At This Point, I Should Just Admit...

...I'm a fan of Francis Fukuyama. He defends himself against association with Bush administration neoconservatism in this Guardian column. I think his comments are right on the money. To wit:

The End of History was never linked to a specifically American model of social or political organisation. Following Alexandre Kojève, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EU's attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a "post-historical" world than the Americans' continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military.

Finally, I never linked the global emergence of democracy to American agency, and particularly not to the exercise of American military power. Democratic transitions need to be driven by societies that want democracy, and since the latter requires institutions, it is usually a fairly long and drawn out process.

Outside powers like the US can often help in this process by the example they set as politically and economically successful societies. They can also provide funding, advice, technical assistance, and yes, occasionally military force to help the process along. But coercive regime change was never the key to democratic transition.

It's Not the Culture, Stupid

The Foreign Policy Magazine blog (a good blog to keep tabs on, by the way) noted a theme in their recent coverage invoking Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations idea. Part of it, an essay by David Frum, is subscriber only (and I've never found Frum to be much worth reading anyway), but this column about Iraq by W. Patrick Lang is interesting. The conflict in Iraq is likely to drag out in some form or another for a very long time, but in a general sense the post-mortem is already well underway. No doubt we will see a great deal of debate over the narrative to take away from Iraq and what it means for our future.

Lang's take is that we underestimated the cultural differences between Americans and Iraqis. He and Frum (as excerpted in the blog post) believe that the neocons were fundamentally wrong in thinking that most people are basically like us. Lang points to the failure of democracy in Iraq, where voters cast their ballots based on tribe or sect rather than political policies. He notes that Nuri al-Maliki is not interested in serving the nation's best interests, but in promoting the interests of Shiite Arabs.

Lang's criticisms of the naiveté of neocon policymakers is on target, but I think his underlying analysis is off. Moreover, I think the idea that there are deep and permanent (or semi-permanent) cultural rifts between Western culture and the rest of the world is a dangerous one.

Maybe Tom Friedman does, as Lang charges, take the flatness of the world too far, but I think Friedman is more right than he is wrong. I look at my experience at Motorola where on a given day I would be working (on site or remotely) with people from China, India, Australia, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore, Taiwan, Israel, Russia, and Spain. Not many Arabs there, granted, but we had a tremendous diversity of cultures and no conflicts that I was ever aware of. People interacted with one another with virtually no regard for national, cultural, religious, or ethnic backgrounds.

The difference between that situation and Iraq is not, I think that the cultures are any less different, but that these were people in stable political and economic situations. It's not the culture that we failed to understand in Iraq, but the basic situation on the ground. Lang is right to assert that cultural identity now lies at the bottom of the conflict in Iraq, but the point is not that there is something characteristic about the Shiite, Kurd or Sunni cultures that is the problem, but that people are choosing tribal and sectarian identities over national identities (or Friedman's internationalist identity). When that happens the results appear to be the same whether the particular cultural identity is Sunni or Shiite or Serbian or Croatian or Pashtun or Tajik or Hutu or Tutsi. Looking specifically at the cultures is digging one level too deep -- the question is how do we keep people from going tribal in the first place?

What we failed to recognize in Iraq (despite strong warnings from many quarters) was the basic lack of national cohesion and the incredibly polarizing effect of US occupation (particularly without a UN mandate and a truly international coalition). The only particular significance of the culture in Iraq was the highly antagonistic approach of the US towards Arab and Muslim populations since 9/11. The BBC poll cited in the FP Mag blog post shows a broad international agreement that the differences between Islam and the West are political rather than cultural (and this Zogby/Gallup poll also highlights the political factors driving ever-sinking Arab opinions of the US). I've also pointed out on several occasions analysis to the effect that the US is at considerably less risk of home-grown terrorism (as compared to European nations) because Arabs integrate far more effectively here than in Europe. This should also illustrate that there is no inherent or fundamental incompatibility between Western and Arab culture.

I agree with Lang that we would benefit from learning more about foreign cultures. Lack of cultural understanding has been a problem in Iraq, particularly with respect to the winning of hearts and minds and understanding how Iraqis view American actions and policies. But I think we stand to make far greater gains by understanding foreign political and social situations. There's no reason why we can't do both, but if the take-away from Iraq is to throw up our hands and declare Islamic culture completely incompatible with Western government, economics, and values we'll be making a very serious mistake.

More Fukuyama and Neocon Theory

Back in June I posted on a Francis Fukuyama appearance at the Miller Center. Greg Djerejian has a post on a London Review of Books review by Stephen Holmes of Fukuyama's After the Neocons (and he includes a fairly lengthy excerpt of the review). As I noted in my previous post, I find Fukuyama's account of what he views to the be the real neocon thesis to be fairly compelling. Quoting from Holmes:

The thesis is that democracy is the most effective antidote to the kind of Islamic radicalism that hit the US on 9/11. Its exponents begin with the premise that tyranny cannot tolerate the public expression of social resentment that its abuses naturally produce. To preserve its grip, tyranny must therefore crush even modest stirrings of opposition, repressing dissidents and critics, with unstinting ferocity if need be. In the age of globalisation, however, repressed rebellions do not simply die out. They splash uncontrollably across international borders and have violent repercussions abroad. Middle Eastern rebellions have been so savagely and effectively repressed that rebels have been driven to experiment with an indirect strategy to overthrow local tyrannies and seize power. They have travelled abroad and targeted those they see as the global sponsors of their local autocrats.

Fukuyama goes on to describe how the Bush administration's policy in Iraq and the in the Middle East generally has strayed from the neocon theory in critical ways (for example that their actual approach to promoting democracy in the Middle East was foolish and ineffective).

