World Politics

Researchers at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government published the second annual edition of the Index of African Governance this week.  The index ranks the 48 sub-Saharan states based on their governments’ ability to produce particular “political goods.”  The researchers organized these political goods into five categories:  Safety and Security; Rule of Law, Transparency, and Corruption; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Opportunity; and Human Development.

These five categories were then divided into 57 sub-categories.  The researchers assigned these sub-categories their relative weight after considering both the importance of the indicator and the robustness of the data.  The data compiled by the research team came from a variety of sources on a two-year time delay; the information used in this year’s index is from 2005 and 2006.  The team then summed the states’ sub-scores into aggregate scores to determine the ranking.

The ten top-performing states, in order and with their assigned score, are

1. Mauritius (85.1)
2. Seychelles (79.8)
3. Cape Verde (74.7)
4. Botswana (74.1)
5. South Africa (71.5)
6. Namibia (70.9)
7. Ghana (70.1)
8. Gabon (69.4)
9. Sao Tome and Principe (68.3)
10. Senegal (66.1)

The ten worst-performing states are

1. Somalia (18.9)
2. Democratic Republic of the Congo (29.8)
3. Chad (33.9)
4. Sudan (34.2)
5. Angola (43.3)
6. Central African Republic (43.6)
7. Cote d’Ivoire (45.6)
8. Eritrea (46.5)
9. Guinea (47.8)
10. Nigeria (48.5)

Three points:  First, the observation that a disproportionate number of the strongest states are small, island nations.  I can’t really speculate, but if I had to guess I would say this result has to do with the relative size of their populations and their relative distance from regional conflicts.  Then, of course, is the observation that the ten weakest states have been disproportionately involved in civil wars.

Second, the index’s most obvious weakness.  The time-delay in the collection of the data, for practical purposes, makes this ranking virtually irrelevant today.  Any insight the index gives to the region has been overwhelmingly superseded by developments in the region over the course of the last two years.  In its associated report, the research team lists all the developments the ranking fails to reflect:  “the recent massive deterioration in Zimbabwe’s security, rule of law, human rights record, economy, and human development… the troubles following the Kenyan election of 2007, the coups in Mauritania, the battles in the Comoros, the security enhancements in Uganda, the political shifts in South Africa, a flawed election in Nigeria, the continued hostilities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and so on.”  The index is still relevant for academic purposes, but the project has consciously sacrificed timeliness for robust data.

Third, the index’s greatest strength.  The ranking’s focus on political goods intentionally broadens the traditional definition of “good governance.”  It places emphasis on outcomes, not effort, and thereby implies that only the results of policies are important, rather than the policies themselves.  The project also puts responsibility squarely on the shoulders of state governments, despite criticism that many of the indicators used in the rankings are affected by other factors.  Even while admitting that economic opportunity can be affected by resource endowments, and safety and security can be heavily influenced by third parties, the research team insists that governments must take control rather than assign blame.  In doing so, the project demands accountability and recognizes these governments’ capacity to affect positive change.  Assigning each state a score further helps track their progress in absolute terms, rather than simply their progress relative to the other states in the ranking.

The full rankings are here [pdf].

The series of maps the British Telegraph published today is easily the coolest thing I’ve seen all week.  The maps were created by Worldmapper, a website that distorts the traditional land-mass map to illustrate different sets of data.  The series, which the Telegraph calls “The Atlas of the Real World,” includes maps depicting relative migration patterns, the use of various modes of transportation (aircraft, rail, motorcycles), wealth distribution, housing prices, HIV prevalence, alcohol consumption, nuclear weapons, armed forces at war, war deaths, and increases and decreases in carbon emissions.  The three on wealth show the distribution of income across the world in year 1, in 1900, and the projected distribution in 2015.  Here are a couple of interesting ones, and check out the others.  There are even more on the Worldmapper website.

Standard map based on land mass.

Projected relative wealth in the year 2015.

Relative HIV prevalence.

Relative distribution of nuclear weapons.

Relative increase in emissions of carbon dioxide.

Relative decrease in emissions of carbon dioxide.

Cool, eh?

Heading into tonight’s debate, which will focus on foreign policy, Ruy Teixeira at the Center for American Progress posted a whirlwind of public opinion polling data on foreign policy issues.  The results are pretty surprising.  Some highlights:  83% of Americans think that “improving America’s standing in the world” is “very important”—more than the 80% and 67% that deemed “protecting the jobs of American workers” and “combating international terrorism” very important goals.  76% think the US should commit itself to a treaty to lower carbon emissions, and 68% think the US should join the International Criminal Court.

