, indicating that they were entering the workforce with lower paying jobs than the average American.

Returning to the Ortiz family, their story is not unique and most migrants are in situations similar to theirs. MPI says these communities are called ethnic enclaves, and although they make the migrants feel safe, they result in social and linguistic isolation and can thus propagate institutional discrimination. Understanding the scope of ethnic communities allows businesses to limit these communities’ access to better jobs, quality schools and viable social networks. Also, they can be left out of zones of insurance coverage and not covered by personal physicians, creating a system of health effects as well, according to an MPI report.

Many of these migrants are classified as unaccompanied minors because coyotes incorrectly advertise the migration process. As was mentioned, many migrants are not aware of the legitimate process by which to cross the U.S.-Mexican border. As a result, coyotes capitalize on this and “increasingly influence the rate of migration through more aggressive and misleading marketing.” For instance, coyotes will tell families that if children are sent over unaccompanied, they will be able to request for their families to come over for reunification and as a result be allowed to stay in the United States. This however, is not true. This information was collected by looking at USAID focus groups, surveys, and deportee discussions. Along with information published by other organizations, this shows that, although there are many factors that push migrants to come to the U.S., they do not see a main one.

One major issue related to this kind of migration is the fact that many of these children can be so young that they do not know exactly where they came from, or only know the name of a larger nearby city instead of their city of origin. Additionally, there is a huge language barrier that limits progress in reunification with families or finding basic information about these children.

The language barrier is of course not only prevalent in deterring family reunification, but basic mobility once in the United States. This greatly affects migrant demographics as many states utilize the high school tracking system and students who are not fluent in English, get categorized as English Language Learners, and put on lower tracks. NPR follows the story of a student by the name of Alejandra Galindo who is a gifted student that was put in lower level classes because of her lack of English fluency. English Language Learners, or ELLs, get put in separate classes from native, white students. From a young age, kids are exposed to institutionalized racism which has severe psychological effects. Also, they are told that because of the color of their skin, they do not have as much potential these other students. ELLs are often not tested to be gifted, and as undocumented parents are not always informed about different tracks and programs in the school system, these children’s talents can be overlooked. Educators in Arizona, a state where 80,000 gifted students have been identified, say there is a moral obligation to better serve ELLs and create funding for those who are gifted within the state.

IMPLICATIONS

Existing statistics and research seem to show that the patterns of migration from El Salvador we have seen in the past thirty years shows no indication of letting up. Publications have shown increased gang violence pushing people to leave, and the increased number of deportations contributes to violence at home. Interviewed individuals say that when someone is found out to have tried to leave and then forced to return, they become a target for the government and local gangs. This cycle is vicious, and there currently does not seem to exist a solution to break it. Given current deportation numbers and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the U.S., the cycle of deportation and a hometown push to leave will most likely continue. These numbers will only continue to rise in coming years as more people seek to gain better economic opportunities and a viable life in the United States, something that is not feasible in their countries of origin.

CONCLUSION

This research began with the aim of uncovering questions of assimilation and integration into the U.S. from El Salvador, but more questions arose as it began. Statistics showed surprising downward mobility from second-generation children of migrants, who, in theory, should have been more integrated. This raises questions about what is failing in our current methods of assimilation, and how can this be improved. Furthermore, there is much to be said about the debate between economic migrants and asylum seekers, and how this plays into admittance into the U.S. Based on the firsthand accounts of Salvadoran migrants, it is evident that these people are first and foremost asylum seekers. Although many do try to create better economic opportunities, this is only a latent factor to the overarching issue of violence and instability in El Salvador.

In January of 2016, the Restoring Family Links branch of the Red Cross published an article about the increase in gang violence and environmental concerns as a push factor for Salvadoran migration to the U.S. The U.S. has attempted to stem migration by publishing ads to warn migrants against doing so. In tandem with this, the U.S. has increased deportation raids. However, most of these raids have been targeted on newly arrived families awaiting asylum as opposed to those with criminal records. Hopefully, seeing these new statistics, the argument for Salvadorans as asylum seekers will gain more traction seeing the violence and issues they face currently from their nation of origin.

In the future, research should aim to fill gaps in terms of how these people are integrating, as there was not much real life data on this. Additionally, as the second-generation gets older, their progress and mobility should be tracked as well as for their kids to see patterns among the generations that are living in the United States, and how they perceive their own mobility.

The migrants from El Salvador all have their own incredibly complex stories, some unfortunately with similarly saddening outcomes. Hopefully, as more of their stories come to light to humanize their journey and explain their experiences, people can use the compassion they use for those around them for them as well to help them integrate and achieve the quality of life they are working so hard for.

Fighting Corruption through Monetary Policy

While much of the world was focused on the day’s US presidential election, India’s Prime Minister and TIME’s Person of Year Narendra Modi announced on November 8, 2016 that the current 500 and 1000 rupee (around $7.5 and $15 respectively) notes will no longer be considered legal tender in India. While citizens have until December 30 to exchange the old notes for their new versions, many airports, railway stations, hospitals, and fuel stations only accepted the soon-obsolete notes until November 11. The ₹500 and ₹1000 notes are by far the most widely used denominations in India, together representing 86% of the bills in circulation in an economy where 98% of all consumer transactions use cash. Prior to Mr. Modi’s surprise live announcement, there was little to no public indication of this move, inciting a flurry of panic and quick analysis.

Why is this happening?

Deemed a ‘surgical strike’ on black money by Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, Mr. Modi implemented this program as a part of a larger effort to fight black money and corruption, which he has said “are the biggest obstacles in eradicating poverty”. India’s economy is heavily reliant on cash, therefore it is relatively easy for traders in black and grey markets to launder money made in those markets. For example, it is difficult to tell the difference between a ₹500 note that was obtained by selling illegal goods and a ₹500 note obtained by selling fruit on the street corner. A cash-driven economy allows an individual to be more flexible with which markets that they participate in, making participation in black markets more profitable than it otherwise would be.

But this flexibility comes with a crippling weakness. By suddenly declaring the most popular denominations worthless, anyone who holds any of the worthless notes must go to a bank and exchange them for their replacement currency. For legitimate business, this shouldn’t be too difficult, as they have income statements on hand that justifies their large cash deposits. Similarly, households who are not engaged in black markets are unlikely to have exorbitant amounts of cash lying around, and will thus face little questioning from banks when they attempt to trade their old notes in for new ones. However, individuals holding black money have a tougher time explaining where their money originated, meaning that much of this illegally obtained money will be lost.

However, there are ways for black money holders to get around the new policy and recoup some of what they stand to lose. Before airports and railways stopped accepting the soon-obsolete notes, many airlines and railway companies saw a surge in first-class ticket purchases paid for in the newly obsolescent notes, followed by cancellations the same afternoon and demands for payment in new notes. Additionally, some black money hoarders have reportedly paid others to deposit medium amounts of hoarded cash (under ₹2,500 so as not to alert authorities) in bank accounts accessible to the hoarder, or with the stipulation that the depositor would soon withdraw the money and pay it back to the hoarder when the new legal tender is available. Both of these methods, if inconvenient and laden with transaction costs, allow hoarders of black money to soften the blow of Mr. Modi’s ‘surgical strike’.

What is the extent of the problem of black money?

While placing an exact number on the size of the Indian black money economy has proven difficult, estimates are consistently reported to be in the hundreds of billions of US dollars. In 2012, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation reportedthat “Indians are the largest depositors in banks abroad with an estimated 500 billion US dollars[…]of illegal money stashed by them in tax havens”. Ambit Capital Research, a research firm focused on Indian economic activity, estimated in June of 2016 that, while the black economy had been steadily contracting since the 1980s, it’s current size is around 20 percent of India’s GDP, and larger than the GDP of countries like Thailand and Argentina.

Despite encouraging participation in illegal commerce, the size of the black economy also hides billions of taxable dollars from the Indian government, stunting the impact of development projects and anti-poverty programs put forth by the government. While the Indian government cannot easily recoup all or near all of its lost tax revenue, it has announced that deposits of more than 2.5 thousand rupee be taxed, and that individuals depositing large amounts inconsistent with personal income statements would be subject to be taxed at “the tax amount plus a penalty of 200 per cent of the tax payable…per the Section 270(A) of the Income Tax Act”. Assuredly, the government should see a large boost to its coffers by the new year, as well as a higher flow of incoming tax money in the future if participation in black markets is considered less safe economically as before, which one would expect it might.

Has this been done before?

This is not the first time that the Indian government has demonetized certain bank notes. In January 1946, the ₹1,000, and ₹10,000 notes were declared illegal, only to be reintroduced eight years later along with a new ₹5,000 note. In an effort to curb the growing presence of black money in 1978, India again demonetized the ₹1,000, ₹5,000, and ₹10,000 notes, thinking that the demonetization of the highest value notes would address corruption issues with minimal collateral damage. However, there had been unofficial consideration of this move since late 1972 when the Wanchoo committee, a direct tax inquiry set up by the government, released a report suggesting the then-hypothetical move would help curb the short-term influence of black money. This long run-up of unofficial talk undermined the surprise of the move when it was finally implemented, allowing hoarders of black money to prepare by depositing their earnings in banks or in assets like real estate and jewelry.

Elsewhere, demonetization – or stripping banknotes of their value – is relatively common worldwide. For example, the demonetization of various European currencies to make way for the euro is a salient example. However, demonetization for the specific purpose of fighting corruption is more rare, though the demonetization of higher value notes to fight illegal trade has gained some traction in the West as of late. Early in 2016, economist Peter Sands supported the elimination of the $100 and £500 bills, stating that the use of electronic payment systems has made these bills far less useful for individuals involved in legal trade, whereas these high end bills are essential to carrying out large scale black market commerce. Still, some doubt the feasibility or use of retracting these higher end bills, and the idea has yet to be really seriously considered.

What are the short-term and long-term economic impacts?

Undoubtedly, hoarders of large amounts of the illegal cash will be hurt by India’s demonetization of specific notes, as their stashes of wealth are now hardly worth more than the paper that they are printed on. Though there are ways around the issue as aforementioned, the circuitous route taken to convert the illegal cash carries transaction costs that are inconvenient at best. However the precision of Mr. Modi’s self-described ‘surgical strike’ leaves much to be desired. In addition to punishing purposeful tax evaders and black market tycoons, India’s small and medium sized businesses are expected to see activity slow dramatically over the next few weeks. Unlike large businesses who can run on credit, these businesses rely on cash transactions from customers for their products and cash payments to secure inventory and goods. Undoubtedly the lack of access to the most popular denominations of cash will only hurt these cash-based businesses, though the exact severity of the impact depends on how quickly these businesses and their customers can obtain access to the new ₹500 and ₹1000 notes. At this point, it is not clear how quickly this is expected to happen.

As time as gone on, it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that Modi’s government has sufficiently considered many of the details of managing the transition. Banks are still not receiving enough of the new notes to meet their needs, and 33 people had died from exhaustion standing in queues to exchange old bills for new. Also, a week after the announcement, over 60 percent of the nation’s 9.3 million truck drivers have walked off the job after not having access to legal tender to pay road tolls. Considering that 65 percent of the country’s freight is road-based, the government’s lack of prioritizing the distribution of new currency threatens to slow the country’s domestic economy considerably for the next couple of months.

Additionally, Indian housewives up and down the country stand to lose personal fortunes. “For many generations”, it is said that Indian housewives have been stashing small shares of their husband’s incomes in shoeboxes and dark closet corners, which over time can build up into small fortunes. For many Indian women, these small fortunes represent a rare form of financial and personal freedom, as the fortune’s unbeknownst-to-many form of existence allows the holders to spend them however they please. Now however, women across the country are facing the difficult decision to come clean about their conduct to their families and face ridicule and humiliation, or lose the fortune’s altogether.

In the long term, this policy’s effect on the Indian economy is unclear. On the one hand, shocks like this demonstrate the ironically fickle nature of fortunes based upon large holdings of cash, which might encourage Indians to open bank accounts and trust electronic payment systems more than they have in past. Doing so would allow the government to tax more efficiently, and make it more difficult to hoard large fortunes in cash from illegal activity. Additionally, the move will make obsolete the rash of counterfeit ₹500 bills flowing in from Pakistan, often to fund terrorist activity.

While this move may well come to represent a potent one-time strike against black money fortunes, it is not clear whether it addresses the structural conditions that allow black money to flow freely in India. A one-time obsolescence of the most popular bills does not deter future black money holders from buying value-holding assets like real estate with illegally-obtained tender, and selling it later for legally-obtained tender. Indeed, much of India’s black money is laundered this way through the real estate, jewelry, and gold markets. While in the short term one would expect these markets to depress in the absence of black money, it is highly unrealistic that these markets do not rebound in the near future and re-emerge as a haven for black money as black markets get back on their feet.

The Middle East and the U.S. Invasion of Iraq: What Does Theory Tell Us?

The study of international relations presents a multitude of opportunities to make sense of the world through a variety of lenses; each lens is a different theoretical perspective. Neorealism is time and time again regarded as the most useful theoretical perspective through which to understand the international relations of the Middle East. This paper argues that while neorealism is one of the most prominent theories through which scholars can make sense of the Middle East, it is not a total prescription. The discussion will address what neorealism is, the role it plays in understanding the Middle East, as well as the underlying weaknesses of the theory. Through a case study analysis, this discussion will highlight existing gaps in the neorealist interpretation of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and suggest additional theoretical perspectives to consider for understanding the international relations of the Middle East.

The theory of neorealism offers a framework for understanding the system of international relations by analyzing recurring patterns of state behavior and interactions among states. Coined in 1979 by Kenneth Waltz in Theory of International Politics, neorealism addresses the biggest issues in international relations, including, but not limited to war and the avoidance of war, power balancing and seeking, the death of states, security competition, and alliance formation. The effects of the structure of neorealism serve as the distinctive element between this theory and others.

Neorealism is best understood in two parts. The first is that of the ordering principle of the international system—anarchy. Anarchy in a neorealist context implies that there is no authority higher than the states; states are autonomous, individualist in origin, and embedded in a “self-help” system where the fundamental objective is survival. Involvement in the system of international politics is dependent solely on the state best serving its national interests. The problem Waltz associates with this line of thought is the need to conceive of an order without an orderer. The second part of the theory is in relation to the structure of international politics. Each state structure is definedby its distribution of capabilities, or power. According to neorealists, the structure of anarchy is exogenous to statehood. In other words, states seek to maximize their power relative to others, precisely because there is no higher authority. Therefore, the balance of power of the system changes as the distribution of capabilities of each state change. Despite this, there is a system of checks and balances in place that is useful for understanding the changes observed throughout history in alliances across the international political system.

Neorealist theory can be used to understand the Middle East—a region of volatile politics and constant shifting of alliances to achieve a specific set of domestic economic goals. The historical record of the Middle East discloses four key areas of focus with regard to the origins of alliances. First, Middle Eastern states, as a part of the international system, face external threats. And, these threats most frequently are the cause of international alliances. Second, balancing is more common than bandwagoning. Balancing refers to the allying of states against prevailing threats; bandwagoning is defined as the alignment of states with the source of danger, or threat. Recognizing this, it is important to draw attention to the neorealist framework’s contention that as hegemons overextend themselves, their misuse of power provokes a balancing act against them. Third, states go beyond balancing against power to balance against threats. Simply put, in the same way that states are differentiated by how much power they possess, states are differentiated by the threats they emanate and those they overcome. Fourth, the likelihood of states joining forces is intensified as offensive capabilities and intentions increase. It should be noted that neorealist theory is not the first to draw attention to the study of alliances in the Middle East, particularly those founded in the premise of protection against threats. The Eastern Question, termed in 1820, refers to the study of the interrelationships between two unequal power systems: The European Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire. The Eastern Question is significant because the penetration of the Middle East’s involvement with Europe is understood to have affected the nature of politics in the region today. In a broader scope the diplomacy of the Eastern Question refers to the political considerations and strategic competition that reflects a self-help system characterized by the distribution of capabilities and national interests. As this analysis moves forward, the four key areas of the origins of alliances will be applied to the case study under examination—the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It must be clearly articulated that there are weaknesses pertaining to neorealist theory. Realism which predated neorealism serves as a foundation for the latter theory and contends that states are interested in security and the maximization of power. When applying this line of thought to the Middle East, one limitation is particularly evident: this is a misrepresentation of the region. This is true for two reasons. First, the Middle East’s geopolitics differ from other regions of the world, given its territorial vastness and proximity to natural resources. The ideological perspective used to understand Middle Eastern geopolitics, and what is often times called the “anti-hegemonic approach,” stresses examining the interests, as well as the social and political composition of the region and states. A perspective grounded in ideology is necessary for obtaining a holistic understanding of how Middle Eastern states and the people within them regardinternational relations and the choices they make.

Second, there exists a variety of cultural perspectives that have proven useful in analyzing the Middle East—something neorealism does not account for. A constructivist perspective makes evident that state behavior and interaction is based on cultures in the sense of ideas, norms, and experiences. In examining that neorealism emphasizes motives of national security, power, and resources, a certain blindness is made apparent: there are culturally embedded aspects to these motivations. This will be further explained when assessing the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. For now, the takeaway from this discussion of the remaining weaknesses in neorealist theory is that due to analytic uncertainty and varying conceptual weaknesses neorealism cannot fully explain the international relations of the Middle East.

To evaluate why neorealism is not a full prescription of the politics of the Middle East this analysis focuses on the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The discussion will shift to an examination of the existing gaps that can be corrected by alternative international relations theories after illustrating the neorealist interpretation of the motivations behind the invasion. The complexity of the case study merits an analysis that engages critically with the scholarship of the politics of the region.

Principally, a brief history of the role of the states involved in this case study will aid in the interpretation of the theoretical perspectives outlined below. Iraq’s role and influence in the Middle East is rooted in geography given the state is at the crossroads of the two principal population fault lines in the region. Moreover, the demographics of Iraq are significant due to the fact that the state lies between its smaller oil-rich Gulf neighbors and Iran. Economically, Iraq’s oil reserves were among the top-five largest in the world prior to the U.S. invasion. Collectively, autonomy of the Iraqi state to secure dominance over its population and its interest in extending its power to project it onto the Gulf area was evident. Therefore, regardless of which theoretical perspective is being considered, this paper contends that the 2003 invasion was focused on breaking the domestic and regional autonomy of the Iraqi state.

The political instability of Iraq did not emerge overnight. In the years leading up to the invasion of the Iraqi state, the authoritarian Ba’athist government marked Iraq with a narrative of “exclusivity, communal mistrust, patronage, and the exemplary use of violence.” In August of 1990, Saddam Hussein orderedIraqi forces to invade Kuwait with the purpose of achieving nationalist goals. The U.S. viewed this encroachment as problematic and committed itself to reinstating the status quo in Iraq. As a means of achieving the status quo, the international political system sought to impose order and limit the Iraqi states’ capabilities. Two U.N. Security Council Resolutions are important—687 and 688, both of which forged international alliances, while rendering the most intense imposition of sanctions against one state in history. Saddam Husain’s failure to comply with these resolutions, among others, led the U.S. to assume a military role in the international political system. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was in an attempt to rectify one of the central drivers of instability in the Middle East.

According to neorealism, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 can be interpreted as follows. As a global hegemon, the U.S. similar to any other state was in search of power and security. Given the recent events of September 11, 2001, the U.S. was in desperate need of avoiding decline. As a means of maintaining global hegemony, the U.S. demonstrated its will to use force by disregarding the lack of approval on behalf of the U.N. Security Council and invading Iraq in March of 2003.

The national interest for the U.S. of invading Iraq can be summed up with three objectives: territorial, economic, and military. In this case, the U.S. was interested in: (1) gaining regional military bases; (2) securing its access to oil resources; and (3) avoiding the nuclear proliferation of Iraq as a means of eliminating a prevailing threat to the U.S. and its allies. But there remain other interests that were of importance to the U.S. that led to the invasion of Iraq. The neorealist theory creates a gap, an inability, to explain these interests.

The reasons as to why neorealism is not a total prescription of the international relations of Middle East is twofold. First, there is a noteworthy identity politics component that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Second, in order to understand alliances in the international political system during this time, identity must be first considered. Alternative international relations theories will be useful for the discussion of the aforementioned reasons.

Identity politics offers a good starting point. The events of September 11, 2001 left the U.S. in a state of “vulnerability, victimization, and national desire for revenge.” These three aspects of national and cultural identity should be regarded as a part of the Bush Administration’s decision for the invasion. When these ideological influences are coupled with the Orientalist images that flooded the media after the September 11 attacks, it becomes clearer that the differentiating between Arab and Muslim states and assessing their immediate threat became less of a necessity and more of a tool of deception. What was believed as an imminent Iraqi threat to U.S. security attributed to the suspected evidence of the Iraqi state manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, resulted in the unveiling of a fallacy. If not of most importance, however, was President George W. Bush’s “vendetta against Saddam Hussein” and personal desire to be “greater” than his father ever was. As the Bush Administration constructed interests and threats to mislead public opinion, the identity politics of the U.S. prevailed—decisions were made on the premise of emotions, actions were taken on the belief in fabricated evidence, and the distribution of capabilities among states became a personal matter.

Second, to warrant the argument in the context of the international political system, it is significant to consider state identity in alliance formation; identity being a moot point in neorealist theory and alliances being at the core of the international political system and a pillar of neorealism. Critics of neorealism explain that while neorealism focuses on the capabilities of the state in determining alliance formation, it fails to consider state identity as a factor that shapes the choice of alliance partners. In particular, when it comes to strategic association in the interest of the state, a shared interest is simply not enough. Instead, it is a shared identity that encourages attraction and mutual identification. It is the “language of community rather than the contractual language of alliance” that captures strategic association. In the case of the Middle East, generally speaking, inter-Arab politics are driven by ideational rather than materialist forces, but more specifically in alliance formation.