There is some merit to the theory as Fukuyama presents it. I think it stops at least one step too soon, however. There are geopolitical (and probably socioeconomic) considerations driving anti-Americanism that pass beyond redirected frustration with local tyrants. Palestine is an obvious example, but there are others. These issues need to be dealt with as well, and part of the value of democratization is to bring those issues to the forefront and provide a venue for them to be addressed. The Fukuyama's theory is laudable in that it perceives that the focus of this conflict should be on people, rather than states, and that non-democratic states can serve as roadblocks to us reaching the people. But I think his analysis of what is driving those people falls short. Democracy is a step in the process, not the endgame.

The conflict this summer in Lebanon provides a good example of this. When Israel mounted its offensive on Lebanon, this was an issue the US needed to address if we were serious about dealing with terrorism's root causes. But because we were insulated from popular opinion by the tyrannical governments of our Middle Eastern "allies", and because the administration does not see addressing popular political concerns as part of the neocon mission statement, we completely failed to confront the issue.

It is not good enough to push for democracy, then simply abandon the governments that result from that democratic process as we've done in Palestine and Lebanon. Grievances that arise from a legitimate democratic process should be taken seriously. And to the extent that there is actual merit behind those grievances we need to take steps to address them in order to buy the political capital we need to credibly dismiss those grievances that don't have merit. I'm not sure Fukuyama's neocon theory is any better than the Bush administration's theory on that point.

More On Security Narratives

First a little housekeeping. As I'm sure you've noticed, the blog looks a little different. I've had several requests for a newer look or more readable fonts, so I thought it was about time for a makeover. Henry requested dark fonts on light background, which I didn't do simply because I liked the look of this template. I certainly could go to that format if it is preferred, let me know what you think. Also I modified this template to widen the text space because it seemed awfully narrow and necessitated a lot of scrolling down to read anything. I, however, have a widescreen laptop, so I'm not sure if this will cause problems on standard monitors. Please let me know if any of you are forced to have a side-scroll bar and I can narrow it back down a bit.

On to the topic. Henry and Veritas both had excellent replies to my initial post on this, so I'd like to comment on those, and on the Sunstein blog post V mentioned.

Henry's comments reflected his usual deep pessimism towards the ability of the public to maturely deal with difficult topics combined with a remarkable optimism over the ability to essentially reprogram the public through a more enlightened educational regime. I share much of his skepticism on the former issue, but, while I am guardedly optimistic on the effect of his planned educational makeover, I am also highly pessimistic over the prospects for the implementation of such a regime. As such, I must ask what more pragmatic near-term steps might be available to us. Henry's forecast in that case is fairly bleak, and I don't think he's wrong.

In recognizing the contemporary political strength of the neocon approach, as we both do, we are propelled into the world of paternalism. This is a dangerous place to be, as Henry also acknowledges. It is relatively easy to see when our government is being stupid (particularly when it is monumentally so), but it is nonetheless difficult for an individual or group to justify appointing itself as the overseer of the public good, to maintain its power through deception or manipulation, to exercise it for the good of all. That sounds a lot like tyranny to me. But if tyranny wins elections, what then for democracy?

The upside is I think good narratives sell. We should all recognize by now the immense power of a good story. While it is unfortunate that it doesn't appear to make a big difference whether the story is true, or indeed even coherent, there is no reason why it couldn't be coherent and true. So I think the duty of a committed democrat (small d) in this era is to find ways couch truth and wise policy into a convincing narrative.

The obvious question then is to what degree complexity inherent in truth and good policy can be packaged in a narrative, and, failing that, to what extent it can be boiled away for the sake of storytelling while maintaining fidelity to a democratic ideal. Is it enough to believe in the big picture from which you've constructed your simple myth? Is it possible to avoid the pitfalls of paternalism while telling the public less than the full (tedious) story?

Then, of course, there is still the difficulty of V's comments on Sunstein's mortality salience. While I imagine the issue encompasses a broad sweep of irrationalities of which MS is only a subset, it's a good enough proxy for this discussion. This is, sadly, where the neocons truly shine. Not only have they recognized and embraced the need for paternalism to facilitate the implementation of complex policy, and the need for a simple narrative to sell their paternalism, they have crafted a narrative that appeals to deep emotional needs and responses within the electorate. They take our irrationalities and amplify them back to us. They only needed a violent conflict to tap those emotions and have now created one that will last decades.

As I mentioned in my initial post I am increasingly skeptical about all of this. V asked me in a recent conversation whether I believe we will see an American city nuked in our lifetimes, something he believes (correct me if I'm wrong) will happen. I replied that it is still avoidable. I don't think it will happen in the immediate future, nor do I think events have spun so far out of control that they cannot be reconciled before it's too late. But without any doubt the clock is ticking. And it will take a complete repudiation of everything the neocons have done and everything they believe to avoid a catastrophic global conflict. As much as people are growing frustrated with them, I'm not sure I see that happening. I doubt that we have time to just let things sort themselves out. These are difficult questions and difficult issues, but we need answers sooner rather than later. This country is in dire need leadership. No doubt there are great leaders here, it is only unfortunate that our political system does such a poor job of selecting for them...

Clan Democracy, Clan Warfare

One of the few views I share with neocons is the premise that the spread of Western style democratic government is a key element of lasting global peace. Because of that belief I also believe that it is critical that we start to understand what democracy means and how it works. That is why I've returned now several times to the problem of democratic government in situations where voting preferences are defined by the electorate's racial/ethnic/religious identities. As Fred Kaplan explains in an excellent column on Bush's foreign policy, the old maxim about democracies not starting wars does not apply to those situations:

Again, does the president really believe this? The main thing Iraqis expressed at the ballot box was that Sunnis wanted Sunnis to rule, Shiites wanted Shiites to rule, and Kurds wanted to secede. The election, inspiring as it was to behold, served as little more than an ethnic census. In the absence of democratic institutions to mediate disputes and legitimize outcomes, it might even have hardened the social, political, and religious conflicts that are now—by the testimony of Bush's own top generals—erupting into civil war.