Here’s one of Teixeira’s graphs:

This one is particularly relevant—59% of Americans support an international institution dedicated to monitoring the world financial markets.  This past week, leaders from countries all over the world dedicated their speeches at the annual opening of the UN General Assembly in New York to berating the US government for the current financial crisis.  The speeches eventually degenerated into a frustrating game of “I told you so,” with German Chancellor Angela Merkel recalling her conversation with President Bush and former Prime Minister Tony Blair at last year’s G8 summit, when she urged both leaders to supervise their financial markets more closely.  Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva argued that the General Assembly “must not allow the burden of the boundless greed of a few to be shouldered by all,” and Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon disdainfully noted the disparity between Congress’s $700 billion bailout plan and the US’s unwillingness to pledge $72 billion to the UN.  French President Nicolas Sarkozy was the only world leader to offer a semi-constructive response by calling for a global capitalism summit later this year.

I was annoyed about these reactions because they play directly into the GOP’s depiction of the UN as ineffectual and petty.  The public apparently doesn’t see it that way, though, and the majority of Americans agree with Sarkozy’s notion that the “global nature of this crisis means that the solutions we adopt must also be global.”  I just hope Teixeira’s data gets the attention it deserves.

While President Bush spoke at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Sarah Palin conducted back-to-back meetings with three foreign policy leaders across town.  The McCain campaign announced on Sunday that Palin would be meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, but on Tuesday the campaign refused to allow the press inside the meeting rooms to actually cover the events.

Of course, the McCain campaign barred the press from the meetings because they were designed solely as briefing sessions for Palin on several serious foreign policy issues.  Hell, Sarah Palin’s previous foreign policy experience consisted of living in close proximity to Russia.  Obviously the campaign wouldn’t let the press cover what must have been embarrassingly one-sided meetings.

Ironically, the campaign’s pathetic attempt to spin the press coverage ended up sort of backfiring.  The media slammed the campaign for restricting the reporters’ access, and the one exchange the press managed to catch before being ushered out of the room was about President Karzai’s first child, born last year.  The mom thing, again.  At a foreign policy event.

In its most boring post ever, NYT’s The Caucus live-blogged the shenanigans:

Update | 12:17 p.m.: Word now is that a print reporter will be allowed in at the next two meetings.

Update | 12:02 p.m.: The campaign is relenting and letting in the television producer, so the camera crew will be going as well. But print reporters are up in arms about being excluded.

Media Rebellion: But the McCain-Palin campaign’s sharp limitations on coverage of the meetings have sparked a mini-revolt - and a threatened boycott - among the press corps.

A stand-off has ensued, with the networks threatening not to send cameras.

I can’t believe they were reduced to live-blogging about the experience of not reporting on an event.  The campaign trail must really suck.

What a good week for women in politics.  First, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (she’s on the right below) defeated Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz to succeed Ehud Olmert as the head of Kadima, Israel’s ruling party, on Wednesday.  Then, preliminary election results on Thursday indicated that Rwanda would become the first country with a female majority in parliament.  To mark the occasion, The Economist’s “Daily Chart” section compiled this data on the percentages of women in various parliaments around the world.  And today, Friday, the United Nations Development Fund for Women released a report on the same topic, announcing that women now account for 18.4 percent of parliament members worldwide.  That number has increased seven percent since 1995, but at the current rate of growth it’ll still take until 2045 for women to reach parity.  Shit, that’s 37 years, but still.  That’s progress.  Would it be wrong for me to quote the Spice Girls when they sing “Girl power is all we need/ We know how we got this far/ Strength and courage and a wonder bra”?  No?  Not okay?

All right, well, check out this chart.

Okay, so John McCain has had a couple of foreign policy gaffes on the campaign trail, most notably his inability to remember the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and the fact that Czechoslovakia is no longer a country (and hasn’t been in over 15 years).

Sure, those aren’t the kind of mistakes you want your president to be making, but in the end they’re still just slip-ups.  McCain seemed confused again yesterday, when he refused in an interview to invite Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain to the White House if he were elected president.  Most analysts assumed that he had been unsure what the reporter was asking, didn’t know who Zapatero was, or mixed up Zapatero and the Zapatista rebels from Mexico.  But then the McCain campaign sent out an email early this morning saying that the snub was intentional.  A foreign policy adviser wrote, “The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain’s willingness to meet Zapatero (and ID’d him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred).  Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview.”

The question now is whether McCain really meant to insult the government of a NATO ally or his campaign merely decided that confirming the snub was preferable to admitting that McCain doesn’t know anything about Spain.  If he had gotten confused during that interview, it might have been understandable.  The reporter from Radio Caracol, a Spanish-language station based in Miami, began the section on foreign policy by asking several questions about Latin America.  McCain used the opportunity to reiterate his unwillingness to meet with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Evo Morales of Bolivia, and he highlighted Barack Obama’s readiness to do so.  McCain also leveled criticism at Raul Castro, citing his poor record on human rights in Cuba.

The interviewer then turned her attention to Spain.  Here’s the transcript of the relevant section:

Interviewer:  Let’s talk about Spain.  If you are elected president, would you be willing to invite President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?