Thus, it is the politics of identity, more so than the logic of anarchy, that offers a stronger conceptualization of which states are viewed as a threat to the security of other states. Neoconservative U.S. President George W. Bush, at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, adhered to the principal that democracies fear attack from non-democracies. Therefore, when considering alliances and the identity politics of strategic association, neoconservative theory should be applied to the analysis of the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq; neoconservatism is a factor that contributed to the West’s perception of Iraq as a threat. While this consideration too is not a complete prescription of the international relations of the Middle East, it is a necessary point of contention when analyzing the international political system.

This essay challenges the notion that neorealism is considered to represent the most useful theoretical perspective through which to understand the international relations of the Middle East. At its root, neorealism is a competition of power among states in the international political system by which the ordering principle of anarchy explains outcomes in international politics. The criticism of this theoretical perspective is made clear—ideology and identity are disregarded. For while each state is autonomous, its demographic makeup, institutional policies, and national interests may vary in relation to other states. Each of these variables aid in the understanding of capability, and also action. To illustrate the diversity of the international political system, given that there are many explanations and variables regarding the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the discussion above emphasizes that one single analysis is not a total prescription due to gaps within a neorealist theoretical perspective. Theories such as constructivism and neo-conservativism, respectively offer an ideological and identity based approach to international politics and the actions of independent states within the system. In so far as the basis for international relations is to take into account multiple points of view; indeed, all situations will require a blending of theories and perspectives.

Transhumanism and Critical Theory as Alternatives to Liberalism

From where does political theory’s contemporary opposition to the dominant Liberal political order arise? Surely few would deny the rise of alternative philosophical opinions in recent decades. Post-structuralism, postmodernism, neo-Marxism, and further schools of thought suggests the limits of our traditionally held views. To make a long story short, our current politics’ validity was sold to us on such grounds as constitutionalism, human rights, and the rule of law, and now certain critical scholars simply aren’t buying it.

Different alternatives to Liberalism vary in their emphasis on human conceptions from the top (e.g., the powerful, wealthy elite) or from the bottom (e.g., the powerless, impoverished multitude). Here, I attempt to provide a cursory sketch of these two alternatives and ultimately argue in favor of the latter.

Liberalism Who?

Mostly, we accept that the world’s current political order consists of various different arrangements of Enlightenment-inspired premises that we might characterize as “Liberal.” At least four major premises make up this view of politics. First, any good Liberal firmly believes in human rights. Human rights are, most basically, those things to which we are entitled because of the fact of our humanity. The concept of human rights first arose as a prominent Liberal ideal during the Enlightenment in the work of philosophers like John Locke, whose Second Treatise of Government issued modern politics’ familiar claim to “life, liberty, and possessions.”

Second, Liberals argue that the state’s constitution best separates the government into different branches to prevent abuses of power. In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu argues in favor of a republican, constitutional order based on a love of virtue—in contrast to monarchs, who love honor, and despots, who thrive off of fear. Montesquieu’s work subsequently formed much of the basis for the American legal system; even today, “courts generally acknowledge his influence on the Constitution” and separation of powers. After all, what good are human rights if the state can revoke them at will?

Third, citizens within a Liberal state are considered equal. John Rawls claims in A Theory of Justice that, if you were placed behind a “veil of ignorance” that removes all social contexts like race, religion, sex, and nationality from a person’s decision to whom rights should be granted, any rational person would choose equality. Because any other person theoretically behind the veil of ignorance could choose my share of rights just as I choose another’s, I face an incentive to minimize the differences between the rights afforded to me and those afforded to another. On the Liberal view, not only can the government not prevent you from exercising your rights, it must provide those rights equally to all its citizens.

Fourth, Liberal states opt for market capitalism over socialism’s emphasis on state-owned enterprise. Adam Smith, arguably the founder of economic Liberalism and the ideological basis of the modern market system, wrote in The Wealth of Nations that the “invisible hand” of the market directs producers and consumers toward positive outcomes. By harnessing individuals’ self-interest and leaving the market up to its own devices—e.g., a small public sector and a large private sector—we create competition, which in turn creates positive economic conditions like lower unemployment and higher wages.

This combination of human rights, separation of powers, equality, and capitalism forms the foundation of the modern world order. Countries strive to adopt all four of these premises or are pressured into doing so. In pundits’ terms, liberal democracy is the “price of admission” to the international community. Transhumanism, however, does not square with at least one Liberal premise: equality.

The Transhumanist Alternative

Transhumanism is a philosophy that posits that individuals and governments can and should use technology to surpass innate human potential. Their principal assumption treats humans as deficient in one way or another. Transhumanists might say, “We don’t live long enough, we don’t prevent enough natural disasters, we are susceptible to disease, we don’t help refugees, we start wars and commit genocides, we cause climate change.” Essentially, humans “have a lot of [unnecessary] limitations,” in this view.

For example, Julian Savulescu advocates for transgenesis as an acceptable bioethical practice, claiming that we can and should manipulate human genomes because we face a moral imperative to correct such genetic deficiencies for future generations, even if we make them non-human in the process. In fact, making humans into non-humans presents itself as one of the main goals of transhumanism’s political project (literally, we should transcend humanity). Therefore, governments that limit and regulate practices like cloning and transgenesis can be seen as morally corrupt. “[W]e should,” Savulescu argues, “allow [genetic] selection for non-disease genes [in embryos] even if this maintains or increases social inequality.”

I want to briefly note that I only highlight the more extreme forms of human enhancement which propose to alter society’s genetic composition. Using, for example, a notebook to augment one’s memory capacity differs inordinately from replacing one or more genes in select embryos. I don’t focus here on human enhancement, but rather on transhumanist human enhancement.

Transhumanism directly opposes the Liberal premise that all citizens merit equal treatment from the state because of the random distribution of talents qualities by nature. As Francis Fukuyama put it, “[t]he first victim of transhumanism might be equality.” According to a Liberal worldview, whatever rights we are due from our government must be due equally to all. But, through biomedical processes like transgenesis and eugenic embryo selection, transhumanism seeks to (1) identify superior genetic traits, and (2) increase the proportion of those traits in society. If Liberalism proposes to reduce social inequalities, transhumanism accepts those inequalities, implying first off that they have less value to society than human enhancement, and second off that inequalities are such a low priority that they can be rooted into humans’ genes without significant consequence.

Transhumanism’s problem is not so much that it can’t establish a principled typology of desirous and non-desirous genetic traits, nor that it can’t or define the value those traits. Whether or not it remains “silent on the value” of people’s lives with non-desirous traits, transhumanism proposes to alter the biological definition of humanity and create a new, elite class of super-humans. That elite class then could easily claim to be entitled to more state benefits, rights, seats in Congress, and so on than natural humans. As an alternative to Liberalism, therefore, transhumanism supposes a vastly different political subject, where talents, strengths, and weaknesses are not distributed randomly by nature, but rather purposefully by individuals through the use of technology.

The Critical Alternative

The critical alternative is one that one could characterize as a broad mélange of different ideologies sharing the same ultimate premise: the modern Liberal paradigm perpetuates and sometimes exacerbates political, economic, and social inequalities.

Consider, for instance, Homo Sacer by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. Homo sacer—as opposed to someone like Homo politicus—is a person stripped of his or her political life, or the life of the citizen and reduced to bare life, or the life of one outside the state, who therefore enjoys no guarantee on his/her individual rights, and can therefore be killed by the state. Agamben uses the ancient Greek terms bios and zoē to distinguish between these two forms of life. Practically, Hitler reduced people to bare life forms by removing Jewish and other “undesirable” members from the body politic both legally (by taking away citizenship rights) and physically (by sending “undesirables” to concentration camps). For Agamben, laws that reduce people to zoē represent a “state of exception” that dangerously violate human rights and characterize both modern authoritarian and democratic regimes. In other words, as legal entities, Auschwitz and Guantánamo Bay prison differ only in form, not essential character, since the latter hides behind a Liberal, democratic façade.

In the past, dictators survived because their states’ existence depended on territorial integrity. However, leaders of modern Liberal states depend more on public opinion than on territorial integrity, meaning that—according to the critical alternative to Liberalism—Liberal states have to sell their laws and policies under the guise of protecting or promoting Liberal values, even if those laws and policies further distance the world’s state of affairs from a Liberal state of affairs.

Slavoj Žižek echoes this sentiment. Liberals soften many of today’s problems, framing them as problems of ignorance or intolerance rather than problems of injustice, inequality, or exploitation. According to Žižek, because of the “multiculturalist’s basic ideological operation;” namely that “political differences, differences conditioned by political inequality, economic exploitation, etc., are naturalized/neutralized into ‘cultural’ differences […] which are something given, something that cannot be overcome, but merely ‘tolerated.’” In other words, Liberals’ view of toleration simply glosses over modern forms of injustice and indeed assumes that anyone labelling injustice as such is simply ignorant of other worldviews. This then obfuscates the distinction between good and evil. In fact, it means the Liberal paradigm is that much more dangerous for the critical alternative because prolonging and indeed remaining complicit in acts of injustice can be justified under such well-intentioned efforts at “tolerance.”

If Agamben claims that Auschwitz and GTMO prison are essentially the same, Žižek might argue that the disparate state of inequality between the global North and South differ only in form—not essential character—from colonial times. A modern Liberal economic system doesn’t alleviate that problem, it just sweeps it under the rug.

Forks in the Road

At what ontological premise(s) do the two alternatives to Liberalism diverge? Beyond their shared enemy, the two schools of thought seemingly share nothing in common, with the latter claiming there is too much inequality in the world and the former claiming that there is too little.

Transhumanism represents a top-down political power structure, whereby elites decide policy and administer it down to the masses. The transhumanist alternative begins with an aristocratic premise—individual citizens able to do so should be given the choice to correct their human deficiencies and become a member of a superior, super-human class. The state should then sanction policies that allow (1) experiments to determine the specific areas in which humans require enhancement, and (2) the biomedical enhancement procedures themselves. Even arguing that we should enhance humans to be more moral beings does not solve this. Such a solution reflects, on the one hand, an aristocratic premise now as we must decide which moral code will rule society or, on the other hand, an aristocratic premise later as the new super-humans must decide which moral code to rule society. Either way, transhumanism represents a top-down view of politics.

The critical alternative begins from the opposite perspective of oppressed classes. Individuals should pursue emancipation through political activism or “even armed struggle” because one class of people ruling another invariably leads to inequalities and injustice; and remaining passive or complicit in those instances is just as bad as committing them in the first place. Any viable body politic, therefore, must relinquish any theoretical, legal, or other capacity to implement a “state of exception” for one reason or another. Therefore, if transhumanism allows for—even if it doesn’t necessarily advocate for—a state of exception for its class of super-humans, it doesn’t just accept today’s injustices, it enables them, according to the critical vein.

It is this fork in the road that seems to most fundamentally separate these two contemporary alternatives to Liberalism. Transhumanism pursues an aristocratic political future while critical scholars pursue a radically egalitarian one. Transhumanism emphasizes helping those at the top while critical theory emphasizes helping those at the bottom.

Conclusion

The alternatives to Liberalism are not limited to post-structuralism, postmodernism, neo-Marxism, and other leftist schools of thought. Of course, we should remain wary of any ideology that purports to have all the answers. However, we should also remain wary of ideologies that root inequality in human genetics. As it stands now, human inequality is limited to socially significant factors such as income, wealth, race, religion, and so on. Most contemporary political theory no longer attempts to defend aristocracies based on people’s heritage. And while the modern Liberal system may not be perfect, the transhumanist alternative which allows for the creation of a new class of elite super-humans potentially deepens social inequality, on the one hand, while certainly creating biological inequalities on the other. Rather than more inequality, critical theory rightly views things from the bottom-up and strives to end oppression and injustice, not enable them.

Immigration Policy Under President Trump: Toughening Up or More of the Same?

Since the day he announced his candidacy for President of the United States, Trump has called for comprehensive immigration reform, usually spouting, “We’re gonna build a wall, and Mexico’s gonna pay for it!” Through telling his supporters that immigrants have taken jobs away from hard-working Americans and given only higher crime rates in return, Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has energized xenophobic movements in the United States. Consequently, a palpable national tension between white nationalists and minority groups surges, leaving undocumented individuals fearing for their future and safety. As Trump’s political style lends itself to vague (yet “tremendous”) promises, it is difficult to forecast how exactly the President-elect will choose to reform immigration policy come January. Throughout the duration of his campaign, Trump has presented various – and at times contradictory – promises regarding how he will approach immigration issues while in office. Oscillating between hardline, mass-deportation strategies and the idea that skilled undocumented immigrants should be able to pursue legal status in the United States, Trump’s concrete plans for immigration reform remain somewhat of a mystery.

During a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump claimed, “Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation – that is what it means to have laws and to have a country.” Yet, at the same time, he has expressed that the United States economy stands to benefit from immigrants seeking further education. In an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press last fall, Trump explained, “We’re going to try and bring them back rapidly, the good ones…We have to bring [immigrants] that are university, you know, go to universities, that are doctors. We need a lot of people in this country.” Nonetheless, Trump’s immigration platform contends that the United States’ primary security interest lies in ensuring every inhabitant resides in the country legally, suggesting the ultimate goal of deporting the 11 million unauthorized immigrants currently in the U.S.

In order to ensure all undocumented immigrants are removed from the country, Trump has vowed to strike down every executive order Obama enacted during his time in the Oval Office, and as the next President of the United States, Trump has the power to do so. Such an act would terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a policy that has granted protection and work permits to young immigrants brought into the country as children. Should Trump choose to enforce removal proceedings against those that DACA has benefited, more than 700,000 people face the risk of deportation. When pressed to detail his plans to pay for his more robust deportation efforts, Trump has hinted at reallocating funding from federal bureaus such as the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection agency.

Serving as an influential voice throughout the campaign, Trump’s long-time supporter and recent pick for U.S. Attorney General, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, has built his political career on anti-immigration rhetoric and calls for mass deportations. As head of the Department of Justice, Sessions would have the ability to direct national resources toward the currently backloggedimmigration courts. By encouraging federal prosecutors to increase the number of criminal cases brought against undocumented immigrants and by hiring more right-leaning judges for federal immigration courts, Sessions would have the power to speed up the removal proceedings for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants. Additionally, with Sessions as Attorney General, Trump could withhold federal funding from more than 200 self-proclaimed sanctuary cities, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, which offer refuge to undocumented immigrants in order to force local governments to share information and more fully cooperate with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

On a contrasting note, House Speaker Paul Ryan assured many fearful Americans that the President-elect’s administration would not direct efforts toward Trump’s “deportation task force,” stating on CNN’s State of the Union, “We believe an enforcement bill, a border security enforcement bill is really the first priority and that’s what we’re focused on.” Indeed, Trump’s border wall became a major talking point throughout his campaign. Though he often spoke of his wall as a modern feat of architecture during election season, he has since admitted that stretches of the border wall may be guarded by a fence, or left to natural barriers. To help secure the border, Trump states he will hire several thousand new Border Patrol agents and end Obama’s “catch-and-release” policy, instead forcing unauthorized aliens out of the country upon point of entry.

Following his win in the election, however, Trump has seemingly taken a step back on some of his more polarizing campaign promises on immigration. To contrast the hate-inciting rhetoric he employed earlier in his campaign, Trump has offered that, upon completion of the fortified border wall/fence, he may soften his policies on deportation. During his 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl, he stated, “After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about who are terrific people, they’re terrific people, but we are going make a determination,” though the implications of this position remain unclear. Moreover, while Trump has in the past portrayed undocumented immigrants in a broadly negative light (“They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” though, “some of them,” he assumes, “are nice people”) his tone appeared more nuanced in his 60 Minutes interview. He stated:

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, we have a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we’re going to incarcerate. But we’re getting them out of our country, they’re here illegally.”

Though the figures he presented in the interview have been disputed by immigration experts for being exaggerated (Pew Research Center estimates the total number of undocumented immigrants at 11 million – of that number, about 800,000 are criminals), Trump’s decision to focus deportation efforts on undocumented immigrants with criminal records may alleviate the concerns felt in his initial anti-immigration rhetoric. What’s more, his plan to focus deportation efforts on so-called “bad hombres” is not so unfamiliar to Washington – Obama has similarly directed efforts toward removing criminal immigrants from the U.S.

Speaking on immigration in his final presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump praised Obama’s deportation numbers. “President Obama has moved millions of people out,” he stated, “Nobody knows about it. Nobody talks about it, but under Obama, millions of people have been moved out of this country. They’ve been deported.” Over the past decade, federal enforcement rates on deportation have steadily increased. With the removal of nearly 2.7 million undocumented immigrants during his two presidential terms, Obama stands to become the U.S. President with the greatest number of deportations enforced in history. In regards to Trump’s comments on 60 Minutes, Migration Policy Institute director Muzafar Chishti expressed, “What he’s saying is sort of consistent with present policy,” given that he achieves his goal of 2 to 3 million deportations over the duration of his presidency.

Looking toward 2017, the forecast for the future of U.S. immigration policy remains uncertain. Unlike any of his predecessors, Trump embodies an unpredictable storm of pandering and promises, ever-shifting with the winds of public opinion. Though policy experts may construct an idea of what Trump’s presidency will look like through his public statements, interviews, and contributions from his advisors and allies, millions of undocumented immigrants must play the waiting game to see what their future truly holds.

A Shift in Abortion: from Surgical to Medicinal

Since the Supreme Court’s decision in 1973 to legalize abortion in all 50 states in the case of Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113), millions of abortions have been performed, most through surgical methods. Recent studiesshow that medication abortions are starting to rival surgical abortions in the United States, a phenomenon that has been occurring in Europe for some time. The FDA has developed a new evidence-based regime for the drugs used in medication abortion, but regulations in some states keep the rate of medication abortions around 43%, while states like Iowa and Michigan with no restrictions have higher rates, around 55-65%. Before discussing these state restrictions, it is important to know what exactly medication abortion is, as well as any issues surrounding it.

Mifepristone and Misoprostol

The two drugs used to perform medically induced abortions are Mifepristone and Misoprostol. Mifepristone (approved in 2000 by the FDA) is given at the clinic where the patient choses to have their abortion. The drug, according to Planned Parenthood, “works by blocking the hormone progesterone. Without progesterone, the lining of the uterus breaks down, and pregnancy cannot continue.” Next, the patient takes Misoprostol at home, where they may be alone or with a loved one. Misoprostol causes the uterus to empty and complete the abortion.

Anti-abortion groups have labeled the medicinal abortion option as dangerous. They especially disagree with the new FDA regulations that make the drug easier to acquire. The President of “Operation Rescue,” an anti-abortion group in Kansas, said that “pharmaceutical companies will use the FDA’s decision to persuade more ‘vulnerable pregnant women’ to use the ‘unpredictable’ drug.”

The facts disagree with this “unpredictable” label. A study by the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding the effects of medication abortion on university students showed that the medication is safe and reliable. The researchers found very few difficulties with the procedure and concluded, “Medication abortion services in a student health care clinic are safe and feasible. However, additional treatment may be required with some patients.”

Side by side with the surgical abortion option, medical abortion is just as safe as surgery with some minor tradeoffs. With the medication option, there is less chance for cervical or uterine injury due to the lack of medical instruments in proximity to the reproductive area. There are some minor downsides including more office visits, more bleeding for the patient (although the surgical option will cause bleeding as well), and 1-3% more women will have to redo the procedure as compared to surgical abortion. However, a major advantage of the medication is that the procedure can be done in the privacy of the woman’s own home with a loved one if she so chooses.

The State of the States

As previously stated, the prevalence of medication abortions as a method varies across the states due to differing regulations. The new FDA regulations have helped surpass some of these regulations. Specifically, the regulations allow the medication to be taken for 70 days after the start of the woman’s most recent menstrual period, up from 49 days under previous regulations. The prescription process was also simplified. So, following these new regulations, what is the current condition of the states’ laws surrounding the medication abortion process?

There are three broad categories of regulations, and some states overlap containing more than one type. Three states (Texas, Ohio, and North Dakota) reject the new FDA regulations and follow the old, outdated, and more rigid regulations. Nineteen states require the clinician to be present when the medication is taken, taking away the home privacy aspect of the procedure. Lastly, 37 states require clinicians who “perform medication abortion procedures to be licensed physicians.” This last category severely restricts the supply of medication abortions. These regulations are a primary reason why the U.S. is not on par with Europe on the overall percentage of abortions completed with medication as opposed to surgery.

Implications and Future Trends

The public opinion on abortion has remained relatively the same (within 1-9 percentage points) since 1998. The majority has fluctuated between pro-life and pro-choice about 5 times since that date, with the pro-choice camp at roughly 47% and the pro-life camp at roughly 46% in 2016. This is a unique case for a social issue, given that many other social issues such as gun control, healthcare, same-sex marriage, and the death penalty have shifted left since the 1990’s.

I offer a suggestion as to why medication abortions may possibly shift public opinion towards the pro-choice camp. The main factor for my reasoning is the private aspect of the medication route. Allowing women to perform the abortion at home takes the procedure out of the public view. This means that the concerns over graphic images of late term abortions and unsafe procedures are minimized. If this more private form of abortion does not shift public opinion, it may still allow women to avoid the scrutinizing eyes of the pro-life camp just enough to mitigate further regulations and restrictions.

“A New Nationalism”: 1992 and the Birth of President Trump

“I understand good times and I understand bad times. I mean, why is a politician going to do a better job than I am?” – Donald J. Trump on NBC’s Meet The Press, October 1999

You could be forgiven for thinking that 2016 was the first time Donald Trump ran for President of the United States. Much was made about the Republican nominee’s lack of political experience, and his campaign certainly looked the part. The candidate regularly ignored the consensus and orders of Republican leadership, staffers were kicked out seemingly at random, and the campaign’s ground game consisted of little more than eye-catching rallies. Of course, Trump’s unorthodox campaign was ultimately enough to win him the presidency in violation of all political wisdom. But his campaign wasn’t quite as unprecedented as it’s made out to be, either.

During this election, surprisingly little attention was given to the first presidential campaign of Donald Trump–no, not this year’s, but his campaign for the Reform Party nomination in 2000. Granted, Trump’s first run for President wasn’t much to write home about, as his campaign lasted just four months and the Reform Party was little more than a footnote in the election. The eventual Reform Party nominee, Pat Buchanan, captured less than 1% of the national popular vote on Election Day. In the mythos built up around the 2000 presidential election, pundits and historians have been much more interested in debates over the Electoral College, Bush v. Gore, and Ralph Nader than the meager implications of the Reform Party.