The emergence of democracy marks the starting point of politics. Politics by nature involves conflicts. A democracy thrives or crumbles on how well it deals with those conflicts. There is nothing inherently civilizing about holding elections—nothing unusual, much less contradictory, about a putatively democratic government embroiled in war, civil war, or chaos.

More Than Bullshit

While poking around Slate to find the Metcalf article linked in my Fukuyama post, I came across this article on Iraq by Fred Kaplan. Kaplan is roundly disappointed by the approach of John McCain and Condi Rice to the violence in Iraq, which in McCain's words is to tell them to "stop the bullshit." Kaplan is absolutely correct that this is not a mere matter of bullshit or miscommunication, there is a structural problem with Iraq that threatens to rip apart any democratic government put in place. It's the problem I posted on a month ago (May 2nd) that where people identify themselves more by ethnicity or religion than by other political concerns, democracy only deepens the divisions. Every election in the foreseeable future in Iraq will have the same outcome: Shiites win. If you are a Sunni or a Kurd, democracy means you lose.

The issue of how to structure a government that can satisfy all three groups was a major question before we even set foot in Iraq (and one I raised in several contexts pre-TBWJ). They tried to hash this out in the constitutional convention and failed miserably, and basically left the constitution completely open-ended, deferring the problem to later. Now Iraq has struggled month after month just to put together a government after the December election. They haven't even broached the difficult (and likely intractable) question of creating a coherent state in which Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds can all be satisfied. That is not bullshit. That is likely game over for our grand plan to plant the seed of democracy in the Middle East.

Breaking Iraq into three independent nations will have consequences we won't like (destabilizing Turkey (and possible Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia) and creating an Iranian client state in the south), but it may be the only way to end the violence. But as Kaplan points out, there is really no one who can implement a plan like that. The Shiites (who will rule the country as it now stands) have no interest in it. The US and the UN don't appear to have the ability or wherewithal to impose it. Iraq appears to be completely dead in the water, adrift in violence and chaos with no route out.

I give Kaplan credit as well for trying to establish the distinction between Realpolitik and realism that I've argued for here before.

Political Process

Hank, thanks for that post. It will take a while to process, and I'm afraid that my time is pretty limited these days. So I'll try to bite off a few bits at time. The basic question here is about decision-making and the costs and benefits of various approaches and how to evaluate particular issues to determine which approach is appropriate for that issue. The big question of trying to apply some generalized system and draw conclusions about whether we have enough or too much of one approach or another is an important one, but it's more than I'm willing to bite off without working through some of the ancillary issues.

First, I want to agree with you on the stupidity of this unidimensional visualization of politics that is popular in the U.S. There is a left and a right and various points in the middle and on the extremities and that's that. Not only is that inaccurate, but I really believe that this metaphor tends to promote partisanship and stifle substantive policy discussion. A real policy dialogue is founded on common ground, and it is much easier to find common ground with other parties when you visualize policy as existing on many dimensions rather than as a point on a line. And it trivializes everything. Somehow Joe Lieberman becomes a moderate Democrat, when he's not moderate about anything. He is a zealous social conservative and an unrepentant fan of big and aggressive (and irresponsible) government (is it any surprise that he has had a love affair with this administration). But somehow, under our unidimensional view of politics, his two opposing extremisms cancel out to create a "moderate". Hmm.. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time..

Anyway, on to my main point.. I'd just like to hash out some of the territory here. Some of what you describe about presidential politics is, I think, referred to as the "equilibrium displacement" theory of voter power. Or as it has been referred to in two of my classes it has come up in, the hot dog vendors on the beach theory. Say you have a beach full of people, and two hot dog vendors trying to sell to them. Where do the hot dog vendors inevitably set up? Side by side at the median point of the locations of the beach-goers. That is, I believe, a Nash equilibrium (neither side can unilaterally improve his position). The only power of any individual on the beach is to switch to the other side of median point. The median will shift one person over.

That is really the traditional view of American presidential politics. I think there are some real problems with that model, but to the degree that you subscribe to it, perhaps there is some sense in which the political spectrum is linear. No matter how many dimensions there are to issues, the positions will boil down to the two hot dog vendors and you can define a line that runs through the two points. Of course, I don't think this model properly accounts for a) voter turnout (and not so much strategic voter turnout (i.e. your Shotgun News story) as much as general voter turnout issues) and b) that there is a fairly broad range of "acceptable" policy positions beyond which non-policy issues (the charismatic frontman, the TV commercials, gamesmanship, etc.) are more significant.

The Shotgun News thing raises another issue: strength of preference/logrolling. If owning an AK-47 is worth 25 points of utility to you, having low taxes is worth 10 points of utility, and having high steel tariffs is worth 5 points (and those are the only three policy questions in the election), clearly you're going to be willing to compromise on taxes and tariffs in order to have the gun policy you want. And I don't think that is inherently problematic. People have varying strengths of interests and should be able to express those in voting preferences. I personally will overlook many policy differences in order to find candidates who support aggressive action towards clean and accountable government, campaign finance reform, and balanced budgets. Add in sane foreign policy and that's nearly my entire voter preference list. The single issue voter is only an extreme iteration of this.