McCain:  I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion, and by the way President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very tough fight against a drug cartel, and I am glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government….  I intend to move forward with relations and invite as many of them as I can.

Interviewer:  Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government?  To the president himself?

McCain:  Honestly, I have to look at the relations and the situations and the priorities.  But I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends, and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.

Interviewer:  So you have to wait and see if he’s wiling to meet with you, or you would be able to do it?

McCain:  I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not.  And that’s judged by the importance of our relationship with Latin America.

Interviewer:  Okay, what about Europe?  I’m talking about the president of Spain.  Are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?

McCain:  I’m willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom, and I will stand up to those who are not.

At first he seems to think the reporter is still discussing Latin America, and then he seems unsure what the question is, so he continues to repeat his talking point.  But if McCain really did intend to snub Zapatero, it would have been because the prime minister withdrew the 1,300 Spanish troops from Iraq in April 2004 over the protests of the US government.  Zapatero has on a number of occasions voiced his opposition to the war, arguing that it violated international law.  Back in 2005, Zapatero also had friendly relations with Chavez and Morales, but that changed in 2007, when Chavez reportedly called Zapatero’s predecessor, Aznar, a fascist at the 2007 Ibero-American Summit.  Zapatero attempted to defend Aznar when it was his turn to speak, but Chavez kept interrupting him.  Though Zapatero remained patient, King Juan Carlos of Spain lashed out at Chavez, yelling, “Why don’t you just shut up?”  Spanish relations with Chavez cooled following the incident, and Zapatero has since focused most of his energy in office on advancing the European Union.  He has also sent additional troops to the NATO mission in Afghanistan and the UN mission in Haiti to show his support for multilateral initiatives.

The interview was a confusing exchange, so listen for yourself.  Here’s an audio clip of the relevant section, and here is the recording of the entire interview.  Then decide which is worse, if McCain doesn’t know who the leader of Spain is, or if his foreign policy plan is to only have friendly relations with governments that support the Iraq war.  If it’s the latter, American voters should know that our list of allies under a potential McCain administration will be pretty short.  (Here’s a good Wikipedia article showing the nations with troops still in Iraq, the nations that have withdrawn their troops, and the relevant numbers.)

My boss wrote a LOL Bush series this summer.  Check them all out here.

The conflict between Russia and Georgia has been brewing in South Ossetia for a long time.  Though technically on Georgian soil, the region is a patchwork of Georgian and South Ossetian villages, and it is governed with near autonomy by a faction of South Ossetian separatists.  The stated goal of the South Ossetian government has always been independence, and, backed by Russia, the South Ossetian militia has recently carried out targeted campaigns against Georgian citizens living there.

The region is a hotbed of ethnic tensions, but the US deserves its fair share of the blame for stoking the fire.  It actively sought out a close relationship with the democratically-elected president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, and emboldened Saakashvili to be an outspoken critic of the Kremlin.  More significantly, the US also helped militarize the Georgian army as it prepared to deploy troops to Iraq.  Russia retaliated by closing the border, cutting off air service and mail between the two countries, and refusing Georgian exports.  The Kremlin has also issued Russian citizenship and passports to South Ossetian adults.

Saakashvili is now the US’s staunchest ally in the region and a symbol of American influence there, but Georgia is only a small part of the Bush administration’s strategy to expand its security interests in the former Soviet states.  Over the past two years, the administration has pressed forward with plans to develop an intercontinental missile-defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland despite opposition from the Kremlin.  Though the Russian government repeatedly slammed the proposal as an act of aggression and has threatened a military response, the Bush administration maintains that the shield is merely a defensive precaution against attacks by rogue states like Iran and North Korea.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a deal to place a radar station in the Czech Republic in early July and negotiated through the summer to position a host of interceptor missiles in Poland.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Georgia, the Russian government lashed out at the pro-Georgian bias of the Western media coverage.  A top diplomat challenged the Western media to show “not only Russian tanks, and texts saying Russia is at war in South Ossetia and with Georgia, but also… the suffering of the Ossetian people, the murdered elderly people and children, the destroyed towns of South Ossetia.”  Tabloids similarly accused the foreign press of biased reporting, and even Mikhail Gorbachev — former president of the Soviet Union and no friend of the Kremlin — spoke out against the West in a mid-August op-ed in the New York Times.

All defended the government’s decision to invade Georgia, but the rationale was weak:  They claimed that Saakashvili had committed “genocide” when it shelled the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on August 7^th, giving Russia no choice but to respond.  In actuality, the death count from that shelling was under 200, and Saakashvili had ordered the attack to defend Georgian citizens against the South Ossetian militia.  Rash, certainly, but not genocide.