But Pat Buchanan’s Reform campaign in 2000 was a remnant of a powerful wave of populism that swept the nation eight years earlier. Populist movements already had a proud tradition in American history, periodically resurging in national politics every couple of decades. The mid-nineteenth century witnessed the rise of the nativist Know-Nothing Party; the turn of the century saw the radical anti-bank campaigns of William Jennings Bryan; and in the 1960s, Alabama Governor George Wallace militantly defended Southern “states’ rights” and segregation. In the 1992 presidential election, another populist wave motivated by economic nationalism, cultural conservatism, and rabid anti-elitism propelled two fringe candidates to the front of the race and threatened to upend American political orthodoxy. Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, though far more successful than the movements which came before it, simply picked up where the last wave of populism left off a quarter-century before.

1992: Pat Buchanan Takes On Washington

President George H. W. Bush was in poor shape entering the 1992 presidential election. Just a year earlier, President Bush had become a national hero due to his decisive leadership in the Operation Desert Storm campaign to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. But the President had seen his approval ratings plummet since their high of 89% in early 1991. Bush infamously recanted on his 1988 campaign promise–“Read my lips: no new taxes”–by signing on tax increases to address the climbing federal deficit, costing him dearly among voters who once admired his integrity and commitment to the middle-class. The nation was struggling to recover from a recession, leaving many in doubt of the President’s ability to lead the country through economic crisis. Bush was also developing a reputation as an out-of-touch elitist, egged on by incidents including a clip that appeared to show the President marveling at a mundane supermarket scanner. Incumbent presidents rarely face serious challenges for their party’s nomination, but in 1992 one candidate saw an opportunity to take on George Bush: Pat Buchanan, a right-wing commentator and former advisor and speechwriter to Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Pat Buchanan’s campaign against President Bush rings awfully familiar to modern ears. Buchanan described his campaign as “America first,” claiming a need for “a new nationalism” that would defend the American worker first and foremost heading into the 21st century. Buchanan attacked free trade deals that the United States signed with other nations and decried manufacturing jobs being outsourced to Japan. He called for a shutdown of immigration to the United States to prevent American jobs from being stolen by foreign labor. He rejected George Bush’s conception of an American-lead “New World Order” after the fall of the Soviet Union, asserting that the United States should stay out of unnecessary foreign conflicts and focus on domestic issues. Buchanan also railed against Washington elites, admonishing President Bush’s lack of energy and “vision.” He called for a “law and order” response to the crime wave seizing the nation, drawing criticism for racially suggestive comments he’d made in the past. And he undertook what he later coined as the “culture war,” attacking multiculturalism and liberal sensibilities–an obvious precursor to Trump’s assault on political correctness, albeit based more in conservative Christianity than deliberate vulgarity.

Buchanan’s message hit home in New Hampshire, a state roiling from the recession and the first stop in the Republican primaries. Voters in the state, fraught with economic worries, were drawn to Pat Buchanan’s promise to restore American jobs and economic power. New Hampshire was also flooded with ads attacking President Bush’s dishonesty for caving on his “no new taxes” pledge, sinking his reputation in the state. Buchanan won 37% of the vote in the New Hampshire primaries, including over half of independents and most of the 30% of voters who said they wanted to “send a message to the White House.” Buchanan’s showing in New Hampshire was also his best; after giving President Bush a severe rattling in the first primary, Pat Buchanan’s campaign began to lose steam for the rest of the race. Buchanan won 22% of the total Republican primary vote to Bush’s 72.5%. The President emerged victorious in the Republican primary, but not without some serious fatigue. Later on at the Republican National Convention, Buchanan gave a concession speech touching on several familiar refrains. He assailed the “radical feminism” of future First Lady Hillary Clinton, criticized the Democratic Party for elitist pro-free trade policies, and called for Americans to “take back our country” in the wake of the Los Angeles riots, describing the city like a war zone.

Pat Buchanan was not the only challenger to the political establishment in 1992. Though many in the nation were looking for a change from President Bush, the Democratic nominee wasn’t proving to be a very appealing alternative. Emerging from a hard-fought and bitter primary, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton was already battling an unsavory reputation due to his involvement in the Whitewater housing scheme and accusations of sexual impropriety from multiple women. Many Americans, dissatisfied with both major parties, found themselves supporting Ross Perot, an eccentric Texas billionaire and independent candidate who announced he would run for President on CNN’s Larry King Live in February. Much like Buchanan before him, Perot campaigned on a protectionist economic plan to restore American jobs and a strong response to the crime wave, all the while railing against Washington elites and government corruption.

Ross Perot began his national campaign with a huge wave of support, leading in several polls taken in early summer of 1992. But just as his lead was surging in July, Perot unexpectedly suspended his campaign due to a bizarre alleged blackmail plot involving his daughter’s upcoming wedding, only re-entering the race a few weeks before the general election. Despite his months-long absence from the race, Perot still won 19% of the popular vote, the best of any third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose run in 1912. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton was elected President with 43% of the popular vote, the smallest share by a winning president since Woodrow Wilson.

The Aftermath of 1992

Pat Buchanan wasn’t ready to rest after his 1992 defeat. He ran in the Republican primaries again in 1996, this time facing off against Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. Though Buchanan had a better-organized campaign in his second run, he still couldn’t keep up with Senator Dole, capturing just 21% of the total primary vote in a distant second to Dole’s 59%. However, Buchanan’s second campaign found a stronger audience in the industrial Midwest, where he pulled 34% of the primary vote in both Michigan and Wisconsin. Blue-collar voters, concerned about their economic future, were drawn again to Buchanan’s rhetoric about an “America first” economy that would protect the working-class and sympathized with his distrust of immigration and multiculturalism. Though Buchanan was defeated for a second time, his campaign laid a blueprint for a populist candidate to court working-class voters in regions like the Rust Belt by appealing to economic nationalism and anti-elitism.

Ross Perot also ran again in 1996, this time on the Reform Party ticket after establishing the party himself a year earlier. But the less conservative and more reform-minded crowd that Perot captured four years ago had largely come around to President Clinton, who was by then quite popular nation-wide and easily leading the race. Perot was able to win 8% of the popular vote–not a bad performance for a third-party candidate in the greater scheme of history, but a marked drop from his much more successful 1992 campaign.

The populist wave began to seriously wane after 1996. President Bill Clinton’s popularity was only continuing to increase, and a period of immense economic growth left a satisfied country less skeptical of globalism and multiculturalism. The Reform Party would face a serious crisis of character in 2000; without Ross Perot’s magnetism to unify it, many feared the primary could become a free-for-all of fringe candidates in search of a party. Pat Buchanan eventually won the Reform Party nomination, but not without enduring a bizarre and dramatic primary which at points involved Donald Trump calling Buchanan a “Hitler lover”and a counter-convention organized by John Hagelin supporters following his primary loss. Buchanan attracted just a fraction of the voters he won over in the Republican primaries, ultimately winning 0.43% of the popular vote.

The radical populist movement appeared to die off after the Reform Party’s dismal performance in 2000. After Pat Buchanan’s challenges to the Republican Party in 1992 and 1996, following primaries would be largely dominated by mainstream conservatives like George W. Bush and John McCain. Ron Paul was probably the closest successor to Pat Buchanan, a staunch libertarian with a devoted cult following who entered the Republican primaries in 2008 and 2012, but he never posed much more than a headache to party leaders. The Tea Party movement, a hard-right grassroots movement motivated by economic conservatism and anti-establishment rhetoric, briefly threatened to challenge Republican orthodoxy during Barack Obama’s presidency. However, so-called “tea-party whisperers” like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio were effective at bridging the gap between Republican leadership and the newest popular conservative movement, helping to preserve party order.

At least, until this year. After lying dormant for nearly a quarter-century, the radical populist movement once led by Pat Buchanan returned with a vengeance to elect Donald Trump President of the United States. Trump’s presidential campaign focused on many of the same issues that Buchanan did in 1992: economic protectionism, backlash against multiculturalism or “political correctness,” resentment of the Washington establishment. But what was different about Donald Trump in 2016 that allowed him to win the presidency where Buchanan failed twenty-four years before?

Why Trump Struck Lightning

Part of the answer can probably be chalked up to pure party structure. In 1992 and 1996, Pat Buchanan was facing off against the most powerful Republicans in the country, leaving him little path to challenge party leadership and win the nomination. In contrast, Trump entered a Republican primary where attention was split between over a dozen candidates, none of which held the blessing of party leaders. Trump could take advantage of sheer personality to bulldoze past his competitors, gaining enough momentum to be unstoppable once the primary field was worn down to something more manageable. And unlike Ross Perot, once Trump won the primary he had the force of the Republican Party behind him; he didn’t have to worry about winning over conservative partisans or convincing pragmatically minded voters to throw their vote to him.

But there’s more to Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton than just being in the right place at the right time. Public opinion has shifted dramatically against globalization and the economic elite in the twenty years since the heyday of NAFTA and free trade. Many Americans believe that the economy now caters to elite interests and has ceased serving the working-class, increasing the appeal of economic populists like Trump. This sense of economic alienation only grew after the 2008 financial crisis, where to many it appeared that the federal government went out of its way to protect Wall Street and wealthy corporations while ignoring the workers those institutions left behind. For all of her progressive rhetoric, Hillary Clinton couldn’t shake her reputation as a Washington insider unsympathetic to American workers. Donald Trump, in contrast, fed into the feelings of abandonment and resentment held by many working-class voters, especially in the industrial Midwest.

Immigration is also a more salient issue now than it was in the 1990s–the number of illegal immigrants in the United States now numbers at about 11 million, compared to just 4 million in 1992. Declining faith in government and backlash against Congress also make anti-elitism and promises to “drain the swamp,” in Trump’s words, much more appealing to the public. In a 1992 interview with Face the Nation’s Bob Scheiffer, Pat Buchanan claimed Americans wanted a decisive leader who would take on Washington in response to Scheiffer’s description of the 102nd Congress as “the most partisan session that [he] could remember.” Buchanan was right, but a few decades too early.

Pat Buchanan has not been silent on the similarities between his past campaigns and the modern-day campaign of Donald Trump. In a pre-election interview with New York Magazine, Buchanan said he was “delighted we were proven right,” celebrating the similarities between Trump’s message and his own vision from 1992. In another interview with the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, Buchanan claimed the Republican Party will eventually realign around the values of nationalism and protectionism which Trump brought to the forefront, regardless of the will of the party establishment. He also correctly predicted Trump’s winning strategy for the presidential race, calling for Trump to “go for victory in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin … campaigning against the Clinton trade policies that de-industrialized Middle America.” Now that Trump is president-elect, Buchanan has expressed hopes that his ideological successor will engage in battle with Congress and refuse to back down on his radical campaign promises.

We don’t know yet if Buchanan’s prediction that Donald Trump will transform the Republican Party are true. The president-elect’s lack of political experience could make him vulnerable to manipulation from seasoned politicos, crippling his attempts to reshape the political culture of Washington. Attempts to predict Trump’s path during the election have a mixed record at best, however, casting doubt on any predictions of what a Trump Administration might look like. At any rate, the movement that propelled Donald Trump into the White House is far from new, building heavily on Pat Buchanan’s campaign from a quarter-century ago. The main difference between Trump and populists of the past is that the former was able to win a presidential election, overcoming efforts by political leaders from both sides to stem the tide of populism. Trump’s economic nationalism, backlash against political correctness, and militantly anti-elite rhetoric fed into feelings which had been fomenting among a significant portion of Americans for decades at the least. The political establishment will have to formulate a response to the Trump movement if they want to quash the populist uprising that seized the nation in 2016, or else pray that this bout of populism is just overstaying its welcome.

Trump, National Myths, and the Rise of Populism

It happened.

What was to me incredibly obvious a few months ago, that Donald Trump would be elected the 45th President of the United States, was a complete shock to most of the country and the world. Polls got it wrong. Experts got it wrong. GOP insiders got it wrong. American University’s Allan Lichtman got it right, but he seems to be about the only one.

Why were we so sure that Trump would lose?

How, in the wake of so many populist movements across the world, so many uprisings from the disenfranchised, so many new and growing platforms for the people who have felt their identities slipping away — whose pain and anger with the systems in place swelled until it was the only newsworthy story — could we dare to pretend for one moment that the United States would be immune to the power of a populist revolt? Our “exceptionalism” is not invulnerable to those who put truth to power, even when their truth is one we think we can cast aside as uninformed or irrational.

Frustration with the economy and leadership in a post-economic crisis world has manifested itself in various ways across the world. The so-called Arab Spring, which engulfed the Middle East and North Africa in 2010, resulted in revolutions of various types. Populist parties have won elections in Hungary, France, Greece, the Czech Republic, and Poland, among others. Jeremy Corbyn, a fringe radical in the UK Labour Party, rode a wave of voter discontent to take his party’s leadership. In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s government has turned to a nationalist foreign policy to distract a restive Russian middle class that has seen its quality of life decline. Britain voted to leave the European Union, arguing that the EU was restricting fair trade policies, strangling the UK’s choices on immigration, and threatening the British way of life.

The international uprisings founded on discontent, the increasingly momentous populist movements, and the newly-empowered, vocal, and active American right-wing community should have made us stop and seriously question the polls that told us we were safe from a Trump Presidency.

The ascent of Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election, anticipated by no one just a year earlier, is driven by a deep dissatisfaction with the “Washington establishment.” All of the recent developments across the world have a common thread—their supporters seek to revise the status quo at the expense of established political, economic, and cultural institutions. Trump’s appeal is no exception.

What makes a Trump supporter?

First, we must ask what makes an anti-establishment voter, since before people support Trump’s specific policies (or lack thereof, frankly) on immigration, healthcare, etc., they support the idea of Trump. The ideology driving an anti-establishment, populist voter is that a new leader who represents the people can dismantle the systems and institutions currently in place, which the voter believes have made their quality of life worse. Those who support anti-establishmentarianism want an honest candidate, unchained from the corrupt circle of elites.

Trump’s populism is a form of voter backlash against long-term social changes that threaten to dismantle the country, culture, and society that they know. In other words, many Trump supporters live in fear that the America that they know is slipping through their fingers, and that the cultural values that they define as “American” are shifting, causing them to feel apprehensive of the future and overwhelmed with uncertainty of their place and role in the country. The fear of being marginalized and left behind causes what Jennifer Mitzen calls ontological insecurity. This refers to a person’s sense of “being” in the world; an ontologically insecure person does not have a stable sense of self and place. This threat against one’s identity creates a difficulty to act and maintain a steady self-conception. In contrast, the ontologically secure person has an unquestioned sense of self and is confident of his or her place in the world in relation to other people.

While all anti-establishment movements are based on grievances and all seek to revise traditional political and social institutions, they disagree on what those grievances and institutions are, causing a split in anti-establishment movements. Bernie Sanders was an anti-establishment candidate, but could not be more unlike Trump in his political beliefs. Sanders supporters absolutely fit the mold of disenfranchised, angry voter that I just outlined in regard to Trump supporters: they wanted to dismantle the institutions (i.e. Wall Street, NAFTA) and systems (i.e. structural racism, sexism, patriarchy) in place that make the quality of life worse, and wanted an honest candidate who was “above” the politics of the political world. We can see, then, that Sanders and Trump supporters initially agree ideologically, yet they place blame on extremely different institutions and systems. Why would people who, fundamentally, share so many of the same complaints about the status quo back leaders with two very different versions of a better future?

I contend that the answer lies in one’s national Origin Story.

If we accept Role Theory, which states that people’s perceptions of their place in society shape their actions and their expectations for the actions of others, then we can start to move toward an understanding of the Sanders/Trump split in modern American populist movements. The national role is one subset of Role Theory. Individuals use their interpretations of national role to set expectations for their in-group and out-groups. In other words, people rely on their answer to the questions “who are we?” and “what is our mission?” to develop preferences over political outcomes. In this sense, national role can co-constitute a set of very specific policy preferences for a voter.

If one’s view of the national role shapes one’s policy preferences, we should be able to see distinct correlations between certain policy preferences and certain perceptions of the national role. It’s easy to put an empirical measure on policy preferences; support for a particular political party or candidate is perhaps the most obvious. But the idea of national identity is very nebulous, so measuring a person’s perceptions of the national role is difficult. Besides just asking, “what do we do?” there are alternate ways to observe an individual’s view of national role. This is where the national origin story comes in.

The origin story of America essentially answers when and why America became the America it is today. The story will change from person to person, and is dependent on a person’s view of the country, of himself, and how he constructs his own identity. Thus, the origin story fits the national role. Where you come from defines who you are and what you do. So, if people have different ideas about what we do, it should trace back to different Origin Stories. I posit that the national origin story is a salient marker of identity that can be used to distinguish between varying conceptions of nation and national role.

Divergent interpretations of the national role (measured through one’s origin story of America) are responsible for the split between anti-establishment movements based on pocketbook grievances and those focused on nationalistic and xenophobic grievances. If I have constructed my identity based on a nation that begins to undergo radical social change, my identity will be shaken. If I believe America to be a white, Christian, English-speaking, conservative country, an influx of immigrants, the enactment of liberal social policies, or the advancement of women, LGBTQ, or non-Christian peoples will shake my perception of my country. For people who base their own sense of self on their interpretation of the country, changes like these can cause ontological insecurity.

In August, I put these theories to the test. After running statistical (regression and comparative) analyses on 500 survey responses, with 240 of these coming from Trump and Sanders supporters, I have come to the conclusion that origin story is a better predictor of political tendencies than previously understood. This means that how a person views America’s origin (when did America become America?) can shed light on whom he or she will vote for. Thus, the origin story can be seen as a predictor of voter behavior.

The survey collected respondents’ demographics, their first choice for President in 2016, xenophobic indicator questions, and gave three origin stories and asked them to rate how warmly they felt toward the stories on a scale from 0-100. The stories, as they appeared on the survey, are written below.

“America came into its true character after defeating the Germans and the Japanese in the second Great War. During this time, each U.S. state and territory unified to contribute to the war effort, leading to American agricultural and industrial supremacy. Our victory after WWII established international respect and honor for American citizens, our government, and our military, proved our unity as a nation, and showcased the power and importance of the United States of America.”

“America came into its true character during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1965, African-Americans and their allies worked through multiple channels to compel the American government to recognize that all Americans, regardless of the color of their skin, deserve equal protection under the law.”

“America came into its true character when the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. The pilgrims and other early American settlers were people who were fleeing the horrors of the old world, where individuals could not be free. In the New World, these young Americans created a nation based on liberty and freedom.”

Each of the three stories presented a distinct character of American identity and told a brief story of when America came into its “true character.” The story themes are based on David Bell Mislan’s previous work on identity formation, which recognized them as significant categories. The first story reflected an American origin based on power, unity, military might, international prestige, and importance. I call this story the Exceptional Story. The second story, the Legal Story, emphasized equality, opportunity, hard work, and equal protection under the law. The third story, the Enlightened Story, underscored an America that was founded on liberty, freedom, and progress away from the European “old world.”

While I originally thought that Trump supporters would overwhelmingly choose the Exceptional Story, the table below reveals the results that, upon reflection, make a lot of sense.

Trump supporters did not have a clear winner when asked to choose from three American Origin Stories; all three were almost equally chosen, and twice as many Trump supporters ranked a combination of stories equally as compared to Sanders supporters, as can be seen in the graph below.

This tells us that there is not one conception of American origin that Trump supporters follow. There is no guiding story that enlightens the average Trump supporter about who we are, what we do, and what our mission is, as Americans. This tells us a few things about Trump’s win: first, that his vague and vacillating policies were probably more of a strong suit than we thought. By refusing to take firm stances and stick with them, and instead opting to allude to ideas or simply promise to “Make America Great Again,” Trump took advantage of the ontologically insecure voter and allowed him to employ whatever conception of the national role he liked.

Sanders, in contrast, very clearly symbolized one particular national role ideology, causing him to gain a cult-like following from those who shared his same view of the country’s national role. The second take-away from this data is that Trump’s supporters possess a wide-range of origin stories and are often unsure of their own opinion of the national role. This means that for a Trump supporter, one conception of national identity might be more or less salient depending national or global current events, or how he or she is feeling about their own personal life during any given time. Sanders supporters proved confident in their Legal Origin Story of America, while Trump supporters did not all align in their beliefs and often chose more than one origin story. This could mean that Trump supporters are more easily convinced of new national roles or are more easily manipulated through messaging or false news, since they do not have a sturdy and steadfast perception of identity through which to view the world.

Trump tapped into the wave of international unrest of the establishment and of the “other,” a combination that fed perfectly into a disenfranchised, ontologically insecure voter. There is a correlation between one’s conceptions of the national role and the ability to be swayed by xenophobic ideologies. If a voter possesses ontological security, he is less likely to be convinced that groups, individuals, or ways of life outside of his own social network are an existential threat to his own safety, wellbeing, or way of life. Sanders supporters are nestled in this camp, since the Legal Story of American Origin emphasizes equality and community under the law. They feel that America did not really become America until all of its citizens were equal under the law. Thus, a Trumpian view of immigration does not fit their national narrative, because immigrants are fundamental to the understanding of America under the Legal Story framework. If a voter does not posses ontological security, he is more easily convinced that others are to blame for his own discontent.

So, it happened. In January, Donald Trump will be inaugurated. Shock, fear, anger – many Americans have felt it all since November 8th. What we need to remember, though, is that Trump supporters should not be cast aside as idiotic, uneducated, or almost anything else that prominent media outlets have called them. Yes, their political preferences might be racist, xenophobic, sexist, etc., and this should not be dismissed. But these preferences are based on deep seeded conceptions of national and personal identity, national role, and American origin. This, unfortunately, means that until we can teach “who we are” and “what we do” in a way that allows all Americans to feel ontologically secure in a globalizing world, we’re likely to see Trump-like nationalism live on well into the future.