Logrolling is problematic where people are logrolling for immediate financial gains. In general I'm referring to situations where commercial interests are engaged in the logrolling, and are using lobbyists and campaign contributions to do it. They may not care about any other policy except getting the earmark that delivers them a $5m contract, or an agency regulation that puts a competitor out of business. I think you have to distinguish that sort of logrolling (the car seat example) from the logrolling involved in individual voters deciding who to vote for (the shotgun example). The former, I agree, is a serious problem, but I have no objection to the latter.

I think that's about all I can handle for now. For next time: policy bundling in presidential elections. And I'll look into updating the general appearance of the blog, although it might not happen for a couple weeks...

edit: I should add, having now read Ryan's comment on Hank's post that my statements above assumed that the car seat law was a result of industry lobbying.

Why No One Likes U.S. Presidential Candidates

Joe's post about good and bad presidential candidates (if you find this intro irrelevant refer to the final section of this post: Hank 5/19/06) inspired me to put down a few ideas I've been refining at work: since my job requires no thought I have plenty of time to hone my thoughts about other things all day long.

The focus of my criticisms will be, largely, the two party system, but these criticisms are nested within an overall criticism of any democracy that has a government as powerful as ours is.

As for that general criticism it is this: from amongst the infinite number of possible policies imaginable, a central government can only actually implement one policy. To put this another way, a government cannot simultaneously enforce contradictory rules. The point of this is that with regard to any particular issue the public will almost certainly embrace a wider set of potential policies than the government can actually implement (i.e. one). In some cases the people are fairly close to unity in their opinion. Very few people, for instance, would oppose laws condemning and punishing murder. There will, of course, be a diversity of opinion as to what punishment for murder ought to entail, or even what precisely constitutes murder, but at least we can come to nearly universal agreement with regard to the central issue. Questions as to how industry standards should be set, how transfer payments should be structured, and what our foreign policy should consist of are much more contentious. With regard to these more divisive issues we might expect opinions to be distributed much more widely along the spectrum, or more properly, within the space, of possible opinion. When our government passes legislation relating to these issues, which, as stated above, necessarily represents a single opinospatial point, we should not be at all surprised that most people find it at least partially dissatisfactory.

So the problem we're looking at is that, when we vote for a presidential candidate, we are forced to choose between two points of view that holistically combine individual opinions on every possible issue addressable. Even when faced with a single issue this a or b approach is clearly unsatisfactory. What color would you like your car to be? Black or yellow? What would you like for dinner tonight? Ham or turkey? Looked at from this perspective, the absurdity of voting upon such a vast complex of issues by choosing 'a or b' becomes perfectly clear. Imagine you were looking to buy a house and the entire market was just house a or house b. "Well, I did want the bathroom walls to be blue, and these are a sort of bluish green, and house b has pink walls in the bathroom. I certainly don't want that, hmmm…" You might want the deck but that means that you have to accept the brass fixtures, the smaller yard, the garish exterior lights, etc. Surely you see what I'm saying. The fact is that the decision that we make when we vote for a political party in fact conglomerates a vastly greater number of choices than those you would make in designing and decorating a home (and, in fact, a larger percentage of your income is devoted to the outcome of these decisions).

This, I think, highlights one of the truly bizarre peculiarities of our modern way of looking at politics. What I am talking about here is the concept of a political left and right. This universally pervasive idea implies a one-dimensional spectrum of political thought. All political thought, one might think, can be defined as being at some point on this line. There is a center, characterized as the midpoint between the Democrats and the Republicans. There is a point somewhere left of center, the Dems, and another just as far right of center, the GOP. Everyone, it would seem, then falls somewhere on this line. What this would appear to imply is that if I, for instance, take a harsher stance on criminal punishment than you do I must also favor a larger military, weaker social safety nets, stronger government interference in sexual activity, active corporatism, Christian lifestyles, etc. That is to say that, as I move along the spectrum, all of my values shift simultaneously to become either more Democratish or Republicany. I can be on the far left, by which we mean that I represent all the values of the democrats, only even more than they themselves. Now, I understand that few people take this analogy to be true in such an absolute sense, but I don't think that there is any doubt that these ideas, as I have elaborated them, pervade our thinking about our political environment.

The reality, as I explained earlier, is that political opinion exists in an infinitely multidimensional space, rather than on a one-dimensional line. Allow me to draw up a simplified example of what I am talking about. Let's imagine a three dimensional politospace (that being the number of spatial dimensions we inhabit, it's easy for us to visualize). Say on the x-axis (left to right) we have attitude toward gun control. At positive infinity (the extreme right) we have a policy in which we make weapons capable of annihilating the universe standard issue at birth; at negative infinity (the extreme left) we have a policy in which the shooting of a spitball results in lifelong confinement. Then on the y-axis (fore and aft) we have military combativeness increasing as we move forward and decreasing as we move abaft. Finally on the z-axis (up and down) let us plot attitudes toward the rights of the accused, up being less accommodating toward, and down being more protective toward, the rights of accused persons. Within this space we can plot the points representing the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats are somewhere leftward, rearward, and below the origin. The Republicans are somewhere rightward, in front of, and above the origin. We can plot a line connecting these two points and extending past them to infinity in either direction. This line represents the traditional 'left' 'right' spectrum. This spatial visualization clearly illustrates the problem that the linear representation presents. Virtually one hundred percent of the points within our space do not fall anywhere on the line we have drawn. In particular, six of the eight octants into which the planes of our axis divide this politospace are completely excluded from the line. These correspond to orientation combinations that do not bear the same proportional relationship between opinion types. Someone who, for instance, is in favor of militarism, does not support strong rights for accused persons, and who supports strict gun control legislation would fall in an octant that the line never enters and thus could not possibly be accurately represented as being 'right' or 'left' she is in fact some place perpendicular to the line, off in the neglected regions of politospace. When we take into account the fact that our real politospace is infinitely-dimensional rather than three-dimensional it becomes clear that not only will very few people coincide with the points that represent the two major parties but in fact very few will fall upon the line passing through these two points (or even in two the ifinants (my term for whatever it is 'quadrants' become when we are dealing with a space with two to the infinity power of them) through which this line travels) which we so commonly use as a proxy for all of politospace. In fact, there are many policy dimensions in which the two parties are identical. For a person such as myself who questions the necessity of the FDA and the Federal Reserve, there isn't even a lesser of two evils; the parties are both equally opposed to my position. Again we should not be surprised that most people feel poorly represented by the political status quo.