It seemed pretty strange at the time that Russia was complaining about its media coverage when it had just invaded another country.  But the US has expanded its influence in the Caucasus to such an extent that Russia probably has a legitimate reason to feel like it’s being gamed in its own backyard.  Clearly, the back and forth went too far, the Russian government felt like it was being pushed into a corner, and it reacted.  The fallout from that decision has been disastrous, but the good news is that neither Russia nor the US has an interest in destabilizing the region for the long term.

At this point, the best way for the US to avoid exacerbating the situation is to let Europe take the lead.  They’ve already started to do so: The 27 leaders of the EU assembled in Brussels on Monday for an emergency one-day summit.  They managed to be (slightly) less paralyzed by indecision and disagreement than usual, closing the four-hour session with a threat to suspend strategic partnership talks scheduled for mid-September unless Russia withdraws its troops to preconflict positions by September 8^th.

If Europe uses this experience to successfully muster its strength, there could be a bright side to this US foreign policy failure.

Three big events have happened, are happening, or will happen this week in Southeast Asia:

1) Representatives of the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile met with Chinese government officials in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Sunday to reopen dialogue for the first time since the Tibetan riots in March. Though nothing formal was resolved, both sides billed the talks as a success and announced plans to continue meeting.

2) A massive cyclone hit China’s southern neighbor Myanmar last Saturday, with the death toll already in the tens of thousands. The ruling military junta in Myanmar has refused to let large-scale foreign aid operations into the country, and relief teams have amassed in Thailand awaiting permission to enter. The United States warned today that delayed action could result in a final death count of over 100,000.

3) A national referendum is set to take place this coming Saturday in Myanmar on a new constitution. The proposed constitution would further entrench military rule, reserving a certain portion of seats in a new parliament for soldiers and complicating any attempts at future amendments. Despite the recent disaster, the junta has resisted calls to postpone the vote.

So the Chinese government has received nothing but bad press since it violently suppressed riots in Tibet, and it has renewed dialogue with Tibetan leaders this week in hopes of reversing the trend. A good start. But the conflict has escalated to such an extent that mere dialogue will not be enough to win back the international community. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already decided to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to join her. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi have all urged President Bush to consider staying away as well.

If China hopes to convince these leaders to attend the August ceremony, the Chinese government must make it politically viable for them to do so. Public opinion has turned so far away from China on Tibet, Myanmar, and Sudan that the Chinese government must go further than these meetings with the Tibetan envoy. China must take the lead on addressing events 2 and 3, the junta’s refusal to allow disaster aid to enter Myanmar and the upcoming constitutional referendum, if it retains any hope of healing these wounds by August.

The situation in Myanmar has become a full-blown crisis, and the Chinese government is the only major player left with any influence over the Burmese government. Severe political repression is one (very bad) thing, but denying the Burmese people access to vital care is another beast entirely. The Chinese government must lean heavily on the junta to give foreign aid workers unlimited access to the areas affected by the storm. The Chinese government must also take these steps quickly, as the crisis continues to worsen.

China must also pressure the government to, at the very least, delay the constitutional referendum for several weeks. The junta has gone full speed ahead in the last month, doing their damndest to make sure that the new constitution passes. Convincing the junta to shift its focus away from the vote and onto the current emergency might compel the junta to scale back the provisions in the constitution. The increased attention might also force the Burmese government to uphold even the smallest pretense of fairness when the vote actually occurs, but at the very least pushing the referendum back would give the opposition a little time breathing room to mobilize.

The Chinese government has already witnessed the effects of escalating this conflict as the torch relay has proceeded through Paris, San Francisco, and Hong Kong in recent weeks. Railing against the bias of the foreign media and pointing the finger at the United States’ transgressions in Iraq has only aggravated the situation, and stirring up nationalistic fervor in anticipation of a truly international event is not in the country’s best interest. China can’t afford to let the dispute linger any longer. The success of the Games is at stake, as well as the country’s international reputation. And China would do well to remember that the latter will persist well past August.

Time’s annual list of the 100 Most Influential People just came out, so check it out if you have time. Pay special attention to who wrote each entry, as that’s often the best part. Of course, Deval Patrick wrote Barack Obama’s, and Joe Lieberman wrote John McCain’s. Hillary Clinton wrote an entry for Michelle Bachelet, the current President of Chile, and begins her second paragraph, “This was a woman who had overcome so much….” Not to be outdone, Bill Clinton wrote an entry for Tony Blair, starting, “When my friend Tony Blair stepped down as U.K. Prime Minister last year, I advised him to take some time off with his family…”, and our friend Joe Stiglitz ‘64 wrote one for Bolivian President Evo Morales. There are some other gems in there, so post your favorite.

If you’re interested, Joel Stein (of I Love the ’80s fame) also wrote a hilarious article about trying to rank the list, and using some preliminary figures he came up with these results. Aaron, Radiohead clocks in at #20.