This article presents a new angle from a full research paper completed September 2016 on xenophobia and anti-establishmentarianism, which was co-authored by Emily Dalgo and Dr. David Bell Mislan and funded by the AU Summer Scholars Research Fellowship.

Reckoning Kurdistan: The Question of Kurdish Autonomy and the Challenging Road to Statehood

Introduction

After nearly five years of fighting, Syria still bleeds instability. The death toll of the crisis has been estimated to surpass 470,000, and still climbs as President Bashar al-Assad wars with moderate and radicalized rebels. The once-isolated civil war has transformed into a globalized quandary, impacting the social and political fabric of the Middle East, Europe, and liberal international order through the largest refugee population in history. But the conflict has also emerged as a battleground of immense opportunity – for foreign powers pursuing regional hegemony, extremist groups seeking global prepotency, and autonomous peoples preparing for statehood.

The Kurdish population dispersed across northern Syria, Iraq, and southern Turkey, has capitalized upon the political labyrinth in the Levant. The United States has famously backed Kurdish brigades, the Peshmerga forces, defending crucial territories against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). They have become a popular alternative to placing American boots on the ground in the Washington policy arena, as well as a geopolitical asset in the region. Such reinforcement has skyrocketed the Kurdish population into the international limelight as a key contender for statehood once strife subsides. However, it is the American mischaracterization of the Kurdish people and the fragmented nature of their politics that will be the Achilles’ heel in any statehood objective. Unless the Kurdish people overcome the obstacles of nationalist fragmentation, recognition will remain a distant reality.

Deconstructing the Kurdish Objective

Kurdistan has become a subject of recent western fascination, however, has been a resilient force in the region for centuries. Before the construction of national identities and contemporary borders, the Kurds existed as an ethnic population of the Mesopotamian Plains. After generations under foreign and imperialist rule, Kurdistan received its first omen of statehood with the arrival of ethnonationalism in the demise of the First World War. The Treaty of Sevres fuelled their declaration of independence in 1927 in the Republic of Ararat — yet was short-lived. Despite attempts by the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and other foreign entities to install a Kurdish autonomous state, post-war waves of pan-Arabism and nationalism stood in the way of complete secession. Only were the Kurdish populace able to achieve a degree of political autonomy when under the guise of existing states, as Kingdoms, regions of limited self-rule, or autonomous zones. This power struggle is still very much alive today. The war between self-determination and the existing statehood landscape has transcended the 20th century; the fourth-largest stateless population has become of of the most significant flashpoints of the contemporary international order.

Despite challenging political circumstance, the Kurdish people have thrived. The robust city of Erbil has become an oasis within northern Iraq – oil rich, democratized, and a destination for many refugees. Exxon Mobil even announced an oil deal with the Kurdish regional government for resource development – a signal of rising Kurdish prominence in the political and economic realm. The city has its own parliament, police force, and even a license plate system. The inclusion of women in police system and fighter brigades, lack of heavied political Islam, and overall positive inclination towards the West has been welcomed by policymakers and Washington. The most impressive feat of the Kurds, however, has been their ability to dodge the seemingly inevitable power vacuum of the region. The Kurds were wise to mobilize militant forces not only to protect their own autonomous zones, but to ally with the weakened Iraqi forces and make a case for foreign assistance.

Yet, the West misses the mark in properly characterizing the Kurdish people, their plight, and their chance for future statehood autonomy. While the Kurds are often conglomerated as one movement, autonomous efforts could not be more fragmented. Many have analogized the Syrian conflict as a phenomenon where nationalism gives way to ethnic, religious, and sectarian identity – breaking down the barriers of the artificial 1917 Sykes-Picot borders. However, Kurdistan is severely splintered across Turkish, Syrian, and Iraqi nationalist lines. In Iraq, the Kurds live in an autonomous zone established after the Gulf War. In Syria, the Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD) rules in its autonomous zone, protecting the zone from rebels and ISIS fighters with their Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (People’s Protection Units or YPG) forces. In southeast Turkey, the Kurdish population lives under constant suppression, despite a recent peace deal between the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (the Kurdish Workers Party or PKK) and Erdogan’s government.

While many predict Kurdistan to become a recognized, autonomous state after the crisis in the Levant, there are many obstacles in its wake. The fragmented nature of Kurdistan across Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, is the largest challenge; different national “experiences” have transformed different Kurdish agendas. In Turkey, the PKK is more leftist, critical of the United States, and less inclinedtowards total independence, instead promoting an autonomous region within Ankara’s political arena. In Syria and Iraq, the Kurdish population is more pro-west and has proven a greater interest in establishing a recognized Kurdistan. Another Kurdish handicap is the lack of diversified economic opportunity in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq and Syria. While the oil sector has brought immense wealth to the region – luring foreign investment and relative stability – any official statehood venture would require intense diversification of the Kurdish economy. The Iraqi Kurds have instituted relative independence of their oil sector from the Iraqi government, however have experienced back-and-forth battles over shares of revenue and economic reintegration. In 2015, Iraqi Kurdistan was able to increase oil production from 2011 figures by 600%, however was still gravely $18 million in debt. Like any oil-dependent country in the region, economic diversification will enable Kurdistan to transform from a de facto nation to a de jure statehood system. Recent Turkish dependence upon Iraqi Kurdish oil – all while relations sour with Turkish Kurdish peoples over the failed PKK peacetime deal – has complicated smooth relations between the PKK and PYD, something necessary for any future, unified Kurdistan. All regions will have to face these structural inefficiencies, objectives, and political fragmentation before the dream of an independent Kurdistan can become reality.

The United States’ use of the Kurdish forces and population as a bulwark against regional terrorism has also perplexed chances of Kurdish statehood. A $400 million aid package has enabled the Kurdish Peshmerga to join the Mosul offensive and drive the Islamic State from occupying one-third of Iraqi territory. Yet, limits will emerge in the United States’ agenda against the Islamic State — while the U.S. wishes to utilize the Kurds against radicalized factions, the Kurds hold a divergent objective of securing existing Kurdish-held territory in Iraq. In what many attribute as a “marriage of convenience,” fragments of the Kurdish leadership — such as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) — are convinced statehood is within their grasp with such American reliance. Using the Kurdish population as a mechanism and convenient alternative has gifted Kurdish leaders false hopes of independence. The Kurdish people are, to an extent, used to empty promises; successive governments have continually presented the Kurds with unfulfilled offers of independence or autonomy. Yet, the turbulent and ungovernable landscape of neighboring countries have illustrated a mirage of opportunity for an independent Kurdistan. The United States’ strategic interests in the region walk across a narrow tightrope between Turkey, Iran, Gulf powers, and Russian intervention in Syria. Full support of Kurdish statehood should be expected to further exacerbate regional complications, as well as the objective of halting the civil war.

Conclusion

The conflict in the Levant is far from its culmination. Sectarian factions, radicalism, religious and ethnic identities, and foreign powers all collectively seek influence in the region. The Kurds have proven to be reliable force on both defensive and offensive fronts in a climate of complete discord. Through Kurdish assistance, the United States has become seemingly reliant on the Kurds in their fight against the Islamic State and other extremist factions and has considered the luxury a pro-American Kurdish buffer state would offer their foreign agenda in the region.

The public mischaracterization of the Kurdish population themselves increases chances of miscalculation, and can prove costly in what will be the most challenging foreign policy dilemma of the next administration. While Kurdistan has been an instrument played in American de facto presence, policymakers should realize the precarious Kurdish state of affairs, and understand the limits that accompany a fragmented, but resilient, nation.

Authoritarianism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Is Aid to Blame?

When examining the effects of bilateral or NGO aid in Africa, Ethiopia is perhaps one of the most interesting cases. The East-African state was never formally colonized, yet aid enabled the same outcomes as it did in previously colonized states. The causal or correlational (depending on the author) link between colonization and authoritarianism is a well-established theory of African politics. However, Ethiopia’s un-colonized history presents a new avenue to analyze authoritarian durability in African regimes. Given Ethiopian politics’ unique past but unfortunately common illiberal present, it is not so much the direct legacy of colonialism that continues to enable dictatorial rule, but rather the characteristics of the colony and colonizer relationship, and their contemporary manifestation in the form of aid that purports these regimes. This type of relationship is necessary to keep in mind when considering why aid flows from the United States to so many different countries. Is it purely altruistic? Or does bilateral aid hold a more harsh practical interest in mind? Tracing the flows of aid from the United States to Ethiopia demonstrates that the latter should be considered over the former.

Theoretical Background: Selectorate Theory

Selectorate Theory is a theory of politics that attempts to ascertain a scientific way of comprehending political relations, insofar as it classifies groups of actors and defines how they interact. The theory is best applied to authoritarian regimes, which, when they are durable and resistant to political change, possess a great understanding of how dictatorial politics function. Individuals living in these systems are organized into three categories: Essentials, Influentials, and Interchangeables. Essentials, such as generals or those who possess a large persuasive or coercive capability, are those whose support is absolutely integral for the leader; influentials, or, individuals in the governing bureaucracy or party members, are those who posses the ability to influence politics but are not necessarily the most important actors; and interchangeables constitute the general population, whose enthusiastic support may not be required at all for tenable rule. For illiberal regimes, it is most important to purchase the loyalties of those in the essential class. In order to obtain the loyalties of the essentials in the long-term, a constant source of money is required. One sensible way to maintain sources of money is to receive aid from foreign governments.

Aid given to developing states typically fails to meet its supposed goal because of the way illiberal regimes organize their population. The demands of authoritarian rule mean that aid is typically earmarked for embezzlement rather than for altruism. Donor states cognizantly play the role of patron in this dynamic, and thus bilateral aid should be viewed through the neo-colonialist lens, in that the inter-state relationship adopts colonial notions without the traditional colonizer-colony dynamic. In the same way that the European colonizers installed illiberal regimes to maintain control over their colonies, foreign aid is utilized by donor states to secure certain policies deemed favorable. This relationship inhibits democratization at the expense of supporting dictatorial regimes, and should thus be viewed as a colonial endeavor under the paradigm of colonialism.

Selectorate Theory, however, is not the only method for comprehending authoritarian regime durability in sub-Saharan Africa. Mamdani contests that either the tribal identities or anti-imperialist leaders facilitate democratic breakdown in Africa, while Ekeh suggests that the legacies of colonialism created two “publics”, wherein a civic and primordial public prevent state unity and breed illiberal rule. Although the theories posited by Ekeh and Mamdani may explain how different states initially developed authoritarianism, they fail to explain the durability of these regimes and why they continue to avoid democratization. Furthermore, Ethiopia, which had never been colonized, also failed to democratize. Given the common discourse on African politics’ failings to provide a general theory for the propensity and durability authoritarian politics in the region, Selectorate Theory’s call for a more scientific mode of analysis, that is, viewing African politics based on the mechanisms of authoritarian governance rather than through the guise of culture or other political currents, presents a possibility to understand why the un-colonized Ethiopia is as undemocratic as the former African colonies.

Haile Selassie: The Durable Dictator

Ethiopia’s case can be understood in much the same way as that of myriad other states, the corrupting influence of power. Ethiopian rulers viewed that the path toward development lay in the emulation of other successful states who themselves had utilized power to develop. The Ethiopian polity, or political class, viewed Europe’s ability to colonize Africa as a direct product of their military and economic power, and intended to follow suit. Thus, the acquisition and preservation of power defined the parameters of Ethiopian politics. Power, however, was predicated on the ability to secure the allegiances of the Essentials.

Ethiopia’s last emperor, Haile Selassie, ruled from 1930 until 1974, with only a brief interruption due to Italy’s attempted invasion. The Selassie regime was the last in a long line of emperors. Recognizing that a dictator’s true power rested in the hands of the Essentials, crucial aid supposedly destined for those suffering in the drought and famine of 1972 was re-appropriated for the Ethiopian government unless aid organizations paid a tax called for by vague regulations. When confronted, Selassie invented an excuse, claiming that it was in “accordance with the laws of nature” for drought and famine to strike, and that governmental action was unnecessary.. These were not the ravings of a selfish dictator, but rather the shrewd navigation of illiberal politics.

Selassie understood that he needed to continue to reward his essential backers, the high-level bureaucrats and military personnel of his regime. Ethiopia, however, was not a wealthy country, and thus Selassie viewed incoming aid as an opportunity to gain funding to continue to allocate resources to his supporters. Rather than allocating aid or letting proper aid utilization occur untaxed, Selassie saw this disaster as an opportunity to reaffirm his relationship over his essential backers. Selassie’s response to the drought and subsequent famine demonstrates one part of why bilateral aid tends to fail: illiberal regimes need to maintain their support structures, and aid is an easy way for a poor country to secure the necessary funding to do so.

Neo-Colonialism and Bilateral Aid

The flows of aid between the United States and Ethiopia, as well as the Soviet Union and Ethiopia, highlight the neo-colonial characteristics of bilateral aid. Bilateral aid, or, aid from one country given directly to another, is allocated to “deliver policies” that donor states want and the recipient regime needs. Throughout World War II and the Cold War, the United States allocated aid to various governments in order to secure anti-communist positions. Pro-American dictators could afford to maintain the loyalty of their Essentials, while the United States prevented new communist states from materializing.

In 1943, at the height of the American Lend-Lease program, in which the United States provided aid to states combating Axis powers during World War II, conversations between Selassie and Roosevelt grew increasingly more common, as Roosevelt sought an African ally and Selassie solicited aid with which he could re-allocate to his Essentials. In addition to aid under the Lend-Lease program, a 1951 trade agreement between the United States and Ethiopia guaranteed economic benefits in exchange for “amity”. In essence, aid from the United States provided the Selassie regime with funding to maintain its network of essential backers in exchange for a pro-American stance.

The Selassie regime fell, however, due to mismanagement of the political field as a result of record levels of inflation that left the already poor country poorer. Recall that Ethiopian politics was based on the accumulation of power. Power generally manifested as military support, and thus the military constituted most of Selassie’s essential backers. Ethiopia’s patron in the United States did not provide enough resources for Selassie to reaffirm his authority, and when Selassie failed to reassure the military during the inflationary crisis of 1974, low to mid level military bureaucrats and enlisted men deposed him in a revolution. The United States’ failure to supply their client state with enough funding to maintain the status quo facilitated The Derg’s ascendance.

After the Selassie era, the new regime, called The Derg, or, Committee, was a military Junta with a communist ideology. Selassie’s pro-American leanings ensured him consistent access to bilateral aid because he was willing to implement policies amenable to American interests. The Derg, on the other hand, marked a switch in Ethiopia to communism, the United States’ ideological antithesis. One of the Derg’s worst policies was the forced land nationalization. This policy abolished tenancy and nationalized all land at the same time, leaving peasants to enforce the new project. This policy caused massive famines, and was in fact a complete disaster. While these scenarios were playing out, aid from the United States sharply fell. The United States no longer felt that they had an ally in Ethiopia, and thus bilateral aid between the two countries during The Derg’s tenure became almost nonexistent. The Derg’s ultimate downfall came about as a result of the Soviet Union’s retreat from funding proxies and the refrain from ideological foreign policy under Soviet leader Gorbachev’s Perestroika and Glasnost reforms. Without support from The Derg’s communist patron in the Soviet Union, Ethiopia’s dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam could no longer afford to maintain his own network of Essential backers, and was forced into exile in Zimbabwe.

Following The Derg’s downfall, Ethiopia still has not democratized. Currently, Freedomhouse, a well known aggregator of democracy, states that Ethiopia’s score on political rights is a 7, its freedom rating is a 6.5, and its civil liberties ranking is a 6, where , a 7 is the least democratic while a 1 is the most. To reiterate, maintenance of a small coalition regime, in which the Essential backers need to be kept content, requires a significant amount of money. After the fall of The Derg, Ethiopia adopted nominal democratic reforms, but never really pursued them or fully institutionalized democratic norms. To explain Ethiopia’s failure to democratize post-Derg, we must look to the flows of bilateral aid.

The United States continues to provide Ethiopia with substantial amounts of monetary aid as well as other forms, such as food and technological aid . In exchange for these contributions, Ethiopia provides the United States with intelligence on Somalia. Viewing Ethiopia as an integral ally in the Global War on Terror, the United States is content with providing assistance in exchange for anti-terrorist policies and intelligence sharing. Just as Ethiopia was a pawn for the United States against communism, a pawn for the Soviet Union against capitalism, it is now a useful “ally” for the United States (again) against terrorism. In exchange for these policies, Ethiopia receives aid, enabling the states illiberality and impeding democratization through purporting the current regime.

Conclusion

While colonialism derailed the tracks countless countries were following, it should not be viewed as the sole reason for authoritarianism in the developing world. The case of Ethiopia demonstrates that authoritarian durability is not a direct result of formal colonialism. Instead, a scientific view of the mechanisms of authoritarianism and the organization of individuals living in these systems provides us with a much better explanation. It is the need to secure the loyalties of essential backers that purports authoritarianism in sub-Saharan Africa. Colonialism explains why states that may initially have democratized failed to do so, but it does not explain why states in the developing world that had gone un-colonized, such as Ethiopia, failed the democratic project as well. The machinations of colonialism are indeed at play, but it is the subtleness of neo-colonial bilateral aid agreements, and how they enable authoritarian leaders to maintain their rule in exchange for policy concessions that explains the continual failure of robust democratization to take hold in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Economics of Sanctions: Half Measures, Tit-for-Tat Strategies, and Why North Korea is Not Iran

On September 9th, 2016, North Korea conducted what South Korean and Japanese estimates called its biggest nuclear test to date, with a nuclear yield equivalent to approximately 10 kilotons of TNT (the bomb dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima had a yield of about 15 kilotons). The international community, including the United States, was quick to condemn the test, and calls for new rounds of sanctions came immediately, almost reflexively, and as if it was understood exactly what these calls were requesting. The actual mechanics of sanctions, however, are often hidden behind catchphrases such as “snap back,” “tough,” “tightening,”or “loosening.” While these phrases give one a general idea as to what a sanction is and how it works, an explanation of the actual workings of any given set of sanctions would certainly go further in explaining their severity and meaning.

The term “economic sanctions” refers to the deliberate withdrawal of economic activity that, in the absence of the sanctions, would have probably occurred. The intent, essentially, is to change policy via the punishment of an individual or group. However, the effectiveness of sanctions in achieving their goals has not received unanimous support following the Second World War, and it is not clear whether their success rate should be considered anything beyond marginal.

However, despite their dubious track record, one should not expect the use of sanctions to cease for the foreseeable future, as the enforcement of economic sanctions carries political benefits for powerful world leaders. Retaliating against a perceived wrong with sanctions offers displeased leaders an option that is more coercive than a one-off statement of protest, but less antagonistic than direct military action. Playing this middle ground is domestically popular, and allows a country to convincingly declare its displeasure with a given government or set of individuals without getting their military’s boots dirty.

As a way of modeling the process of sanctions, one can think of the threat of sanctions as a game played between two countries; the sender and the target. Consider the following, where the numbers to the left of each comma refer to the payoffs realized by the sending country at a given outcome, and numbers on the right refer to the payoffs of the target country at the same outcome. For example, at the outcome in the top left where each country cooperates (C,C), the sending country receives a payoff of 5, and the target country a payoff of 1. Of course, the exact numbers of 5 and 1 are not tied to any specific real world measurement, but rather just show that both parties prefer to be in the cooperative stage than in, say, the punishment stage (C,D) in the bottom right.

If this were a one shot game, we would expect a result akin to the prisoner’s dilemma, as the target of sanctions would benefit more by defecting, regardless of the strategy of the sender. Knowing this, the sender will choose a punitive strategy to receive a payoff of 0 instead of cooperating for a payoff of -1. However, assuming multiple iterations of the game, both the sender and target country would seek to maximize their payout over an indefinite time horizon, rather than just grabbing as much as they can in one shot. This requires both players to consider the effect that their actions today have on payouts in the future when evaluating the costs and benefits of a given action.

If the sender’s threat of indefinite punitive action in response to deviation is credible (and in this case it is, as the payout of punitive action is preferable to continued cooperation, so long as the target country continues to defect), and the costs that this punitive action inflicts upon the target country will be greater over an indefinite time horizon than the benefits from deviating once, then it is not in the interest of the target country to defect. Given the payoffs in the game above, so long as the game is played more than 3 times after the target country’s deviation, it is not in the interest of the target country to deviate.

This strategy of cooperating until the other player defects is referred to as a “tit-for-tat” strategy, named after the sender’s strategy of only punishing the target when they deviate from the status quo. Economic sanctions are a “tit-for-tat” game between a (usually more powerful) sender country and a target country, where the sender threatens to punish the target via two principal methods: upsetting the target’s trade balance and impeding the target’s financial infrastructure. Upsetting the target’s trade balance is perhaps the more straightforward example, given that this strategy simply aims to either limit the target’s exports or impede its ability to import certain resources. In so doing, the sender attempts to deny the target either the raw materials or tax revenue that it otherwise would have received, thus raising the costs of the target’s disliked policy. In theory, trade sanctions will work if these costs outweigh the benefits of the target’s disliked policy.

However, this type of sanction requires a limited market for the goods that the sender wishes to restrict. If other countries are willing to buy the target’s exports, or if the sender does not own a significant market share of the good that it wishes to keep the target from importing, then the effectiveness of these sanctions will be limited. Additionally, the coercive power of trade sanctions is inversely related to the price of the good the sender is restricting. If the price falls by half its original value six months after the sender country begins sanctions, the target may replenish their original supply at half cost, severely limiting the coercive influence of the sanction. Similarly, if the price of the target’s export rises significantly during sanctions, the target will better be able to accommodate the sanctions.

Impeding the target’s financial infrastructure however, presents a more flexible sanctioning strategy. Financial sanctions generally involve either the freezing of assets of particular individuals involved in the sanction-triggering activity, or the termination of subsidies from the sender previously sent to the target country. Financial sanctions are more difficult for the target to evade, particularly if the target country is embroiled in political or economic instability, or for some other reason may find it difficult to establish new lines of credit. Additionally, deploying financial sanctions allows the sender to better target particular individuals who are either involved in the action that triggered the sanctions or who have a direct ability to address the action, such as politicians and business elites.