Now let's move on to what might be called the 'lesser of two evils' problem. We have already seen that virtually no one can be expected to be satisfied with positions of an individual party or candidate. So the inevitable problem is that in choosing between parties or candidates, be there two or twenty, we are inevitably forced to choose the one that most closely aligns with our average viewpoint. But why does what could conceivably be the 'better of many mediocre suitors' become the 'lesser of two evils'. Well the 'two' is fairly obviously the result of the 'wasted vote' phenomenon. In any electoral situation where there can be only one winner votes will gravitate to the candidates who have the strongest chance of actually winning. The partisans of weaker candidates will inevitably be absorbed into the coteries of the contenders one level up in the competitiveness hierarchy who most closely resemble their true favorites. This process of conglomeration appears to be inevitable. Our system settled into the two party solution quite rapidly and three-way races have remained exceptional. We see the same result in races for unique positions worldwide. Once we have arrived at the 'two' the "lesser of __ evils' also becomes quite easy to explain. Once we have two candidates who are assured to receive virtually one hundred percent of the votes they have a strong incentive to move to the center in an attempt to capture the lost votes that hang between their positions. That is, if a voter who is primarily concerned with a single issue--let's take gun control--will automatically vote for whichever of the two parties is closer to his position, the candidates will have no incentive to leave any space between their positions. If party A takes position A' and party B takes position (A' - d) [lets say that the negative direction is anti-control, so, in this case, party A is the gun control party] and all voters who lie in the negative direction from B will be guaranteed to vote for B and all those who lie on the positive side of A will vote for A,both parties have every incentive to reduce d to nigh on zero. This is because d represents the voters who, being neither (assuming an opinion axis where negative is represented by the leftward direction) to the left of B nor to the right of A, are not specifically guaranteed to vote for either party. Every step that one of these parties takes in the direction of its rival moves voters from the undecided d region into the guaranteed camp. Thus the natural equilibrium here is for the two parties to stand back-to-back, dead center, with an equal number of voters on either side.

The net result here is that the parties will never take extreme positions. This is because extremism necessarily costs them voters in the central region of the 'spectrum'. Thus we get the lesser of two evils. I read an enlightening editorial perspective on this issue in the Shotgun News (a firearm sales publication printed on my press at work). The author observed that if second amendment advocates really wanted to get the legislators to actively support their position (rather than just taking the least substantial position that would make them superior to their opponents in this regard) they must be prepared to withhold their votes, even from a lesser of two evils candidate, until he actively supported a position that they considered to be suitably stringent. That is, the author recognized that, in order to remove a candidate from a centrist position, constituents must not guarantee their vote to the lesser of two evils. They must represent their block as a carrot to be received only by a candidate who is willing to step decisively into their camp.

This last point leads naturally into another that is, probably, more important. We must recognize the power that a system such as I have described lends to a single-issue voter.

Imagine that, based on the principle that our gun-toting friend espoused, you decided to convene a policy advocacy group that would set a specific platform based on a core platform of issues, and that this group would promise its votes to whichever candidate best obeyed the mandates of your party platform. This would be just the sort of action that should gain you the most leverage in influencing real legislation. No guarantees, just performance based voting. Even if neither party worked well for you, you might vote just to punish the lesser of two evils for failing to reach out to you (this would be twice as effective as just not voting for him at all). The problem is that you would have to weight the issues in your platform. Necessarily some of your issues would be better addressed by one camp and some issues by the other. Whichever you choose to reward you will necessarily work contrary to a portion of your platform. Your prioritizing will, optimally, guide you to become a single-issue party. This is an essential feature of our current system. Given the vast diversity of issues addressed by our federal government most single-issue groups will be unopposed and as such will achieve easy victories. Such is the case with many industry advocates and other lobby groups. The single issue that they care about is unique to their area of concern and so there is no opposing platform. Thousands of pages of legislation are passed on behalf of such groups every year without the observation or concern of the general voting public.

A recent example of this sort of thing that came to my attention recently was a law passed in Wisconsin that requires children under the age of nine to use booster seats when riding in cars. In the article that I read explaining this law, it was mentioned that there were fifty children in this age group who had died (in the previous five years) who, it was presumed, would have survived had they been in booster seats. Now, given that there are five million residents in the state and that a conservative estimate would put one seventh of this population in this age group. Estimating, again conservatively that these children make two car trips per day (to and from school, day care, etc) over those five years we can further estimate that the increased risk of death (per trip) due to nonuse of a booster seat is one in fifty-million or less. This seems like a risk that could be left to the parents to assess. But I believe that there is a substantial single-issue safety lobby that argued in favor of this law and that, in the absence of a corresponding anti-safety lobby, they succeeded, even though I suspect that a significant majority of voters would oppose this legislation. This is an illustration of the power of the single-issue lobby. So long as there is no opposing group, legislators can guarantee themselves a block of votes at no cost to themselves. The issue is that, with thousands of pages of legislation being passed into law each year, voters cannot possibly monitor each bit of legislation. Under these circumstances a special interest group can enact legislation that benefits their own interests substantially while only negatively impacting the interests of the general voting population at large by a very small increment. Though each individual instance of this phenomenon may seem insignificant, over time, many such acts may be very detrimental to the interests of the general population. They simply do not have the wherewithal to combat so many diverse special interests on so many issues.