Sanctions enforced as a punitive response to the development of nuclear weapons function the same way, as the sanctions aim to raise the overall costs of pursuing the development of nuclear weapons above the overall benefits that that country would receive if they did develop nuclear weapons, all while minimizing the effect of those sanctions on third parties and the economy of the sender country. In game theoretic terms, the target deviates by pursuing nuclear weapons, and the sender country looks to punish this deviation harshly enough to keep the target from choosing the deviation strategy now or in the future. It is important to note that there are certainly non-economic benefits at play in these scenarios such political prestige or regional hegemony, but the punishment strategy of economic sanctions looks to raise the economic costs of the deviation high enough to override whatever benefits might come from an active pursual of nuclear weapons.

Contemporary U.S.-Iranian relations represent a high profile, and tentatively successful example of economic sanctions being used to punish the pursual of nuclear technology. The United States assumed the role of the sender country after then-President Ahmadinejad chose a strategy of deviation by lifting the suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program. The U.S. punishment came in two waves, one in 2005 with Executive Order 13382, which froze the assets of individuals connected with Iran’s nuclear program that were held in the U.S., and one in 2010 with the passage of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act (CISADA), which further targeted individuals connected with the nuclear program, but also limited US reception of some of Iran’s key exports. After 2010, the U.S.’s sanctions targeted both the financial and trade sectors, draining the pockets of Iranian elite, and seeking to diminish Iranian exports of goods like oil, pistachios, and rugs. While effective due to the close ties the Iranian economy had to the sanctioned goods, the newly limited access to the U.S. market hurt third-party Iranians as well as those involved with the uranium enrichment program.

Nevertheless, despite the collateral damage of CISADA’s trade sanctions, it would be difficult to argue that they did not help to bring about the correction that the U.S. demanded, as the current President Rouhani’s victory in 2013 and positive reception to news of the lifting of sanctions in 2015 indicate a displeasure with the Ahmadinejad administration’s continued pursual of nuclear weapons in spite of the effects of the sanctions. Though perhaps imperfect, the U.S. eventually got the deal they were looking for. For its part, Iran has begun to reintroduce itself to world markets to the tune of a forecasted 5 percent overall GDP growth in 2016, despite the low worldwide price of oil. In game theoretic terms, the game has returned to an equilibrium of cooperation, with both players are receiving nonzero payoffs greater than in the punishment equilibrium.

However, all is not well with the rest of the world. Like Iran, the U.S. (along with much of the international community) has targeted North Korea with both financial and trade-focused sanctions. The assets of North Korean elites held abroad have been frozen over again and again, and the “direct or indirect” importation into the United States of any North Korean goods is prohibited as of President Obama’s Executive Order 13570 in 2011. However, while the U.S. and the international community have found new financial holdings to freeze and trade restrictions to impose time after time, North Korean officials have not shown any sign of relenting.

Of course, major differences exist between the domestic atmospheres of Iran and North Korea that may play a role in the international community’s inability to correct the deviation of the latter in the same way they have the former. Most importantly, Iran holds presidential elections every 4 years, where the public may voice their displeasure at the current government’s nuclear ambitions and remove them from office, replacing them with someone who opposes nuclear capabilities in favor of economic growth and a better reputation among its peers. North Korea, of course, does not have this luxury, and, short of a coup, Kim Jong-Un and his nuclear ambitions are here to stay so long as he wants them to. Additionally, the Iranian government is hurt more by trade-based sanctions than North Korea, as the Iranian government cannot function via black and grey markets as efficiently as Kim Jong-Un’s regime has proven to be able to.

A key difference, however, is that Iran can feasibly become a world player at some point down the road. As of right now, Iran controls the 4th largest reserve of oil in the world, is located in an enviable geopolitical location, and has taken advantage of the chaos of the region since the fall of Saddam Hussein to extend its influence. For many, a far-reaching imagination is not necessary to see Iran’s future as a serious player on the global stage at some point in the foreseeable future. By continuing its nuclear program, Iran jeopardized this capability by becoming a target for sanctions from the international community, contributing to miniscule or negative economic growth. In the end, the overall benefits of a return to the cooperative equilibrium were obvious, as this equilibrium better suited an Iran who wished to realize its international potential.

Given its limited land area, limited natural resources, and its lack of technological development compared to its peers, North Korea does not have a realistic chance to realize a similar level of global or regional influence. In fact, given the permanent nature of the regime and its apparent willingness to operate on the periphery of the world stage, financial or trade-based sanctions may offer very little additional costs for the North Korean government. In fact, fostering a scenario in which the whole world works against North Korea may serve Kim Jong-Un’s agenda quite well, substantiating his claimsthat the Western world is conspiring against North Korea. While it is tempting to simply “impose sanctions” on North Korea as punishment for their nuclear ambitions and play the middle ground between a statement of protest and military action, a closer look into what those sanctions would actually entail offers a bleak picture of their effectiveness. Granted, dealing with Pyongyang is a difficult task with no obvious answers, but instead of reflexively calling for another round of sanctions in response to the next successful nuclear test, one should offer a clear and comprehensive understanding of the truly unique situation that one finds in North Korea, and an explanation as to how exactly the next round of sanctions will stop or slow the development of a nuclear North Korea.

Cuffing the Invisible Hand: Private Industry’s Failings in the Pursuit of Profits

In terms of making the product, the magical invisible hand of the free market can take its course. Consumers can buy the product that they think tastes the best, has the most compelling packaging, or has a new, intriguing variation on the established norm. When it comes to the production of people’s lives, we have no incentive to protect the ability for private industry to profit off of people’s necessities. In industries like healthcare, education, even transportation, we should not bow our heads as subjects to the supposedly-omnipotent private industry.

We have ample evidence government is not only better at meeting the needs of its citizens, but it also is morally justifiable. Governments should be providing for the health and education of its people. When we make such industries public, we eliminate those looking to profit off of our necessities. The government should be competing with private industry to provide our energy, transportation, and other industries where people’s lives or livelihoods depend on the successful provision of the service – then it can provide the best possible services for its people and incentivize private industry to innovate and provide better services for people if they want to profit. The primary role of the government is to provide for its people, as opposed to a corporation whose primary goal is to make profits. If people are a source of profit, we can be squeezed and cramped into a more efficient airplane seat to create larger profit margins. The source of the disparity in the quality of service between private and public industry stems from the conditions for their relative successes; a company succeeds when it generates the largest profit, whereas a government succeeds when it provides for the needs of its people. In the interest of profit, the service or product provided by private industry has often been brought to the cutting block, yet that can change if private industry is forced to compete with the government. The government should be used to ensure that there are options for consumers that meet their needs without exploiting that necessity for extravagant profits. We have no reason to trust this supposed paternal invisible hand that will always guide the economy to take care of our needs. It is that same invisible hand of the free market that led to rat feces ending up in breakfast sausage and necessitated the creation of the FDA because private industry was trying to cut costs to maximize profits. We already know that we cannot allow our workers to be subjected to the ungloved hand of private industry. From child laborers to seven-day work weeks and 20-hour days, the federal government had to create regulations to protect workers from being abused and exploited by private industrialists in the pursuit of profits. Thus, after having to protect our health and happiness from private industry, why would we still falsely believe that private industry would provide a better service than the government could in cases where necessity instead of quality drives consumption? It is a fallacy to believe that we must protect the for-profit industry’s propensity to exploit and capitalize on the necessities that can be better provided by the government.

Let us take, for example, air travel. Which would provide better air travel, private or public industry? It is important to note that I am not discussing a new Ghana Airways Limited or any of the other small failed nationalized state airlines; I am talking about the full potential of the United States federal government being utilized to create the best airline they possibly could to compete with private industry to provide the best service possible. In the current situation, it doesn’t matter if we get to our destination as quickly as possible, it just matters how cheaply we can be brought to our destination while still paying extravagant ticket prices for the privilege to be crushed along with less than 24” of our belongings into the sweaty armpit of the passenger next to us. Private industry doesn’t care about providing the best service possible, it cares about providing the most profitable service possible. When private industry has a monopoly on a public responsibility it operates like a cartel, where all companies are so blinded by profit that they forget what service they are even supposed to be providing and just look to cut weight and space and streamline the profit margin as much as possible. How clean does the airplane really have to be? Because the consumer has no better option so they’ll sit right on that pile of crumbs left by three passengers prior. Furthermore, if the government is a competitor to airlines, it will incentivize them to provide a better service to consumers if they want to profit off of them As long as there is no other option passengers are captives to the hand of the free market taking another bill out of their wallets. Airlines are not interested if it’s faster to go straight from Chicago to New York as long as people are still willing to pay for their ticket – even if that ticket only buys them a seat barely as large as their body and the trip takes 8 hours with a 6-hour layover in Saskatchewan. We think that competition in the economy will always deliver us the best product, but as commentator Jim Hightower editorializes, “…oops — the bottom line of thinking you can simply apply corporate methods and ethics to public responsibilities is that very bad things can happen.” Instead of choosing whether or not to buy a product, in our modern society almost all Americans have to take an airplane at some point, and that necessity means that no matter how low the quality of the service provided is, passengers will still fly. Yet, why should we allow some already-rich executive to profit off our discomfort and the substandard unsatisfactory service provided? Public responsibilities can be better served by the government, and competing against the government can force private industry to heighten the quality of their service. The federal government can map flight plans and times so that there are quick and regular flights all over the nation. While many Americans will need to fly somewhere in their lives, only a small portion profit in our current system. Why should the profits of the vast minority of Americans necessitate the lack of quality and affordable service to the majority? As of now, if a company develops a new innovation to get you from coast to coast in the nation in an hour, they would put an exorbitant price tag on it and limit the seats as to ensure that demand is always high, guarding the technology with their life in the interest of profit. If the government administered an airline with the interests of the people at its heart then technology could be used to benefit Americans the instant it is developed. The government’s intentions are to provide the best service to its citizens, as opposed to the airline whose only goal is to make more money than their competition. Ever since the Nixon and Reagan administrations, privatization has been the vogue in America; where we can cut federal spending and involvement we have, yet there is little evidence that private industry actually benefits the regular citizen, while there is ample that it benefits the rich executives. The New Economics Foundation elucidates that “[p]rivate sector dynamism versus public sector inefficiency has been the dominant political narrative of the last few decades. It has supplied the excuse for repeated, one-directional upheaval in many of the services that we rely on, and which are essential to our quality of life.” The pursuit of profits has perverted the goals of providing necessary services. The current government, even without entering into the industry, could easily force airlines to better provide for the public good, but it currently pulls in $116 billion in tax revenues yearly off of the compromised public good from airlines. Instead of paying extravagant ticket prices for something that almost all of society uses, we could split the cost between all of us and create a government airline. A federal airline could have ticket prices low enough to force private industry to either lower their prices to be competitive or provide substantially better service to merit the price. When we are paying for a service that we will see the direct benefit of, we have ample examples of how Americans don’t mind paying for it. That is because the government is not like a company that is going to abuse us to shave decimals off costs. The public good is not a public resource that we have to protect the propensity to benefit off of; instead, government should be a competitor forcing private industry to do a better job providing for citizens’ needs than the government can to make a profit.

A democratic republic government like the one we have in the United States exists by the people, thus it is accountable to them and holds the interest of the people as its first priority. Take hydraulic fracturing, for example. Many Americans are firmly against the practice, despite it being a monumental technological advancement, which could open the door to potentially more than a century of resources, as President Obama said of the innovation in 2011, “…the potential here is enormous.” Yet, Americans are understandably opposed to fracking because in its current manifestation it exists for the profit of already-wealthy energy executives. Instead of seeing lower energy costs and a majorly energy self-sufficient nation, Americans might see rivers catching on fire. If the government were to facilitate fracking, being accountable to the American people opposed to shareholders and executives, there would be increased transparency and less cost cutting. The goal of an energy corporation is to profit off of a resource, thus the cheaper it can procure that resource, the more it profits. This results in fewer safety measures and environmental considerations because public safety is a public good, existing unprotected to be exploited by the business for profit. The government, on the other hand, has the primary goal of extracting the resource to benefit its constituents. Thus, it will not be looking to exploit the public good for profit because the public goal is in its best interests. Take the example of the sale of narcotics. When it is not regulated, it exists only for the profit of the drug dealer, with no consideration of the customer. Yet, in Colorado, where the government put limits and regulations on the sale of marijuana, its sale has been widely successful. Indeed, the regulation of the industry has been a further boon to citizens for beyond protecting their safety, the taxes collected from the industry in Colorado have gone towards funding education. Fracking exists in the exact same vein. Without government intervention, there is no incentive for consumer considerations, as the end goal – profit – is the primary interest. If the government were to step in, even if simply competing against private industry instead of taking full control, it could still forcibly protect the best interests of its people. Even simply regulating the practices of private industry and taxing their profits can help ensure that citizens health is protected and their needs are better met. President Obama is referenced in Daniel Yergin’s book on modern energy policy The Quest to say that fracking holds “…enormous potential to provide economic and environmental benefits for the country,” yet in its current manifestation we sacrifice efficiency and environmental considerations to allow individuals to cut costs and destroy the environment for everyone for their own personal benefit by surrendering control of the industry to the free market.

We further surrender the good of the American people to line the pockets of executives by giving up on our own problems and throwing them to private industry to profit off of instead of addressing them. Charter schools are the premier example of this complacency. It is easy to take something that is flawed and difficult to rectify such as our education system and toss it off to the free market, telling ourselves that it will be better than our government at fixing its problems. But since when has the education of our young people been something worth capitulating and giving up on Instead of actually believing that private industry will do a better job of educating our youths, politicians simply tire of searching for solutions. Instead of investing in our education system they delegate the task to the free market. Yet, what is lost is the end goal of the process. When the government facilitates education, they have no incentive to do anything but provide students with the best education possible, as it should be. Private industry, on the other hand, is a racketeering business. When corners are cut in our children’s education futures are lost. The education of the future leaders of our nation of our nation should never be a source of revenue, and their education is not something that we can risk entrusting to ventures that have ulterior motives. A report from the National Education Policy Center elucidated the problems of running education like a business, explaining that “when we begin to think of schools as business, then test scores are a measure of profitability. Indeed, students of teachers who get high achievement scores are rewarded in the same way that employees earn bonuses. But when scores are low, it is analogous to an unprofitable business, which might mean layoffs, store closings, and fired staff.” Indeed, these are not abstract fears, they are concrete realities that have lasting ramifications for the young people whose education is put in jeopardy by lackadaisical politicians reticent to address the problems in our education system and too quick to pass it off to become someone else’s problem. In Florida, from 2008-2014 119 charter schools closed, 14 of which never even made it through an entire school year. One charter school was repeatedly kicked out of buildings that they rented classroom space from. Perpetually plagued with a lack of ample space, they took students on daily field trips to ensure that students were not in classes that lacked the room to accommodate them. The desire of the executives to make a profit overshadowed the desire of the executives to properly educate the students they were given. Their wallets were filled at the price of the education of students because, like a business, as long as someone is buying the product,  the quality of the product, or the education, doesn’t matter (in this case states that don’t want to deal with education students themselves and consistently feed charter schools customers). Yet education isn’t a Hot Wheels car; if the wheels fall off, students’ futures are lost. Education motivated by profit, not by the desire to educate the students, leads to corners being cut where they cannot afford to be. The Harvard Business Review made the argument in 1991 that “a profit-seeking operation may not, for example, choose to provide healthcare to the indigent or extend education to poor or learning-disabled children.” In the more than two decades since, we have seen ample examples that further support this claim. Charter schools have spearheaded attempts to cut the cost of education, which have only succeeded in cutting into the education of our young people. The only reason that charter schools have seen a rise in prevalence is the propagation of the false idea that our education system is struggling because of some inherent failing in government. While there is still work that remains to be done, our government is the most effective actor we have at addressing the problems that exist. It not only has the funds to invest without fear of sacrificing profit margins in our children’s education, but it also has the most integrous motivation to do the work. Private industry can be a player on the field of education, but we should not be supplanting public education with profit-motivated education. Private industry is an important part of the equation only when it provides a better education than the government can, which charter schools clearly do not. Instead of taking a problem we don’t want to address and sacrificing the education of our young people for the privilege of not having to deal with it and for the profit of private industry executives, we should reinvest in public education.

The entire argument against privatization can be summarized by the maxim: You cannot risk the good of the public to allow for profit. When major government failings exist, they stand out because they are anomalies, not the norm. That is because the government has the resources it needs to be effective at its primary job – providing the best services possible for its people. Look at examples such as the national parks, or the U.S. Institute for Peace; when we aggregate the funds of all citizens the government can afford to invest in creating the best institutions it can to provide for its people. Take prisons and healthcare, for example, by allowing for both to be privatized we are allowing for individuals to profit off of the institutions without any direct benefit, as the private manifestations of both provide no better quality of service at significantly higher overall cost. When prisons are a source of profit, their goal ceases to be rehabilitating offenders into society, for they profit off of filling their prisons and thus are incentivized to encourage recidivism and systematically-broken justice systems. The same is true, as discussed above, of oil and education, where privatization has only benefitted the gross minority without providing any benefit to the populous as a whole. Prisons and healthcare are just two examples of industries where the public good depends on quality of the services provided, and they government competing with private industry can force an adherence to high standards of quality. As highlighted by The Atlantic, “Each side of the divide has strengths and weaknesses, but in every case the public sector is providing something the private sector cannot: A backup that's there if and when you need it; a benchmark for private providers; and a backstop to make sure costs don't spin out of control.” We should welcome government’s entrance into private sectors so that it can compete against private industry with its superior budget and sound motivation. That is not to say that it can always provide the best service, but it can keep private industry accountable by providing for the public good without looking to profit off of it. Then, if private industry is capable of competing to provide for the public good better than government, it can be allowed to profit off doing so. Instead of sacrificing the public good to allow for profits, the government can incentivize private industry to compete to profit by innovating to provide for citizens better than the government can. Government competition with private industry does not eliminate the propensity to profit, it simply changes how private industry can profit for the better. Instead of attempting to profit by cutting corners when they know people are forced to give them business, private industry can compete to do the best job of providing for the people.

The government has the potential to provide for the good of its people better than private industry because it is not looking to profit off of doing so and it has the budget to fund the most effective services possible. Yet, too often we protect the potential for profit because of the fallacy that all Americans can profit. In reality, only a fraction of a percentage of Americans will benefit while all of the rest lose out to give them the opportunity to do so. We see ourselves not as a nation of haves and have-nots, we see ourselves as a nation of haves and maybe-someday-could-haves. We protect private industry’s right to profit off of the public good because we hope to one day profit too, ignoring the major failings of the free market in the interest of profits. By using power of the federal government to invest in providing the best service possible we will not eliminate private industry but instead will alter how it can profit. Instead of profiting off of Americans forced to use their service, they can still profit by achieving the same thing the government looks to: providing the best service possible for Americans. Instead of supplanting government with private industry to eschew problems we do not want to work to fix, we can allow for competition between government and private industry to provide the best result for American citizens and protect the integrity of the public good.

Al-Qaeda’s Looming Operational Comeback: Why al-Qaeda is Still More Dangerous Than the Islamic State

The Islamic State is currently the hot topic in regards to global terrorism, surpassing the infamous al-Qaida, and for good reason. Al-Qaeda has been slowly diminishing in power, and the death of key leaders, including such notable personalities such as Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Nasir al-Wuhayshi, as a result of United States drone strikes and special operations raids, have been a huge factor towards this. Also adding to the overshadowing of al-Qaeda is the fact that the Islamic State’s brand of violence is sensational and captures violence in a way that al-Qaeda hasn’t. While al-Qaeda has conducted its fair share of gruesome and public executions (mostly through recorded beheadings), the Islamic State has done that and much more. The violence of the Islamic State crosses boundaries, literally and figuratively. However, this status is temporary. Al-Qaeda is set to make a comeback once the Islamic State fails, and indeed the Islamic State’s failure is inevitable, leaving its legacy and existence short lived. Territory that was previously gained is now being lost at a steady pace, and the groups funding is becoming more and more difficult to find. The Islamic State’s recent and sudden rise to fame came very quickly, setting upon the global stage seemingly out of nowhere. Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, has been operational for almost 30 years, and its fame and notoriety was brought about through literally decades of determination and commitment. The very nature of the group as a whole has enables al-Qaeda to remain formidable, and because of this, al-Qaeda will again become the most dangerous international terrorist organization in the coming years.

First, it is necessary to acknowledge the histories of the two organizations and their relationship with each other. Al-Qaeda has its origins in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Osama bin Laden was one of many Salafist Jihadists who traveled to Afghanistan in order to fight with the Mujahedeen, a loosely organized affiliation of Jihadists all wishing to fight the Soviet invaders and the Soviet-supported Afghanistan government. Learning from his experiences from fighting with the Mujahedeen, bin Laden sought to permanently change the way Jihad was fought.

By targeting the Western nations that continue to prop up the corrupt or un-Islamic governments throughout the Middle East, the “Far Enemy” (as bin Laden referred to them) would eventually lose interest in meddling with Middle Eastern affairs and withdraw their support from the governments there. The “apostate” governments that plagued Muslims throughout the world would inevitably fall, paving the way for another great Islamic Empire and a new political order, akin to the global political environment of the 7thcentury. His answer on how to make this happen was the creation of a small, elite force of Jihadist fighters who would conduct the necessary attacksthat would help topple these governments. In 1988, bin Laden gathered his followers from the Mujahedeen and created al-Qaeda, which literally translates to “the base,” referring to their Salafist ideological desire to return the Muslim world to a political order based on what they view as Islam’s fundamental roots. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that bin Laden refocused al-Qaeda to start conducting attacks solely against Western targets.

The Islamic State has its origins as a Jordanian militant jihadist organization by the name of Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or JTJ. The group was founded in 1999 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who later focused the group’s attention to Iraq after the U.S invasion in 2003. Zarqawi, already an associate of bin Laden from their time together in Afghanistan, eventually pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and officially changed the group’s name to al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI. This new partnership allowed al-Qaeda to more effectively organize and conduct attacks as part of the growing insurgency in Iraq.

It wasn’t long, however, before friction between the two groups began to arise, despite Zarqawi’s pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda. Severe ideological differences and conflicts began to plague the relationship soon after the alliance was formed. Bin Laden wished for Zarqawi to focus solely on attacking government and Western targets in Iraq, particularly the United States. However, Zarqawi insisted on creating a massive sectarian conflict in Iraq by targeting “apostate” Shia Muslims as well. While not completely counter to his own ideology, bin Laden thought that this tactic was counterproductive to the more immediate goals of the organization and would eventually lead to a drop in popular support.

In January 2006, Zarqawi initiated the merger between AQI and another large insurgent faction, the Mujahedeen Shura Council, which was itself a collection of various Sunni militias. The merger greatly increased AQI’s capabilities and manpower, but also made the group an even larger target. The following June, Zarqawi was killed by a U.S airstrike. The previous leader of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and an Egyptian born al-Qaida veteran, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, both took over as the new leaders of AQI and renamed the organization the Islamic State of Iraq, or ISI. When they were both killed in the same U.S ground operation in April 2010, a prominent yet reserved jihadist named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took over, taking on the daunting (and increasingly dangerous) role of keeping the group functional and focused despite huge setbacks. Soon after the Syrian Civil War broke out in 2011, ISI expanded operations into Syria as well, changing the name of the organization once more into the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, with al-Baghdadi declaring himself the Caliph, the sole authority of Islam on earth. It was in this expansion that Al-Baghdadi’s leadership conflicts within al-Qaeda reached a climax. Al-Zawahiri, the successor to bin Laden, cut all ties with ISIS after al-Baghdadi refused to disband the organization and fall in line behind the al-Nusra Front, the primary al-Qaeda organization operating in Syria. In response, al-Baghdadi declared al-Nusra as yet one more enemy to be fought.

Aside from ideological disparities, operational differences also played a role in the rift between the two organizations. Al-Qaeda remains focusedon targeting the Far Enemy and striving for collective unity amongst jihadist groups, hoping that this will lead to the eventual collapse of corrupt apostate regimes. The Islamic State, on the other hand, views itself as a leader among other jihadist organizations and seeks to obtain actual territorial ground and exert influence organically while directly targeting apostate regimes on the battlefield.

This involves not only a more conventional kind of warfare, but also extremely sensational violence to set itself apart from other jihadist groups. Shia Muslims, Yazidi’s, Christians, and other ethnic and religious minorities were all victims (and still are) of this new approach, suffering a brutal genocide that plagued any territory under ISIS control. Multitudes of Iraqi government workers were executed. Thousands of captured Iraqi soldiers were blindfolded, marched to a field, and massacred all at once. Suspected homosexuals were forced to leap off of multiple story buildings. Women were shot in the street without hesitation for suspected prostitution, or even for merely wearing red, and were tortured for breastfeeding in public. Minority women, when they weren’t killed with their families, were sold into sex slavery. Children were crucified for taking pictures or having phones. A captured Jordanian pilot was locked in a cage and set on fire. All of these atrocious incidents and more are confirmation of the truly outstanding sensational violence that distinguishes ISIS from other like-minded groups. Even al-Qaida, a group which infamously conducted the single most sensational act of terrorist violence the world has ever witnessed on September 11th, 2001, were put off by these practices and admonished them for being too extreme.

Aside from the Middle East, the Islamic State has been able to successfully conduct attacks throughout Europe. The multiple deadly attacks in France and Belgium illustrate the Islamic State’s goal of also targeting the Far Enemy. However, there is a key distinction to be made here. Al-Qaeda’s reasoning for targeting the West is ultimately more political than the motivations for the Islamic State. While al-Qaeda attacks the U.S and Europe in order to convince the West to stop attacking Islam and meddling in Middle Eastern affairs, the Islamic State’s motivations are more religious in nature and are actually meant to provoke the West into persecuting and attacking Muslims, which they believe will create the conditions necessary to bring about the prophesized apocalypse. Regardless, both motivations and strategies rely on only a small number of operational cells and radicalized lone wolves.

Attempting to wage a conventional war means that the Islamic State must be able to capture and hold territory, as well as maintain a continuous source of funding. Although the Islamic State has the ability to directly tax residents in its territory and have its own oil trade thanks to its seizure of strategic oil fields, these sources of funding hinge on the Islamic State’s ability to hold territory for a prolonged period of time. So when land or cities are lost, so is funding. And with the exception of early successes, the Islamic State is quickly losing its grip on important territory. Pressure from the U.S-led coalition airstrikes and special operations actions, as well as the gaining momentum and successes of the Iraqi Army and Kurdish forces, are slowly dwindling the Islamic State’s control. As territory continues to be lost and resources run dry, the Islamic State will have to revert back to unconventional warfare. Members will go underground, blend back into society, and continue to plot deadly terrorist attacks. Recent trends show that this is already beginning to happen.

Since al-Qaeda is already operating in the underground realm in many of the same regions as the Islamic State, it is able to take advantage of an already established and effective operational flow, which itself is boosted by the decreased competition due to the Islamic State’s decline. To fund its operations, al-Qaeda relies primarily on international donors, ransoms, charity scams, and other miscellaneous financial crimes. While this may not add up to much, al-Qaeda’s decentralized nature actually limits the fallback from this, as many al-Qaeda cells depend on personal relationships and other forms of self-funding. As Islamic State fighters continue to face both operational and financial defeats, many of them will eventually gravitate towards al-Qaeda and take advantage of its willingness to work with other groups, involving themselves in these underground networks. Over time, they will eventually commit and defect back towards al-Qaeda.

Not only that, but al-Qaeda is doing more to win the “hearts and minds” of the Muslim population. This is best exemplified by the drastically different approaches the two organizations have taken in operations across the Middle East. When the Islamic State was destroying ancient Syrian temples and smashing timeless pieces of art, the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front opened up a “Relief Department,” helping to provide food, healthcare, and even children’s playgrounds to the Syrian people affected by the civil war. When al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, acquired an additional $100 million through a bank robbery in Yemen, they used the money to improve the infrastructure and eliminate taxes for the Yemeni citizens living under their control.

Al-Qaeda could have very easily invested that money to fund a large sensational attack, as the Islamic State has done, but instead used it to improve the lives of Muslims. Al-Qaeda recognizes the value of winning the hearts and minds of people who may be wary of giving support to an overt terrorist organization. The Islamic State, on the other hand, is largely in the practice of mass executing those who do not immediately pledge support and allegiance to their self-proclaimed Caliph.

Despite recent operational hindrances, al-Qaeda strives on and remains determined to conduct attacks around the globe, and is seeing some successes. Operations in the Arabian Peninsula are ongoing and successful. AQAP has successfully been exploiting the current conflict in Yemen with little to no resistance, while also continuing to build public support as a legitimate source of governance in an otherwise unstable country.

Operations in Syria are steadfast, despite constant engagement with multiple formidable opponents including the Islamic State, the Syrian Government, various Syrian rebel groups, Iranian-backed militias, and Russian and American airstrikes. The al-Nusra Front has displayed excellent organization as well as operational and logistical prowess at a level that the Islamic State fails to match, and exhibited the ability to attract support and cooperation from groups who do not necessarily agree with its ideology.

In Africa, new surges in recruitment and a violent wave of attacks in Libya and Tunisia show an increase in capabilities and gaining momentum in the region. Al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda affiliated organizations, such as al-Shabaab, are conducting a steady stream of attacks on government officials throughout other parts of Africa, particularly in Somalia and Kenya. Competition with Islamic State affiliated organizations, such as Boko Haram, is existent but dwindling as the Islamic State loses its ability to send support to such factions. Al-Qaeda has even begun to exhibit limited cooperation and pooling of resources with Boko Haram and al-Shabaab, further increasing their own capabilities.

Al-Qaeda’s structure and strategy has always been decentralized, especially since 9/11. This poses operational challenges, but the group has been able to overcome them despite leadership failures. It also serves as a strength, and helps the group maintain longevity. Unlike the Islamic State, al-Qaeda has never attempted to claim an exclusive authority on global Jihad, but rather seeks to act as a unifier of jihadist groups towards a common goal. Some of these groups, like AQAP or AQI, currently use or have used the “al-Qaeda” brand name. Others, such as al-Shabaab, do not, and were even instructed by bin Laden not to adopt the name, as an attempt to avert Western attention.

Another example of this is when al-Zawahiri sanctioned Jabhat al-Nusra’s official split from al-Qaeda as part of a deliberate global strategy. Operationally, this split did nothing. The relationship still exists and al-Qaeda still functionally acts as a supporter to Jabhat al-Nusra, which has recently rebranded itself and changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. This was done purposefully as an attempt to thwartinternational attention since it is no longer “officially” linked to al-Qaeda.

However, because of the rebranding, other small groups that are fighting the Syrian government may now be more willing to create pacts and align themselves with the group. This complements the already existing attitude among these Syrian groups that the al-Qaeda affiliated organization is much more inclusive, cooperative, and easier to work with than the Islamic State. This speaks towards the heart of and truly exemplifies al-Qaeda’s broad global strategy: unify jihadists everywhere in order to effectively dismantle the apostate regimes. The Islamic State’s more forceful and conquering strategy is starkly different.

As ISIS falters and loses credibility as the mantle of global Jihad, al-Qaeda will jump at the opportunity to reap any benefits to be had. Financiers, foreign fighters, and radicalized recruits will begin to turn their attention towards al-Qaeda once more. Al-Zawahiri certainly isn’t as charismatic or adept a leader as bin Laden, but the decentralized nature of the organization limits any direct fallout from this. Al-Qaeda has essentially transformed itself into a series of loosely organized movements fighting under the al-Qaeda name. And because of the broad disposition of al-Qaeda’s ideology, nearly every independent movement is able to align itself with al-Qaeda very easily.

The United States and its allies have mostly focused efforts on the Islamic State, and while they maybe haven’t completely ignored al-Qaeda as a threat, it certainly seems that way. While this is understandable, it’s also a mistake. Al-Qaeda has benefited from the distracted attention generated by the obnoxious activities of the Islamic State. The Islamic State certainly remains a critical threat to stability in the Middle East and U.S interests abroad, but it is al-Qaeda that remains the greater danger against the United States homeland. Their determination to strike at the Far Enemy, their willingness to pool resources and cooperate with other terrorist groups, and their projected growing capability to do so, puts al-Qaeda in a prime position to strike.

The Islamic State is indeed an extremely violent organization and remains a serious threat to global security, and deadly attacks in France, Belgium, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere are testament to its determination to wage Jihad despite setbacks on its home front in Iraq and Syria. However, the future of the Islamic State looks bleak. The Islamic State is extremely intolerant of other jihadist groups if their ideology differs in any measure, and seeks to be the sole authority of Jihad, and therefore sees themselves as the only legitimate Jihadist group. Not only is this very polarizing (you are either part of the Islamic State or you are their enemy), but it eliminates the possibility of forging important alliances. This is crucial if they wish to grow and make significant expansions outside of the Middle East (and even so within the Middle East). If the momentum from the U.S-led coalition and the Iraqi Army holds, the Islamic State will continue to lose territory, popular support, resources, and manpower. Without any allies to turn to, the more moderate-leaning Islamic State fighters and leaders will take what resources they have left and eventually find their way back towards al-Qaeda and its affiliates (specifically Jabhat Fatah al-Sham), creating an even stronger and more robust al-Qaeda organization.

Al-Qaeda has been operational for almost 30 years, despite fighting two separate and prolonged wars against two different superpowers and their allies across the globe, as well as major leadership deaths and failures. As an organization, al-Qaeda isn’t going anywhere, and only seeks to benefit from the dismantling of the Islamic State. Its continued determination to strike at the Far Enemy makes this expectation even more concerning.

A False Sense of Democracy: Dilma Rousseff as a Scapegoat in Brazil

As Dilma Rousseff steps down from her position as the first female President of Brazil, some speculate that this is a victory for democracy and a step in the right direction. The removal, instigated by an impeachment trial and shrouded by rumors of corruption and fiscal violations, comes after a two-year process headed by the former president of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha. Rousseff was the primary choice of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a man now facing corruption charges of his own. And at the time, she had taken up the mantle as leader of the leftist Workers’ Party, her election proving to be an enormous exercise in democratic election.

By appearances, Rousseff is being brought down from a legacy of corruption during a period of significant economic turmoil and a lack of consistent popularity—so what’s the issue? Perhaps this victory is only a superficial one; although Rousseff is not a pure or innocent figure in this mess, she is hardly the larger culprit—and what does it mean for the future when the bigger criminals in the game are the ones orchestrating the legal efforts?

A Troubled Foundation

Although Rousseff’s election was democratic, it was hardly a unanimous event. According to a Huffington Post account of the vote, she won with 54.5 million votes of the 143 million possible; however, competition against candidate Aécio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party lost her roughly another 50 million votes. According to that same report, if one accounts for abstentions, blank, null, and protest votes, as well as those voting for Neves, then Rousseff did not win by a majority at all.

At the same time these voting numbers were taking place, Brazil was under the impression that, following Rousseff’s term, the Workers’ Party would continue to see dominance in the 2018 campaign of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is Rousseff’s predecessor and arguably one of the biggest icons of the Workers’ Party. 2014 has since passed, however, and the situation is far darker. Currently, Lula da Silva—affectionately known as Lula—is now the subject of his own investigation. Federal prosecutors have filed corruption charges against him on several accounts, and in particular corrupt kickbacks and donations in relation to the Brazilian oil giant, Petrobras.

Lula and Rousseff have quite a bit in common when it comes to problems with Petrobras. Prosecutors in Lula’s case claim that he did not pocket illegal funds during his presidency, but rather gave it to oil executives, Workers’ Party leaders, and lawmakers, all with the intention of sustaining the strength of the Party. Rousseff, on the other hand, has claimed that the nature of her impeachment is uncalled for, and akin to a coup; her crime was a series of budgetary tricks to hide the growing economic deficit. These allocations amounted to some $11 billionborrowed from state banks to fund social programs associated with the Workers’ Party.

Rouseff’s involvement with Petrobras is a bit more complicated, and requires a timeline. Rousseff was chairman of Petrobras between 2003 and 2010, when plenty of the corruption in Petrobras recently revealed by Operation Car Wash took place. Operation Car Wash, pursued by Brazilian law enforcement to pursue and discover bribes in R$6.2 billion, is currently leading to massive internal upheaval in Brazil as dozens of significant figures are implicated. In the larger picture, Rousseff’s fall is far, but she is one of many.

Behind the Curtain

The question is not whether or not Dilma Rousseff has done anything wrong—that is almost certainly true. Although her impeachment rests on the grounds of her decisions surrounding budgetary reallocation, Petrobras’s vast corruption allegations also largely took place under her purview. What makes the impeachment trial tenuous, and subsequently makes its value and contribution to the advancement of democracy questionable, is the driving force behind it. The face of the impeachment trial thus far has been Eduardo Cunha, an evangelical Christian radio commentator and former speaker of the lower house. Accompanying Cunha is Mr. Michel Temer, the interim president and former vice president of Rousseff, a member of the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party.

Since his vigorous assault of Rousseff’s qualification to retain her position, Cunha has faced legal charges of his own. The lower house of Congress in Brazil, of which Cunha is a former speaker, has since voted to expel the lawmaker on the grounds of graft charges. The vote was perilous to Cunha, coming in at 450 to 10; this sudden change means that, amongst other things, Cunha will lose the legal privileges of a federal legislator and can now face imprisonment. Mr. Temer, meanwhile, has so many ties to Rousseff and the Workers’ Party that he already stands on a perilous edge, and holds approval ratings as low as Rousseff’s due to his conservative inclinations and racial biases.

In fact, the men who have accompanied Mr. Temer in his rise to power have already begun to resign: his anticorruption minister and his planning minister, ironically, have forcibly resigned due to allegations that they attempted to use their powers to stifle investigations surrounding Petrobras and Operation Car Wash. Mr. Temer is technically set to hold his position for the duration of Rousseff’s original term, through 2018, but with the increasing scandal it is unclear if he will stay in power.

But Wasn’t This Democratic?

Brazil’s current situation is representative of a few things. The first, that when a state has a significantly diverse population, multiple candidates, and a voting populace who also submits null or blank votes in droves, the democratically elected candidate is not necessarily always the one that the greatest majority of the state actually desired. Now, this is as much a criticism on the system as it is the behavior of the people. Voter apathy is nothing new, though—nations around the world who identify as democratic regularly contend with the struggle to elect the most largely desirable and representative candidate, and to combat issues such as voting numbers, turnout, and legitimate nominations (i.e., null votes over fake names, fictional people, etc.). Brazil’s situation is critical because, amidst these democratic struggles, hidden layers of corruption are constantly shifting and maneuvering to take control of resources.

Eduardo Cunha’s position as a leader in Rousseff’s impeachment immediately calls it into question not only because of possible political machinations (rather than simple integrity-based questioning), but because Cunha himself is a culprit of corrupt dealings. And although Rousseff has made mistakes, her errors are by no means the most damaging—she is but a fish in the sea, so far as corruption in Brazil is concerned. However, the time for questioning the validity of Rousseff’s impeachment is past; Mr. Temer has taken up her seat, so to speak, and now the future of Brazil is in question, particularly given the fragility of its economy.

The curiosity here is that this has all been regarded as democratic. If we define democracy in general terms, in that it promotes majority rule with prioritization of values such as justice and liberty, and a representation of equal minority rights, then it is hard to say that any of this has really been democratic. By numbers, it is exciting to say that a country with 143 million eligible voters engaged in a democratic election to vote for a woman to be president. However, the reality is far more complicated: Dilma Rousseff was the pre-selected choice of former president Lula de Silva, a man who had championed the Workers’ Party, a larger body that has dominated much of Brazilian politics over the last decade. That Rousseff won, then, was no real shock; although she clearly had competition, it would be foolish to say that she won standing on her own two feet, or that her efforts were purely her own.

Furthermore, Mr. Temer’s failure to name a single woman or Afro-Brazilian to his cabinet of ministers, as well as his own recent legal troubles—having been found guilty of violating campaign finance limits—is hardly a nod in the right direction either. Rousseff did not have a significant or decisive victory, but it seems unlikely that Mr. Temer would be president at all had he not succeeded based on the claims afforded him as vice president. What ought to be a purification of corruption from the leading ranks of Brazil is instead a very tired case of ‘more of the same’.

The trouble with Brazil’s corruption is not simply a question of judgment by the people, a case of apathy in the voting populace, or even any grand exercise in stealth by corrupt financiers in the biggest companies in industries such as oil. Rather, the issue is that the degree of corruption, and its incessant presence, is practically old-hat to the people of Brazil. Rousseff’s impeachment and Operation Car Wash ought to be a sigh of relief felt around the world, and particularly amongst the Brazilian people, but it is not. There is a sense of complacency amongst those in charge in Brazil where corruption is concerned, and those who might claim to feel relief that Rousseff is on her way out are only fooling themselves—Rousseff’s absence offers no real relief, because her impeachment solves very little in the grand scheme of things.

The very man who urged on Rousseff’s impeachment has undergone his own trial, and the man who has replaced her as president has also been convicted of a campaign finance crime that makes it illegal for him to even attain the presidency via proper election. It is, in some ways, a stroke of luck for Temer that these circumstances came to be.

That Dilma Rousseff was caught borrowing funds to support social programs that largely benefited the poor so early into her presidency is simply unusual in a country where corruption so often goes unnoticed. Petrobras’s belated investigations, and Rousseff’s implications in it, are just one example of that chance likelihood. And although arranging funds for social programs seems altruistic—if altruistic politics are an accepted concept—the method behind the actionwas certainly illegal. Rousseff borrowed money from public banks, such as the Banco do Brasil and the Caixa Econômica Federal; this type of loan is illegal according to fiscal responsibility law in Brazil. Why? These loans can, unfortunately, be used to manipulate public accounts—which, on a governmental scale, can be critical. What does seem to ring true is that, by allowing Rousseff to be the face of this slew of anti-corruption efforts, people are being potentially misled as to the intentions of the government. The implication here is that Rousseff is not a political heavyweight being brought to justice; she is, instead, a scapegoat to distract from everything else happening around her. Men like Temer and Cunha are not rare finds in Brazilian politics, after all—they are entirely typical.

Where Is This Coming From, and Where Are We Going?

Corruption is hardly new in Brazil, both internally and concerning its international reputation. Ultimately, although Rousseff did make a mistake, it is important to note that her impeachment is not a victory against corruption. That false sense of security some may sense—though it is important to note that disillusionment is no stranger to the Brazilian people—is at the cost of incredible political maneuvering. Rousseff was left vulnerable by the Petrobras investigations, as well as economic downturn, and opposition such as Cunha saw a golden opportunity to take her down, as well as the Workers’ Party, from the leading position.

When a majority of Brazilian Congress is facing corruption charges, it is foolish to assume that good intentions rest anywhere in between. A problem with dynasties is that people can rest too much confidence in the value of a name. For example, it seems likely that former president Lula, when he backed Rousseff, put too much confidence in his own national affections, as well as the strength of the Workers’ Party, rather than on Rousseff’s genuine qualifications as president. This possibility is certainly plausible, given that Rousseff’s primary previous experience is with Petrobras, not with major governing. Furthermore, intimate reflection on her characterreveals further problematic qualities unsuitable for a tense position: “her blustery arrogance, her refusal to listen to even her closest aides and her apparent inability to understand just how much trouble she was in, right to the very end.” In many ways, Rousseff was a downfall waiting to happen in Brazilian politics.

If one considers the number of corruption charges in current government, as well as the sheer depth of it all, it is hard to see a cheery future. These problems are not new to Brazil, but the intensity of the spotlight on them is something newer: people go on trial, yes, but often are able to get by under-punished and unnoticed. It may not be the case this time for everyone, which is not a perfect outcome, but is certainly a step in the right direction. Corruption itself is not the most critical concern for Brazilians, but its outcomes are—the people face economic peril, governmental incompetence, and with the current leadership of Mr. Temer, racial tensions. In a country wrought with complicated racial diversity based around notions of equality dating back to the colonization of the New World, and economic tensions between extremely divided classes, it is hard to see a future that doesn’t put the endurance of corrupt politicians to the ultimate test.