A corollary principle is that issues with regard to which there are two strong opposing single-issue groups will tend to dominate political discourse. The problem here is that these issues will eclipse others, which, though important, are supported only by groups with blurred (i.e. pluralistic) interests. I think this is the reason why such issues as abortion and gun control tend to dominate political discussions. It is political dynamics and not obscuritanist politicians attempting to mask more significant issues that lead to the preeminence of these issues. That is to say that I believe that the commonly acknowledged problem: that our political system obsesses over pointless and obscure issues, is a product of the actual positions of the voters, and that these positions, in turn, are the result of logical adjustments, by the voters, to the format of the system itself.

You may by now have guessed that my central position is that our federal government is making too many decisions at too great a level of complexity for the democratic system to function properly. The more numerous and involved these decisions become the more the possibility that they will closely mirror the desires of the people will be reduced. As the people come to believe that the state is the only avenue through which they can achieve their ends extremism becomes the norm and totalitarianism is the ultimate result. This is the inevitable fate of fascist and socialist political systems. One might argue that there are alternative approaches to structuring the people's suffrage, ways in which the two-party equilibrium can be disempowered. But the truth is that even if you have a ten party system the results do not change all that much. If you went in search of a career and everywhere you looked you found the same identical ten options I do not suppose that you would be well satisfied. Again I would assert that the number of variables that you might adjust in pursuing a career do not exceed those that you encounter when you make political decisions in our current system.

You might suspect that it is not a casual coincidence that causes me to repeatedly compare the options that democratic election present with those of free market options such as the purchasing of a home or the selecting of a position of employment. This is precisely the contrast that I intend to highlight. Government is necessarily authoritarian (this is true by definition) and its decisions are necessarily unitary. As more and more decisions are shifted into the sphere of public authority the people will necessarily become less and less satisfied with the actuality of their circumstance. The paucity of individual choice will necessarily lead to increasing polarism of opinion and intergroup antagonism. These consequences are not even directly related to the natural benefits of the free-market relating to efficiency. They are merely the product of communal decision-making. Each decision making opportunity that we remove from the public sphere by allowing individuals to decide for themselves will result in increased national unity, increased efficiency, and increased specificity in our ability to influence those policies that yet remain in the public sector. Some of these decisions may even be appropriate to government but perhaps just not on the federal scale. That is, the smaller the group, the greater the commonality. Thus, if these decisions could be devolved to state and municipal government units, the likelihood of accord being achieved would be greatly increased. I think that this was a significant part of the objective that our founding fathers had in mind when they provided the limitations of the federal government (through the enumeration of powers).

So, I guess that's my perspective on the issue. I think that our government has become so powerful that passing one bit (here I mean a bit in the true digital sense) per person per biennium is just not sufficient to define a satisfactory course. It has become so powerful, in fact, that a sole dictator could not even satisfactorily control it. No one is in a better position to make the important decisions that our society requires than those who are in the thick of the decision-requiring event. The free market provides for just this sort of individual flexibility and this is its great virtue. This is why the term 'free' market is so important to understand (as opposed to the compulsion and coercion of the state).

I hope you'll pardon any coarseness or incongruity that occurs in the latter portion of this document. I wrote it in three parts separated by probably about two weeks apiece. So I had two opportunities to review the first portion, one to review the second, and I only reviewed most recent portion after writing it this very evening. As I'm sure you recognize it is easier to objectively review a piece of authorship after an intermission, but at this point I haven't the patience to wait another day. The intro may not make much sense but this is because it refers to a piece that Joe posted immediately prior to my beginning writing this, something that is at least a month out of date. Fortunately it has little bearing on the rest.

Since I'm posting I'll just throw in my bit about a couple other things.

I have been consistently reading the posts here though I may not always be leaving a comment. I will strive to leave more just to assure you of my presence.

I downloaded the Colbert speech from Joe's bittorrent link. Mama B has watched and enjoyed it. I thought it was decent though I thought John Stewart would have done a better job.

I want to recommend one more time that you guys check out the link that I left to the MIT talk on 'Winning the Oil End Game'. I watched it again today and it really is a good talk. He discusses how we can eliminate oil demand (through efficiency) much more cost effectively than we can increase energy supply. It is a pleasurable hour and a half to spend in exchange for becoming truly knowledgeable about our nation's energy future.

Oh yeah. And since I always make such long posts I might suggest that we change the colors of this page to dark print on a light page. I acknowledge that Joe is the host and that I am merely a minor commentator. I don't think that the current negative format is obstructive when we read a paragraph or two at a time. But when I make such large posts I feel guilty for making you guys read it like this. I honestly can't say what the impact is since I don't read my posts on the blog, but on Word where I work on them. So just let us know if you find the current format uncomfortable or not.

Thanks.

Democracy in Iraq and Nigeria

So I was reading this article about Nigeria in the Atlantic (thanks, Ryan!) and I came across a throw-away line in which the author, Jeffrey Tayler, makes a very interesting assertion: "In Nigeria, where one generally votes for one's religious or ethnic brethren, democracy has deepened divisions rather than healed them." I think he is pretty much on the money, and it says a lot about why election after election has not helped Iraq achieve a functional government. When people feel insecure (and not insecure as in "does my hair look ok", but insecure as in "I don't know if I'll be dragged into the street and shot by thugs today"), a clan mentality tends to ensue. If the fundamental conflict in Iraq (and Nigeria) is one between clans, having elections (where everyone votes for a representative from their own clan) buys you nothing. It really is problematic for democracy in many of these cobbled together former colonial holdings. Democracy does not necessarily require an ethnically and religiously homogeneous society, but it does demand one where people don't identify themselves solely by those traits (someone send a memo to the religious right).