What’s Wrong with Liberty?

Or, as a former professor of mine phrased it less presumptively, is anything wrong with liberty? Specifically, I should ask what—if anything—is wrong with the libertarian conception of justice. Robert Nozick’s emblematic libertarian argument in Anarchy, State, and Utopia posits liberty as a sure-fire means of achieving justice. Nozick ultimately argues for a “minimal state” that does not infringe on individual property rights, thereby protecting its citizens’ liberty as a result. However, Nozick assumes that liberty results primarily, if not exclusively, from individual action. In excluding consideration of our liberties which depend on others’ actions for their fulfilment, Nozick wrongly conceives of the state as the principal violator of people’s freedoms. Rather, the state can also enable people to be freer than they would otherwise be without its influence.

In order to arrive at his conclusion, Nozick draws on classical state of nature theory. In the state of nature, Nozick suggests that “several different protective associations or companies” arise in order to enforce individuals’ rights. With the help of an invisible hand, a dominant protective association enters into the business of selling its protective services, crowding out all other competitors and becoming what he calls the minimal state. The minimal state is that protective association which retains a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and imposes taxes only to the extent required to maintain the infrastructure that prohibits individuals’ from limiting the freedoms of other individuals. In other words, the minimal state is justified in taxing its citizens at the lowest rate that will fund a military, police, courts, and other similar such institutions.

But how are individuals justified in owning and making decisions about their property? Philosopher Will Kymlicka identifies three explanations for this in Nozick’s theory. First is the principle of transfer, where individuals are allowed to freely transfer whatever they acquire legitimately. Second is the principle of just initial acquisition, which accounts for how people originally come to own things. Third is the principle of the rectification of justice, dealing with the things that may have been unjustly acquired or transferred. In essence, these principles amount to the following: as long as individuals acquire goods justly in society, then Nozick’s minimal state would be unjustified in coercively redistributing goods from some people to others. If Jordan stole Pamela’s blowtorch, then Jordan did not acquire that blowtorch legitimately and therefore has no legal right to own it, let alone decide what to do with it. Thus, the minimal state has a right to confiscate Pamela’s blowtorch and return it to her using the bare amount of force necessary to do so.

Nozick’s theory relies, moreover, on the primacy of individuals’ rights as Kantian self-owners that represent ends in themselves. Individuals are said to be “inviolable” because they possess existences independent of other people. According to Nozick, there is no social entity that undergoes sacrifice for its own good; there are only people within the bounds of the state. Therefore, because there are “only individual people, different individual people,” each person is entitled to his or her individual rights, which may not be sacrificed as means for another person’s ends. Kymlicka suggests that, while the premise that individuals are ends in themselves is valid, Nozick’s property-ownership conclusion does not necessarily follow. Instead, Kymlicka argues that the goods that result from the exercise of self-owned powers cannot adequately be traced to a reliable position whereby they were initially acquired legitimately, thus violating either the premise that individuals are self-owners, or that individuals legitimately owning property means they necessarily obtained that property legitimately in the first place. For instance, land was—for the most part—initially appropriated by force. Generals of olden times, bullies, bandits, barbarians, and so on raided, pillaged, and stole land from people long ago. Thus the assumption that buying land means that that land was initially acquired legitimately does not hold. One could easily claim that, if Alex legitimately bought a plot of land that was stolen from John’s family long ago, then John’s descendants also deserve that land. In other words, any transfer of that land is illegitimate to some degree since that land was not acquired legitimately in the first place. So, true enough that individuals are ends in themselves, but that does not imply their absolute right as property owners.

At least two kinds of freedom constitute liberty, although Nozick accounts for only one. Liberty consists of simple freedoms (what Nozick’s conceptualizes as the entirety of liberty) and complex freedoms. Simple freedoms are, essentially, the freedoms people enjoy from others’ restraint on their actions. In other words, I can freely study in the library because no one stops me from doing so. But liberty also consists of a series of complex freedoms that depend on the actions of other people for them to take shape in the real world. I am free to study in the library not just because no one stops me, but also because someone built the library in the first place. As consisting of both simple and complex freedoms, liberty results from both top-down constraints such as society’s laws and rules, as well as society’s bottom-up structures and public works.

Nozick assumes that liberty only results from top-down, simple freedoms. Take his argument for minimal taxation, for example. According to Nozick, just uses of tax revenue include maintaining the police to prevent against theft, a judicial system to enforce contracts, a military to protect the state’s external borders, and so on, because these uses protect individuals from other people’s attempts to restrain their freedom to transfer their (supposedly legitimately acquired) property as they see fit. In contrast, government expenditures on public works like roads, hospitals, or schools “involve coercive taxation of some people against their will.” Nozick famously gives the example of Wilt Chamberlain to illustrate how, as long as an individual acquires his or her property legitimately, the state is unjustified in anything more than minimal taxation.

Wilt Chamberlain’s contract pays him twenty-five cents for every ticket sold in a home game. Chamberlain, in Nozick’s example, ends up with a hypothetical $250,000 after the season. Nozick argues that any tax on Chamberlain’s income unjustly violates his absolute property rights if it pays for anything except the infrastructure required for protecting others from stealing Chamberlain’s money, or otherwise causing him to transfer it to another person against his will. However, Chamberlain’s freedom to spend his income however he deems fit does not just depend on the state minding its own business; it depends on fans paying tickets to come see him play. Fans who, presumably, drove to games on government-funded roads, or became fans by playing varsity basketball while attending government-funded high schools. Without Nozick’s so-called “coercive” taxation, Chamberlain’s freedom to spend his income is contingent upon market forces—as opposed to state protection—to generate a fan-base through private high schools’ basketball teams and private toll roads that bring people to the stadium. Whether or not the private market would build enough roads and high schools to supplement Chamberlain’s hypothetically lost income through “coercive” taxation is unexplored here, though my hunch is that it is highly unlikely. What I believe confidently, though, is that when the model of liberty consists of both simple and complex freedoms, people’s ability to acquire and transfer wealth freely expands greatly.

Furthermore, in conceptualizing liberty merely as a set of simple freedoms, Nozick glosses over violations of liberty by individual market actors and downplays the validity of people’s complex freedoms. Consider Kymlicka’s example of hypothetical individuals Ben and Amy’s land-owning relationship, which he gives in the context of Nozick’s Lockean proviso. (Nozick’s Lockean proviso states that people can legitimately acquire property rights over a disproportionate share of the world’s material resources as long as no one is left worse off.)

Ben and Amy work a plot of land collectively. Amy, however, appropriates so much of the land that Ben can no longer live off the crops produced by his share. Thus, Ben comes to rely on Amy to provide a wage to compensate him for working a portion of the land for her. This satisfies Nozick’s Lockean proviso because both Ben’s and Amy’s shares of the land’s crop increases through the division of labor, though his increases less than hers. Despite the widening inequality, no one is worse off than they were before. For Nozick, the logical conclusion of the Lockean proviso stipulates a free market of labor and capital in order to protect both individuals’ private property rights. Nozick’s free market conclusion assumes the state to be the primary violator of individual property rights as Amy, a private market actor, fairly compensates Ben through consensual wage labor. According to Nozick, if the state were to regulate either Ben’s ability to contract with Amy or Amy’s willingness to provide a minimum wage, this would infringe upon both parties’ absolute property rights. However, by emphasizing the state’s violation of property rights, Nozick ignores Amy’s illegitimate appropriation of Ben’s land rights. Moreover, Nozick takes Ben’s consent to the wage-labor arrangement as given. More likely, Ben is left with two options: sign the contract and take Amy’s buy-out, or die of starvation since he has no land upon which to grow crops, nor any money to buy food—hardly indicative of freely given consent. In terms of simple freedoms, Nozick’s justification of free market capitalism only protects against violations of freedom committed by the state, not violations that occur amongst individual market actors.

In addition to this tacit legitimation of simple freedom violations by individuals, Nozick’s theory endangers complex freedoms. In the libertarian view, the minimal state is unjustified in coercively taxing citizens in order to redistribute wealth from rich people to poor people. As in Nozick’s Wilt Chamberlain example, individuals’ self-ownership leads to ownership over their talents and, by extension, the fruits of their labor. However, individuals only own themselves to the extent that their liberty depends on simple freedoms. Individuals’ freedom also depends more or less equally on the actions of others. Chamberlain’s income depends on publicly funded roads that brought fans to his games. Therefore, the taxation required to build public infrastructure contributes to Chamberlain’s ability to make money rather than detracts from it.

If we are to accept Nozick’s view that the state is never justified in taxing people for things like roads, then we have to accept that our complex freedoms cannot be guaranteed, but only hoped for. Simply put, the endangerment of complex freedoms represents the legitimation of non-minimal state in contrast to libertarians’ viewpoint. Humans’ lives depend on certain freedoms that depend in turn on someone to provide them, but which have no guarantor in a totally free market. For example, a family living in northern Alaska depends on heating, which requires someone (whether the government or an energy company or whomever) to take active steps to ensure that the family’s need is fulfilled. If Chamberlain plays a basketball game in northern Alaska, then the family’s freedom to see his performance relies on their not freezing to death. If an energy company charges a higher price because they cornered the market on heating in northern Alaska, then individuals face potential hypothermia and cannot freely see Chamberlain play, let alone live. Not to mention that now, because the family’s lack of heating limits their ability to see Chamberlain play, Chamberlain’s own freedom to spend his money is limited as he has just lost paying customers. Ultimately, the libertarian reliance on simple freedoms undermines their own premise that the state should not intervene in the individual transfer of property lest it infringe upon such freedoms—without the state, both our simple and complex freedoms may be in jeopardy in an unregulated free market.

Nozick, as a libertarian, privileges simple freedoms and private property rights in a free market system unregulated by a minimal state. People who hold the preponderance of wealth and influence in society are justified so long as they acquired both honestly. Therefore, government regulation, including things like coercive taxation, baseline health and safety standards, or publicly funded infrastructure unjustifiably forces the wealthy to give their property to those in society who have supposedly not earned their fair share. However, simple freedoms make up only one element of liberty, with complex freedoms making up another. Ironically, libertarians ignore at least half of what liberty means.

By claiming that complex freedoms violate individual property rights, libertarians apologize for a system that denies some members of society the freedom to attain even simple freedoms. Libertarian philosophy crucially implies a system where rights and freedoms founded on the rational, self-interested part of humanity triumph, while those founded on empathy and altruism enter into consideration as distinctly subordinate. Under libertarian assumptions, we remain subject to a narrow and dangerous view of freedom predicated on our baser instincts towards individual self-interest. In modern society, these primal instincts no longer hold as we have developed empathy and recognized our role in promoting others’ liberty.

A Weapon or a Consequence? Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict

“We know now, as we knew even before the passage of this resolution, that rape is a kind of slow murder.”

—Slavenka Drakulic on the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1820

Sexual violence is not merely an unfortunate side effect of war, but a deliberate tactic used to humiliate, dominate, disperse, and instill fear in women and their communities. This essay evaluates several key examples of sexual violence being used against women during wartime including the Bosnian War, ongoing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and United Nations peacekeeping missions, with the goal of discussing the validity and consequences of the categorization of sexual violence as a “weapon of war.” While males and gender nonconforming people also suffer from sexual violence, and while men are not exclusively the perpetrators of rape during war, this paper focuses on sexual violence against women and girls since they are disproportionately targeted by the use of sexual violence. Although this paper incorporates evidence from scholars who believe sexual violence is only a consequence of war, or as I will refer to them, “Consequence Theorists,” it focuses on their challengers, “Weapon Theorists,” who believe sexual violence is a deliberately used weapon. This paper focuses on Weapon Theory since the passage of United Nations (UN) Resolution 1820 shifted the dominant paradigm in its favor in 2008. This paper does not consider conflict actors as homogeneous and recognizes that while sexual violence is, overall, a weapon of war used by most conflict actors (e.g., states and non-state groups), it may be an unfortunate side effect in other conflict actors’ operations (e.g., inter-governmental organizations and peacekeeping forces). I first review each theory by considering the validity and consequences of each, as perceived by differing scholarly opinions. I then test the theories against the historical record. I conclude by demonstrating that sexual violence is most appropriately and accurately categorized when it is defined as a weapon of war.

Weapon Theory

Weapons: guns, knives, swords. Weapons: emotion, gender, power. The way the international community—civilians and governments alike—has redefined what constitutes a “weapon” of war has dramatically changed since the turn of the twenty-first century. Today, many forms of sexual violence such as rape are considered war tactics that threaten international peace and security. This outlook was established for the first time in the UN Security Council’s 2008 Resolution 1820, which stated that sexual violence during conflict was an international threat. Weapon Theory scholars argue that sexual violence is a weapon of war due to its intentional use, its systematic nature, and its strategic execution. Hillary Margolis, leader of the International Rescue Committee’s sexual violence program in North Kivu, claims that rape is a deliberate (not a random) tactic. Dara Kay Cohen also attests that rape in wartime is intentional; however, she maintains that rape is not only used officially as a weapon against women, but is also used passively to promote bonding within a militia group. Wartime sexual violence is often systematic in nature, while side effects are not predictable. Weapon Theorists emphasize that male sexual desire fails to explain patterns of sexual violence because most men, given the opportunity, do not rape. Historian Antony Beevor says that rape during war has been used strategically to achieve political or military objectives by humiliating and terrorizing since ancient times. Even ancient academics believed wartime rape to be as old as war itself; Saint Augustine called it an “ancient and customary evil.” Elisabeth Wood shows that rape is used strategically, to terrorize people and force them to leave an area. She also says that militia leaders’ claims that they lack control over their troops are groundless, because a commander with enough power to direct military operations has enough power to stop his soldiers from raping.

Weapon Theory: Consequences

Anna Hedlund argues that the labeling of rape as a weapon of war is often inadequate, simplified, sensationalistic, and stereotypical. Kerry F. Crawford, Amelia Hoover Green, and Sarah E. Parkinson believe that classifying rape as a weapon causes inaccurate rape claims to be made out of hopes for case money, disincentivizes programming focused on other types of suffering during conflict, and makes other wartime crimes harder to prosecute. All four scholars believe that the selective media narratives that focus entirely on women, compounded with calling rape a “weapon,” create challenges for non-visible survivors. “Media narratives about Iraq and Syria are almost exclusively focused on women, concealing and marginalizing male and LGBT victims who may be equally in need of help,” write Crawford, Hoover Green, and Parkinson. They also write that calling rape a weapon of war gives outside states a disingenuous justification to intervene due to the “impulse to ‘save’ Syrian and Iraqi women from sexual violence.”

However, interventions in the name of “saving” women are not new phenomena. In 2001, Laura Bush advocated for the intervention of Afghanistan under a humanitarian front to fight “brutality against women and children” in the name of “our common humanity.” Categorizing rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war in 2008 did not give rise to this neo-imperialist façade. The goal of classifying rape and other forms of sexual violence during wartime as “weapons of war” is to bolster international accountability and eradicate the culture of impunity that supports sexual violence. Of course international policies could do more to help male and LGBTQ survivors of sexual violence. But this is beside the point; identifying rape as a weapon of war—and thereby creating legal mechanisms to hold military commanders accountable to the law—puts international law on a path to combat sexual violence that can be developed to include all victims. Having a system of accountability designed to affect deterrence is a better option than accepting the violence and allowing it to continue due to a lack of sufficient legal labeling. Furthermore, calling all forms of sexual violence—including rape, sexual slavery, and sexual humiliation—weapons of war legitimizes the suffering, pain, and damage that it inflicts on survivors and their communities. Associating traditional instruments of war and sexual violence with the use of the word “weapon” is an important shift in discourse that has helped to break stigmas and the silence attached to rape. Lastly, the weak argument that women might lie about rape in exchange for money is historically unsubstantiated and, frankly, the product of a patriarchal, victim-blaming mentality. These critiques do little to negate the importance and usefulness of recognizing sexual violence as a weapon of war.

Consequence Theory

Consequence Theory holds that sexual violence is not a weapon intentionally and strategically used during war, but rather an inevitable or unfortunate side effect of war due to a culture of rape that war often creates, the increased opportunities to execute sexual violence, soldiers’ sexual desires that cannot be satiated by consensual sex during wartime, and because poorly-trained soldiers do not realize sexual violence is wrong. Richard Malengule states that years of fighting have resulted in a culture of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where sexual violence is accepted as a by-product of the conflict. Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will, wrote, “War provides men with the perfect psychologic backdrop to give vent to their contempt for women.” This belief suggests that sexual violence is an inevitable result of war due to an increased opportunity for men to perpetrate violence against women. Consequence Theory holds that soldiers see sex by rape as a “spoil of war,” and when sexual violence occurs it is a randomized result of an individual’s sexual desires. Military leaders in Japan and the DRC have argued that rape is not a weapon, but a consequence of male desire and a substitute for consensual sex. As evidence, Japanese commanders instituted the system of “comfort women,” who were forced into sexual slavery, to satiate soldiers’ desires. Leaders in the DRC have said that an inability to pay sex workers during warfare is what leads to rape. Others hold that sexual violence is not a weapon but a result of young, ill-trained men who do not understand their wrongdoings. Dearbhla Glynn argues that perpetrators are oblivious to their actions’ harmfulness because they are often part of the cycle of violence that has normalized rape and sexual violence. Similarly, Antony Beevor claims that it is the “indisciplined soldiers,” free from religious and social constraints, who commit sexual violence.

However, Consequence Theory’s claims are widely disputed. First, wartime sexual violence is not inevitable. There is a high level of variation of sexual violence across countries, conflicts, and armed groups. Perpetration is also heterogeneous among groups within the same conflict, proving that many armed groups can and do limit their perpetration of rape when commanders choose to prevent it. In El Salvador’s civil war, insurgents rarely committed rape. Likewise, sexual violence was virtually absent from the strategy of the Sri Lankan Tamil secessionist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Since some groups do not engage in sexual violence in war because their leaders do not condone it, it is not inevitable. If it is not inevitable, there are therefore “stronger grounds for holding responsible those groups that do engage in sexual violence.” This also defeats the argument that rape in war is opportunistic. It is a misconception that given the opportunity, men will rape, and it is over-simplistic to believe that all perpetrators, as Brownmiller implies, do so out of “contempt for women.”

Margot Wallström, UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict said, “There are no rape cultures, only cultures of impunity.” Critics of the Weapon Theory claim that a rape culture is produced as a side effect of conflict because even when wars end, rape continues. However, wartime rape used as a weapon often goes unpunished, thus creating a culture of impunity that sanctifies its continued perpetration. Rape and sexual violence do continue after the guns are put down, but this further exemplifies rape as a weapon of war. A culture of rape is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sexual violence’s use as a weapon. In other words, sexual violence perpetrated with rape culture and with strategy is a weapon, while rape culture without strategy is merely a side effect of wartime rape impunity.

The myth of uncontrollable male sexual desire also fails to explain sexual violence as an unfortunate side effect of war. Oftentimes, widespread rape of civilians is committed where soldiers have full access to sex workers or sexual slaves. Furthermore, sexual temptations cannot explain the extreme brutality of gang rapes or sexual torture that many women and girls suffer. Instead, participation in rape is often a way to build internal ties when armed groups are not cohesive, as seen in The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. When fighters have been forcibly recruited, they are more likely to commit rape, particularly gang rape. Soldiers are usually not lacking in women to appease whatever sexual desires do exist; therefore, Weapon Theory more accurately explains this violence due to its intentional, systematic nature, and the internal strategies behind these rapes.

Finally, the claim that sexual violence is only a side effect of war committed by poorly trained soldiers who do not understand the evil of their actions fails to account for (i) the ill-trained insurgent groups that do not perpetrate this violence, and (ii) the highly trained and educated groups that do commit sexual violence in wartime. Perhaps only child soldiers who are born and raised in violent conflict zones, and where rape is common, are immune from this critique. The prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib in 2003, in which Iraqi prisoners were sexually abused and humiliated by U.S. soldiers, is a key example of sexual violence being used as a weapon of war by a highly trained military. Many Iraqi prisoners were made to perform homosexual acts. While dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, homosexual acts are against Islamic law and have been punished by execution in Iraq. In the case of Abu Ghraib, as in many others, the three tenants of Weapon Theory were clearly present: the use of sexual violence was intentional, systematic, and calculated, and was constructed based on cultural dynamics to humiliate, dominate, and instil fear in the prisoners.

As a Weapon of War: Bosnia and DRC

Several historic examples give credit to the Weapon Theory of sexual violence in war. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosnia) from 1992 to 1995 was the first to gain international attention for the use of systematic rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing during war. While numbers remain highly controversial, it is estimated that between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped during this war. Women’s bodies were widely seen as another battlefield where violent, ethnic conflict could be fought. Rape by Bosnian Serb forces was ordered by head military figures, with the goal of wiping out particular ethnic groups. As in many conflict, sexual violence in Bosnia was used as a weapon against a particular people. The use of rape during the Bosnian War is considered genocidal because the objective of the perpetrators was to forcibly impregnate women to create “more babies with the perpetrator’s ethnicity and through this to destroy and erase the ethnic, religious and national identities of their female victims.” Sexual violence in the Bosnian War was a weapon of war due to its intentional, systematic, and strategic nature.

Wartime rape can also be used as a way to deliberately instil fear, displace communities, and spread sexually transmitted diseases. Raped women are often stigmatized by their communities or blamed for their rape. In eastern DRC, which has been called the rape capital of the world, brutal and systematic sexual violence has plagued the region for almost two decades, leaving tens of thousands of victims enduring some sort of sexual violence. Essentially all sides of the conflict perpetrate sexual violence, including civilians, militiamen, armed groups and members of the Congolese Armed Forces. During one of the largest instances of mass rape in eastern Congo, three armed groups raped at least 387 civilians in 13 villages between July and August 2010. The indiscriminate, widespread nature of these mass rapes support the Weapon Theory, which holds that sexual violence is systematically used to impart fear on the victims and their communities. Since rapes in DRC are carried out regularly from village to village, women, girls, and their families often feel afraidto leave their homes to obtain food and water, go to school, or work in the fields. In contrast, some families are so afraid of staying in place (or are directly threatened with rape) that they flee their homes. This forced displacement breaks up communities that are often grouped on ethnic lines, giving perpetrators and armed groups power, as well as the resources that villages leave behind. Carrying out mass rapes is a strategic weapon of this particular conflict because it allows military objectives to be met and provides perpetrators with terror-based power.

As a Consequence of War: Peacekeeping Missions

While the majority of reported sexual violence during wartime is used as a weapon by state militias or non-state armed actors, Consequence Theory holds weight in the context of UN peacekeeper perpetrators. These operations involve military personnel but do not have enforcement powers, and are based on the cooperation of the parties to the conflict. As UN peacekeeping operations increased, a major problem emerged: peacekeepers were found to be sexually abusing or otherwise sexually exploiting local populations during missions.

Peacekeepers have been found guilty of sex-trafficking, soliciting prostitutes, forcing children into prostitution, and having sex with minors. This has occurred among both military and civilian UN personnel across a wide range of countries. Sexual exploitation and abuse is not tolerated by the United Nations, and as former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan said, it “violates everything the United Nations stands for.” In 2001, allegations of sexual violence emerged, and after refugee communities in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone were monitored, confirmation of these crimes was reported. In 2004, the UN reported 121 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation.Forty-five percent of these reports involved sex with minors. In 2005, 340 cases were reported; in 2006, 357 cases. In a Côte d’Ivoire mission in 2007, 800 peacekeepers were suspended on allegations of having sex with minors.

Many scholars have speculated (like Consequence Theorists) that the conditions of the missions allow the exploitation of local girls and women.Peacekeepers are seen as powerful figures in the areas they inhabit during missions, and are likely to believe they can get away with sexual abuse. One UN employee on a peacekeeping mission in eastern Congo who admitted to having sexual relations with 24 girls said he committed these crimes because, “Over there, the colonial spirit persists. The white man gets what he wants.”

The imbalance of power—along ethnic, cultural, and institutional lines, and a culture of impunity provide increased opportunities to execute sexual exploitation. This gives weight to the Consequence Theory: peacekeepers perpetrate sexual violence without gaining strategic political or military power and without a systematic agenda. When governments and non-state armed groups commit sexual violence, it is a weapon. In peacekeeping missions, however, sexual violence is a consequence of war. Nevertheless, these instances are the exception to the international norm, not the rule.

Conclusions

Not every incidence of sexual violence during wartime is a weapon of war; in some instances, it is a consequence of war or conflict. Typically, however, the use of sexual violence in conflict zones is widespread. It is deliberate. It is systematic, strategic and calculated. In these cases and for these reasons, it is a weapon of war. Women and girls have endured physical and psychological trauma in conflicts across the world. The current culture of impunity needs to be eradicated and international support should be fervently thrown behind the sentiments in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820. Sexual violence is as much a weapon against international peace and security as it is on the bodies and minds of the women and girls who have endured it.

The Turkish Question; An Emergence of Opportunity in the Levant In The Moment of Turkish Instability

“A nation which makes the final sacrifice for life and freedom does not get beaten.” – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

The world watched with trepidation as military tanks rolled through the streets of Ankara the night of July 15th. Within a matter of hours, soldiers once loyal to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took the Chief of Military Staff hostage, attacked both the Turkish parliament and intelligence headquarters, exchanged gunfire in Taksim Square with loyalist forces, and commandeered media channels to announce a victorious overthrow of Erdoğan’s government. Or so it seemed.

Turkey is no stranger to military coups d’etat, having experienced four successful instances since 1960. President Erdoğan has also withstood barrages from political opponents throughout his 14-year hold on power. It has been assessed that the frequency of these strikes against the Turkish government have been somewhat of an experimental tradition in Turkey; a protection and preservation of Turkish democratic principles against minacious leaders. That said, the residuum of July’s attempt has demonstrated to the Turkish citizens President Erdoğan’s Achilles heel—a loose grip on the reins of power—and has tightened his grip on Turkey with government and military purges, a long-awaited military campaign in Iraq and Syria, souring the relationship with the European Union, agitating relations with the United States over the extradition of rival Fethullah Gülen, and a strategic pivot towards Russia in a burgeoning joint-military and energy partnership. These policy tasks in just the two months following July 15th have brought scholars and analysts to question whether the light of the once-heralded beacon of Eurasia will dim or brighten under Erdoğan’s tighter hold on power.

In this analysis, I will assess the questions that have been and should be asked during this moment of Turkish instability. These enquiries will assess Turkey’s position moving forward into a post-purge state after nearly 58,000 Turkish citizens have been deposed of their positions, as well as the country’s standing on the international stage and in regional institutions. The aftershock of Turkey’s political earthquake has proved consequential—–to the United States, the European Union, the Kurdish people, and of course, the Turkish constituents. While the achievement of internal stability will continue to ebb and flow, I predict the country will converge as a theater to play out geopolitical conflicts, and where invested actors will exploit opportune interests—particularly of the United States’ struggle in the Levant.

Purging for Prepotency; Erdoğan’s Grasp on Government

On July 15th, the Turkish nation awoke to a government shaken by force and a leader rattled by such events. In a widespread expulsion so colossal that many have considered it to be pre-conspired, Erdoğan imprisoned over 7,500 soldiers, 118 generals and admirals, 3,000 members of the Turkish judiciary, 1,500 state ministry staffers, and 100 intelligence officials. This widespread purge of lingering governmental opposition did not halt at the state level, but even seeped into the Turkish educational sector, religious institutions, and media outlets; 21,000 private school teachers, 1,577 university deans, and 100 journalists were dismissed. Of these, 9,000 remain in custody. This leaves all facets of the Turkish government and public services overwhelmingly understaffed across all fields and professions. This “counter-coup” signifies a newfound tenacity that will characterize a new era of the Erdoğan administration—one that will flex its muscle of control at home, while exercising defying the wishes of the West and appeasing the East.

Strongman rule is not new under Erdoğan. Since becoming Prime Minister in 2002, Erdoğan has been controversial in his pursuit to institute and champion political Islam in a traditionally secularpolitical system, initiating a slew of experimental reforms that exacerbated the political differences between Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP), the Justice and Development Party, and other Turkish institutions of democracy. This development necessitated political partnerships, such as the alliance with a Sunni clerk, Fethullah Gülen, the founder of the Hizmet movement. Such a movement swept the nation with a message of religious tolerance and moderate policies of educational immersion and national service, prompting many followers of Gülen to become civil servants in Erdoğan’s administration. But political convenience steered the AKP, and a growing schism between Erdoğan’s political Islam and Gülen’s cultural Islam emerged, resulting in Gülen’s flight to the United States due to a rumored deposition plot and a governmental declaration deeming Gülenists a terrorist organization. In Erdoğan’s political reality, such political adversaries and connivances are commonplace—an intrinsic perspective that become intertwined with Turkey’s foreign policy platform abroad.

The NATO Question

This phenomenon has brought a series of questions to the assemblies, podiums, and cabinets of governments and regional organizations across the international system. The Turkish moment has not been taken lightly in the global order. Turkey’s relative instability, Erdoğan’s autocratic tendencies, combined with the geopolitical and strategic goldmine of Turkey’s location, is an important policy issue leaders will face in the next year.

In the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Turkey stands as the second-largest military in membership, and serves as host to 24 NATO military bases. Even before July 15th, Turkey’s membership had been criticized of its failure to uphold the principles of the Treaty’s first preambulatory clause that mandates members have “stable democratic systems, pursue the peaceful settlement of territorial and ethnic disputes, have good relations with their neighbours, show commitment to the rule of law and human rights, establish democratic and civilian control of their armed forces, and have a market economy.”

Erdoğan’s policies have had a dangerous downward trajectory in protecting constituents’ human rights, with intense discriminatory policiestowards ethnic minorities and a reputation for quashing freedom of expression and assembly. Erdoğan’s discriminatory policies towards the Kurdish people, an ethnic minority dispersed throughout Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, have been reported to infringe on the rights and lives of the Kurdish people, including disproportionate charges on the basis of supposed “terrorist motives.”

Yet despite the series of perceived violations, the July 15th attack on the Incirlik air-base has become a fulcrum for NATO’s concerns about the Turkish military’s durability and their adherence to the treaty. The Incirlik base has been an invaluable asset in both the U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command, as well as the anti-ISIS coalition’s fight in Syria and Iraq. The base is a bulwark  in assisting air defense missions and generates significant intelligence cooperation with NATO allies, especially the United States. The base’s operations against Daesh were shut down as well as its commercial power and airspace the night of the attempted coup. Along with a five-day power outage, ten Incirlik officers and their commander, General Bekir Ercan Van, were detained in suspected coordination with anti-Erdoğan soldiers. While the base has regained power and operations have recommenced, the events of July 15th will continue to call into question NATO’s reliance on the security of their own bases in Turkey and cause NATO members to second-guess Turkey’s strategic capability under such an unstable political system. An air base forced to operate with backup generators while continuing to wage war against Daesh without access to their airspace is an inept one, which will pressure NATO into rethinking their reliance on Turkey.

This shift in relations between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Turkey is not equivalent to suspension or expulsion, contrary to the arrayof experts calling for the removal of Turkey as a NATO member. In fact, there is no official process or protocol of discharge regarding a member state within the NATO structure. Even if the organization were to establish a mechanism of expulsion, Turkey is too great a strategic treasure for such a consideration; Turkey is perched in the crossroads of the East and West; between NATO and its adversary, Russia, and between the Middle East and Europe.

The Turkish Moment Bears Inestimable Opportunity

How will the North Atlantic Treaty Organization deal with an incalculable Turkey? One scenario will involve maneuvering, rather than containing, Turkey’s recent shift towards Russia. Both countries recently struck a renewed energy and military partnership in St. Petersburg, after a chilled six months of stalled relations and sanctions. Moreover, NATO members can either reinforce strained relations by deterring Turkish European Union candidacy and further deliberation surrounding the question of Turkey’s NATO membership. Alternatively, NATO could incorporate the recovered Turkish-Russian relationship into their fight against Daesh in Syria and Iraq. Many have perceived this renewed alliance as a betrayal of Turkey’s responsibilities to NATO, as well as an example of Russian encroachment upon a vulnerable political system and paranoid leader. Yet, I argue that this is not a lost cause, but rather an unwonted opportunity.

President Vladimir Putin has provided military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a policy fundamentally divergent from the United States and its allies, there has been rare proof of limited western-Russian cooperation against Daesh bears fruit. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 established a tentative timeline that incorporated U.S., Russian, and foreign cooperation, urging “all states to use their influence with the government of Syria and the Syrian opposition to advance the peace process.” A failed 48-hour ceasefire sought to accomplish just that, brokered between the United States and Russian forces in Syria that attempted humanitarian assistance and civilian evacuation for nearly 275,000 people without the disruption of strikes from the Syrian government, Free Syrian Army, Syrian Democratic Forces, and foreign forces. The violation of the ceasefire and the continuation of airstrikes in Aleppo has emerged as a strained point of contention for the United States and Russia in both militaristic and diplomatic spheres. But cooperation is still a necessary feat in Syria, even after animosity between the two superpowers. The Obama administration extended a hand to Moscow this past year, with a proposed air campaign combatting Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formally the al-Nusra Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, in addition to joint air-strikes expunging Daesh from its stronghold in Raqqa. From the established Russian front in Northwestern Syria and Turkey’s northern position, the United States and its allies could arrange a strategic operation that targets Daesh from its western stronghold in Palmyra to the East in Markadeh. No individualized military effort could accomplish such a feat in the region.

Russia’s position in Syria is one of immense strength and, while the United States’ presence has been felt in the Levant, Putin has greater leverage with Iran and the dormant Syrian government. Scholars Gordan Adams and Stephen Walt have advocated this as well, reiterating that no single power can defeat Daesh nor establish political stability in Syria. A united international coalition against the Islamic State continues to flounder without Russia’s presence, and will continue to as the Levant unravels into political pandemonium. Yet collaboration does not guarantee Assad’s deposition from power, just as cooperation with Erdoğan does not ensure Turkish avoidance of attacking Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Syria and Iraq. It will be the United States’ responsibility to make the precarious decision whether to take a sensitive, but necessary step in their fight against Daesh.

Conclusion

This past summer, Turkey became a Eurasian flashpoint that marked a new wave of uncertainty towards the cohesion of their political system, the dependability of their military and NATO membership, and the respect of their constituents as a democratic institution. These questions will persist, as Erdoğan enforces his paranoia through stringent reforms and purges of officials. The entry of Turkey into the war against Daesh too sends a message of strength; President Erdoğan strives to grip power tightly as his administration recovers from an ill-fated coup attempt against him.

Yet while the global order has reason to lament over a clear shift in Turkish foreign policy, the moment of Turkish instability presents as many opportunities as it does challenges. A renewed energy and joint-military partnership struck between Erdoğan and Putin in St. Petersburg can serve as an opened door to the United States and NATO allies in their fight against Daesh in the Levant. International coalitions against the terrorist organization have proven weak and lacking in unity, and while the scarce cooperative efforts between the two hegemonic powers have not yielded success, U.S.-Russian collaboration could be the key to securing the Levant from Daesh.

Life Without the Flashing Lights: the Reality of Living in East Germany

November 9, 1989: East and West Germans broke through the Berlin Wall, coming together to celebrate the dissolution of the DeutscheDemokratische Republik (DDR) after 44 years of separation. As SED (Socialist Unity Party) officer Günter Schabowski announced that the citizens of the DDR were allowed to cross the border into East Germany, Beate Lukas was sleeping. People buzzed about the news in the Straßenbahn (tram) on the way to work, and when she arrived she realized that several of her coworkers decided instead to travel to West Berlin. A few days later, she made her way to West Berlin for the first time and encountered bright neon lights and colorfully lit signs. Flashing lights advertising products she had never heard of, shopping centers crammed with people, Cadillacs driving around instead of the usual Trabbis – she had never seen anything like it. At some point it becomes too overwhelming, and she returns to East Berlin. “When I returned to Alexanderplatz, everything was suddenly terribly gray – something which I had not noticed before.”

On the surface, these starkly contrasting images present a lively West Berlin and melancholy East. Although the strong wave of anti-communism that accompanied the Cold War has receded, it continues to affect the way we see communist and socialist societies, and these images may be taken to be indicative of the general sentiments within the respective governments. However, despite close surveillance, various restrictions, and a struggling economy – which, to Americans, is inconceivable – Beate and her colleagues recall a sense of security, community, and simplicity. Coming from the simple, unquestionable reality of the East, it was difficult for the Ossis (East Germans) to get used to the bright lights of the West, which drew them into a harsh, competitive world.

Following the surrender to the Allied powers in 1945, Germany was divided into two separate entities: the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD) in the West and the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) in the East. Beate’s colleague Olaf describes the DDR as “a political entity that arose from German soil in the outcome of World War II and as a result of the Cold War.” And as it existed behind the ‘Iron Curtain,’ “the DDR was never a fully sovereign state, but always a part of the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, and treated as such.” Under the “benevolent eye” of the Western powers, the BRD adopted a democratic government with a market economy, “whereas in the Soviet zone the occupiers raided all the industrial equipment and confiscated private property” (Romano 145). In the DDR’s state-controlled economy, there were often shortages. When Beate turned 18, she received a form to apply for a car; the usual waiting period for a Trabant was about 10 years. When her family was remodeling their house in 1983, they were forced to trade items they had in order to get the material they needed.

Italian historian Sergio Romano’s obvious distaste for the command economy established by the U.S.S.R. was also shared by the United States. The U.S. government viewed the BRD as the only legitimate government and the future of Germany (Office of the Historian). While reading from Romano and the State Department’s website, I noticed that their arguments were relatively one-sided. It is true that the U.S.S.R. confiscated East German property, but it was used simply as a repayment for the damages sustained by the U.S.S.R. during the Second World War (Lindemann 328). The State Department focuses solely on the fact that the DDR was not a legitimate country in their eyes, and that its collapse was an inevitable victory – a triumph of light over darkness.

Beate grew up in an environment where the grim aspects of the DDR were not as apparent to her. There was always heavy Überwachung (surveillance) and a certain pressure, but she did not feel it personally. “Those who, in any way, ‘stepped out of line,’ for example, did not want to work, spoke out against the State, wanted to leave the DDR, watched television from West Berlin or West Germany (and listened to Western radio messages) felt [the pressure] quickly.” For disobedience, punishment ranged from losing the right to an education to being sent to jail. She recalls that a classmate, Susanne, did not receive a place in a university despite having high marks, because her father left for a business trip and did not return. Beate and her colleagues note that it was difficult to follow one’s desired career path. Without relatives who held high positions, worked internationally, or were members of SED, Beate did not receive a place at Humboldt University in Berlin. Instead of pursuing Ethnography, her preferred career, she only had the opportunity to study economics. Her brother was prevented from being a pilot on the basis that their father was a pilot. “It was feared that they would not return to the DDR and the rest of the family would also want to leave.” Similarly, her colleague Olaf was prevented from studying because only one to two students were accepted into Erweiterten Oberschule(EOS), a school which extended high school education after completing the eighth grade. He could not attain his preferred career as a geologist unless he enlisted in military training for three years, so he decided on job training. “No real performance or payment system existed in the economy, so one as a trained worker has earned partially less than his colleagues.”

Although the DDR restricted and controlled the outputs of its citizens in many ways, the government provided many benefits for its citizens. “The DDR was a state that, on one hand, offered its people a lot which is not typical today – work, support, free health care, free places in Kindergarten and schools, affordable houses. On the other hand, the economy was a Mangelwirtschaft (economy of scarcity). In the GDR, there was a persistent unpredictability of supply, which often expressed itself in shortages of chocolate, meat, butter, and other consumer goods. “There were many items which we did not have or rarely had – one often had to improvise or trade.” She remembers going to visit her grandma and getting the chance to eat a whole banana herself, the nicest thing she had ever eaten. The memories of scarcity, however, are not as compelling as those of security and simplicity in her childhood, along with the sense of community. She remembers being able to let her four-year-old brother walk the rest of the way to school alone without having to worry. As a society that valued community, or Gemeinschaft, everyone watched out and cared for one another regardless of status or financial standing. People typically associate socialism with oppression and constant misery, but that is not the case; Olaf contests that “otherwise the suicide rate would have been higher. Certainly one is often upset about certain inadequacies and restrictions, but one must also partially engage and adapt. Just like in every social system.” Initially following the reunification, the economic disruption caused a drop in life satisfaction in East Germany. Olaf believes the feeling he experienced in the DDR was the same as other young people in the BRD; the surveillance, pressure, and scarcity did not affect him as much as one would expect based on denunciations of socialism. In the current integrated society, former West and East Germans now display equal levels of happiness, which are far greater than the years directly after the reunification.

“I have predominantly good memories of the DDR. Sometimes I miss it.” Beate clearly displays the Ostalgie, nostalgia for East Germany, which many Ossis who grew up in the DDR experience despite higher levels of happiness under the current system (Lindermann 394). After the fall of the DDR, life was very different. The anticipated “swift and peaceful” German reunification was not feasible (Lindemann 393). Although Wessis and Ossis celebrated together when the Wall came down, it was still many years until the entire Berlin Wall and the psychological barriers separating them would be removed. The economy of East Germany was far behind the West and proved difficult to reintegrate (Lindemann 394). Regional inequalities still exist, leaving the East behind the West with higher unemployment and poverty rates, population decline, and scarcity of large companies. Unemployment in the former West Germany is at 5.6%, whereas in the former East Germany it is above 9%. Despite the economic difficulties, the United States viewed the fall of the DDR as a victory; Beate, however, had a different experience. “Life was totally different. There was no more security. I lost my job half a year after the Wende, something which would not have happened in the DDR.” After going through a retraining course and getting a new job, she was out of work for an operation. While there, she received a letter from her coworkers. Thinking it was a get-well-soon card, she was surprised to discover a termination notice. She repeats, “Such a thing was inconceivable in the DDR. People worked and held together. If someone was sick, then they were helped.” Olaf recalls that during DDR time, his wife received a year of paid maternity leave and still had her job at the end of it. Focus had shifted from collective well-being to profit. Beate also had to repeat her studies, because her credentials were not recognized under the new regime. The individualism of the new capitalist economy proved to be a lifestyle that was difficult for East Germans to adopt. Olaf appreciated that performance and skills became more important than belonging to a certain political party, but Beate resented the superficiality of the bright lights and flashy images. “People pay more attention to the outside, and to present yourself well is more important than a person’s character or to do something good… People have become ruthless, selfish, and superficial.”

After the fall of the Berlin wall, socialism in East Germany offered people a security which they had not felt since hearing Hitler’s promises. A 2009 pollfound that 57% of East Germans still defend and glorify the DDR. Citizens knew what was expected of them and what to expect of the government. Choice was mostly taken from the hands of the individual, but to some people, the simplicity and lack of many responsibilities was a sort of freedom. They may not have had the democratic rights to vote or openly express their opinion, but they were ensured the rights to basic necessities and security. Opinions about communism and socialism tend to focus on the negative aspects without mentioning the benefits, because it is seen as a great threat to American capitalism. Helmut, another colleague of Beate, said “socialism is an idea which also has to do with – somewhat philosophically – a common good. The theory can be difficult to implement, and in the DDR there was not truly socialism but actually a dictatorial state with Mangelwirtschaft.” It is difficult to put a finger on the concept of the DDR, but for some it represented a period of simplicity and togetherness.

Like the other DDR citizens, Beate received 100 Deutsch Marks as Begrüßungsgeld (welcome money) on her first trip to West Germany. Combined with her savings, she and her friends use this money to plan a trip to South Tyrol. They were the first citizens of the DDR to ever be greeted there. As they walked along the shore of a lake, some loud Italians tried to sell them leather jackets. “When we did not want to buy anything, they asked us where we were from – East Germany or West Germany. After our answer – from East Germany – they went away, because they knew we had no money. I can remember their disparaging look well.”