Honest Dialogue

I guess it's predictable, but I'm somewhat irked by all of the coverage of the Palestinian elections suggesting that this result somehow signals defeat for the US's policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East. I'm critical of the naivete of that policy for other reasons (primarily the fact that staging elections does not, by itself, make for a stable democratic government). But I don't see that criticism at play here. To the extent that we can successfully create democracy in the Middle East, I'm all for it. It's the implementation that I object to, not the objective. This was an exceptionally clean election, and one that signaled the importance of honest governance to the Palestinian people. Fatah symbolized the sort of corrupt and autocratic government that undermines democracy. Palestinians cleaned house on them, and now reports say that they are cleaning out their leadership. Palestine going forward will have two legitimate political parties, both of whom understand the importance of responsive, uncorrupt government to their voters, rather than deeply corrupt single-party rule. This is huge step forward for democracy in Palestine.

Moreover, I'm troubled by the assertion that because parties are elected in Middle Eastern nations that disfavor American policy (not just in Palestine; Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia as well), this means democracy is bad. I've long thought that the dynamic that the US and Israel have tried to foster in Palestine is absurd. They have rejected talks with Hamas, with Arafat and Fatah, basically with anyone who could legitimately claim to represent the Palestinian people. Instead they would rather hand-pick a representative for Palestine (Abbas) and speak only with him. Indeed, they would frequently grow upset with Abbas for failing to bring the other Palestinians to heel. But how could he? He had no power over them, no democratic legitimacy. Fatah didn't respect him, Hamas didn't respect him, and I doubt the Palestinian people did either. How could he purport to speak on their behalf? How is it supposed to work that an agent in a negotiation is hand-picked by the adversaries of his principals? Under what theory of agency is this legitimate? It's absurd. Even if Israel had reached an agreement with Abbas, it could hardly have been expected to meaningfully bind the Palestinians.

The US and Israel may not like the actual positions of Palestinians, but they cannot hope to produce progress if they refuse to even address them. The important thing in these various elections is not that the party who favors American policy should win, but that the party who accurately represents the views of the voters should win. It's the voters we need to worry about and be engaged with, not politicians. Engaging in dialogue with politicians is important only to the extent that they are effective representatives of their constituents. If the general populace of the Middle East dislikes American policy, that is not a fact that can be swept under the rug based on models of governance. We have had many US-friendly dictators around the Middle East, and it has not solved our problems. In fact it has made them worse by allowing us to ignore legitimate complaints of the general populace. There needs to be honest dialogue, and that can only happen when there are political leaders who can truly represent the interests of their people. To the extent that elections like the one in Palestine produce that, we are all better off.

Democracy Doesn't Mean You Can Vote for Hamas

Speaking of problems with democracy.. CSM reports that Hamas is appearing increasingly dominant in Palestinian elections. First off, I told you so. That aside, the E.U. and the U.S. are quite unhappy about this turn of events and are threatening repercussions should Hamas gain a majority of the Palestinian legislative council. Not so excited about democracy anymore? It's not at all clear yet that Hamas could win a national majority, but if they do, the E.U. will demand that they renounce violence or forfeit aid money (as if that ever stopped Arafat's Fatah party from doing anything). The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a resolution threatening to cut off all support for the Palestinian Authority if Hamas has any participation in the government.

This is pure stupidity. I've argued before, and I'm sure I'll argue again, that there will not be a peaceful settlement of this conflict without Hamas' participation. They already have an effective veto over the process through violence, which they exercised over the Oslo agreement. It sure seems like it would be better for everyone if they could exercise their veto through voting in the Palestinian legislature rather than through detonating bombs in cafes in Jerusalem. Here there is an opportunity to mainstream Hamas, to bring political leaders within the organization to its front and into legitimate negotiating positions, and to support and strengthen Palestinian democracy, all in one blow. And it looks like we want to squander the opportunity...

Spreading Democracy

I haven't had a Democracy is Hard to Do(TM) post for a while, so here's a good one. Fred Kaplan discusses a book called Electing to Fight in relation to the recent elections in Iraq. The book argues that emerging democracies are more prone to violence and instability than any other type of government, and stresses the importance of establishing democratic institutions over holding elections. They see all the hallmarks of disaster in the emerging Iraqi government. Established democracies, they agree, tend to be peaceful. But the process of democratizing is dangerous and loaded with pitfalls.

Remember Iraq?

The Washington Post has an excellent editorial summarizing Iraq's constitutional conundrum. It does not appear that the constitution will be the panacea that some folks had thought it would be. It simply boils down to the same old problem that concerned me even before we invaded: how do you come up with democratic government in Iraq that will not dissolve into violent factionalism between the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis? I wasn't sure it was possible then, and nothing I'm seeing now is convincing me otherwise. It just isn't clear to me that the population in Iraq is homogeneous enough or has a strong enough sense of nationalism to be able to support a democratic federal government.

November 2004, Quote of the Month

It's old, but so worthy:

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."

--H.L. Menken

Afghans -- Are You Ready for Democracy?

Scott Baldauf of CSM asks that question in this piece. Baldauf also describes the concern of the United Nations that there are multiple registrations and safety issues that call into question the legitimacy of today's elections before they have even taken place. According to United Nations figures cited in the article, there are only 9.8 eligible voters in the country, yet as President Bush and Vice President Cheney have observed in the debates there are over 10 million Afghans registered to vote.

BBC News reports this morning that there were some additional problems with the election. Beside general concern for safety, 15 candidates claimed to be boycotting the election because of voting irregularities. To avoid multiple voting, election officials put ink on the thumb of each voter after he had cast his vote. In some cases the ink was washable.

The BBC article reports that only two candidates beside Hamid Karzai did not participate in the boycott--but they "stood down in [Karzai's] favour on the last day of the campaign."

Once More, With Feeling: Democracy Is Hard

Voicing one of my recurring blog themes, Fred Hiatt had a Washington Post column detailing the shift in opinion on the inevitability of the spread of democracy. I still believe that democracy (or representative democracy in any case) is a superior form of government that will continue to spread. It's just not as easy as some folks (particularly neo-con folks) would have us believe. There is a requirement for cultural buy-in which is not understood or considered to nearly the degree which it ought to be, and which impedes outside efforts to impose democratic processes on non-democratic nations.

Democracy Is Hard

CSM is running a story about a shift in public opinion regarding democracy in Latin America. Disappointed by decades of poor performance from their major parties many Latin American voters are electing populist outsiders, who unfortunately are also struggling to bring improvement. Democracy is a difficult form of government. We've discussed this here before, but it bears repeating. It becomes particularly difficult if you lack stable civic institutions, a substantial economic middle class, and sound economic policies. Latin American nations suffer on all accounts. Their experience has not been so different from those of other fledgling democracies in Africa and South-east Asia. Even the former Soviet states, which are relatively better off in those regards, have struggled with democracy. This is the backdrop in which the US invasion of Iraq needs to be considered. The idea that we could simply remove Saddam Hussein and then Iraq would transform into a shining beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East was absurd from day 1. I think people in the US are slowly beginning to realize this.

Democratic Reform in the Middle East Tarnished By US Support

This isn't a real shocker, but since it is relevant to a discussion Barry and I had over the weekend, I thought I'd post it. CSM is reporting that democratic reform in the Middle East may be set back by the Bush administration's strong support. According to the article "[h]ostility to the US in the region is so intense that the administration is finding that anything marked "made in USA," such as the reform plan, is not well received." They cite events in Fallujah, Najaf, and Bush's recent statements on Israel as key issues. CSM also quotes European diplomats worrying that American actions are hindering their ability to promote democracy through negative association.

Re: The Will of the People

Since I don't feel that I was entirely convincing in the previous post I'd like to elaborate on my point regarding personal weaknesses entering through back door, and add one other consideration.

In advocating that the role of a representative is to advocate the hypothetical position of the perfectly informed average-man, it is supposed that the representative should know what that is. The representative, while in a position to be considerably more informed than the average person, is still limited by imperfect knowledge. The sum of their knowledge is everything they have learned, experienced, and concluded over the course of their lifetime. So if the representative were to make their best effort to imagine an "average person" with perfect knowledge they would be obligated to project onto that person all of the knowledge that they, the representative, have acquired. While I believe that each individual person bears some unique psychological traits, I also believe that the information they've gained through their education and experiences is critical to their positions and decisions. It is not that hard to imagine that a representative would calculate that given all of their personal knowledge and experiences an "average person" would think more or less as they themselves do. And so you end up right back where you started. In this sense pretending to advocate in terms of the "average person" rather than your own personal position seems a bit dishonest.

I suppose that it could be proposed that the representative restrict the knowledge that they project onto the "average person" to only those few details directly pertinent to the issue at hand. This seems equally dishonest. If the representative had done extensive research into economic systems, and through this research had determined that supply-side economics is a bunch of crap, should they not project this onto the "average person"? Is that not an element of perfect knowledge? How is this to be managed? I think different representatives would draw this line differently; they would choose different points along a continuum, and in every case personal values, biases, and follies would enter the picture. As far as I can tell, foisting this duty onto our representatives sets an impossible standard for them, and leaves them with no good options. It does not shield us from whatever flaws the representative carries, and simply adds an additional layer of bullshit between the representative and their constituents.

My additional consideration goes toward the ideal of the Jeffersonian meritocracy. Jefferson felt that each person had different strengths and weaknesses and that through a free, equitable, and competitive system, each should rise to the level of their ability in the field of their strength. Does it not make sense that some people would be better equipped than others in leadership and public speaking? In determination of public policy? In grinding the gears of the political system to achieve effective results? In guarding the public from their transient impulses? Do you see no differences in these regards between George W Bush and John McCain? Between Russ Feingold and Michael Moore? Are we not better served by mining the populace to find those most qualified and naturally talented in the duties of a representative to serve in that role rather than the "average man"? If you are willing to trust the public to decide on policy matters, do you not trust the public to decide on these distinctions? The system as it stands surely has flaws in deciding these matters, but are we not better served attempting to correct those flaws than overthrowing it for one that still contains the same flaws and, in my view, adds deeper and more intractible flaws? I believe it should not be considered elitist or evil to think that elected public servants may be more capable than the average citizen, but rather that this should be recognized as one of the goals and strengths of a representative system.

Re: The Will of the People

I am torn on this issue more than any other. To me this debate encapsulates a host of issues related to paternalism versus populism. I do not know how to appropriately address the balance between the will of the people and the--well, will of the people. I trust the ideals of populism but I also recognize its natural deficits.

At the end of the day, the Jeffersonian idea that the power should rest with the people sits most comfortably with me. At the same time, I openly recognize that people don't always make the best choices given the information they have. For some reason, though, it seems more palatable to me that the people should err than the government in its attempt to correct for the errs of its constituents. At least the error does not run twice as deep, and it can not be so plainly coopted for nefarious goals. I can forgive an err of the public, but I can not so easily forgive the same of the republic.