Four Years of Obama: An Evaluation

Incumbent president Barack Obama. I am rooting for the
guy even though this article doesn't avoid criticism.

Republican criticism of U.S. president Barack Obama has been harsh. At the Republican convention in Tampa, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan characterized life under the Obama administration as planned out by the government. 'A country where everything is free but we are not', he stated. Clearly the Republicans are not amused by what the past legislation brought forth. Sure, the differences between the two parties seem wider than ever; polarization seems to grasp the sphere rather well. Yet a lot of progressive Democrats too are dissatisfied with their president. Voters on the left who supported Obama in 2008 have grown disillusioned. It is to this part of the electorate that the Democrat directed himself when he argued that 'when you give up now, nothing will change'.

Does Obama follow a centrist line? Is he the Republicans' little bitch? Or a socialist crook, as Tea Party types claim? In spite of all 'election speech' I do believe in the good intentions of Obama. And when reflecting upon his realizations (or the lack thereof) we must always keep in mind that a president can only do so much. In making policy, Obama has been winged by a Republican-dominated Congress. As a result, the output of four years Obama is always the output of a four year game between all relevant actors.

THE PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATE

Whether the past legislature can be dubbed 'left' or 'right' depends on which policy branch is under consideration. One field in which Obama made a difference is the emancipation of the gay community. He repealed the DADT policy which barred homosexuals from the army. As a major influence on the public opinion he also openly approved of gay couples. I consider this a big step forward in what I consider to be a backward country regarding such issues. (If this judgement seems harsh, please consider that I live in Belgium. Same-sex marriage is totally legal here and even our PM is homosexual!). Sure, Republicans aren't all united on this issue. But I do believe that a Republican president would have made a difference, if only in his silence.

On a side note: Obama is black. Perhaps it is lame to see this as a positive quality, but I can't help thinking it makes a difference. It is something like a first female head of state: not necessarily an indication of real emancipation but a strong token of progress nonetheless.

Obama might well be the 'greenest' president the States
ever have seen. A tendency his party can capitalize on, as
a lot of moderate voters have environmental concerns too.

The branch in which Obama made the biggest difference is, I belief, the environmental policy. His administration protected the Grand Canyon from uranium mining, supported green industry, enacted stronger protections against poisonous substances, etc. Again Democrats and Republicans come in various flavors when the environment is concerned. Yet the duo Romney-Ryan campaigns with dismantling such protections as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Their approach completely denies climate change, as does a frightening large portion of their party's officials. Climate change is a debate in its own, but massive amounts of toxins and greenhouse gases can't be very wholesome. To claim that such pollution has no effect - you tell me who believes in fairy tales?

The following might be striking, but with that I have covered Obama's biggest achievements. What about the social policy, you may ask? What about saving the economy? There is no denying that the president did a decent job governing in difficult circumstances. I am however not convinced that a Republican candidate would have made a significant difference. Of course this is counterfactual, and thus not solid. But allow me to make a case.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC CENTRIST

The economy got stimulated with a 800 billion plan in 2009. One third of this amount was however implemented as tax cuts. Cuts are less stimulating than outright public investment since people will have the incentive to save up for the hardship to come. Especially the left was not too happy with this design, but then again it were the Republicans in Congress that needed to be courted. Perhaps McCain (or another generic Republican candidate) would have added a bigger portion of tax cuts. Perhaps the benefits would go to a higher income group than the middle class Obama favoured. But these measures would only be less effective in stimulating the real economy as a whole. And after all, there are only so many ways to revive an economy in a limited scope of time.

With the tax cuts mentioned, I would like to take the time to tackle one of the biggest myths created by the American right. The tax burden didn’t massively increase under the Obama administration. True, the president set out to revoke Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. But this never came about. Too bad I say. And his more leftist supporters would surely agree, a failure. On the other hand taxes were reduced for the middle classes, mainly with the stimulus program. Neutral economic institutes set the current U.S. tax rate at the lowest in decades!

The health care reform, often dubbed 'Obamacare', is
subject to much debate. A look at recent history puts
much of the consternation in perspective, though.

On to that other eyesore for conservatives: Obamacare. Republicans are angered, yet it concerns a reform they thought about for years themselves. Its very blueprint - as is by now well known - was implemented by no less than Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts! The so-called Heritage model, created by one of the biggest conservative think-thanks, obligates Americans to buy an insurance with a private company. Those who can’t afford one are entitled to subsidies. As a counterweight, insurance companies can’t turn anyone down. But why would they if the state just bought them 30 million of new customers?! Republicans can't be too mad as their ultimate nightmare was avoided: a public insurance option after European fashion. Such an option was present in a failed plan once presented by Nixon. And why did Nixon fail? The Democrats wanted more. Now they themselves presented less, and short-sighted Republicans call it socialism.

If Obama is a communist he knows damn well how to hide it. Sure, he nationalized the car industry. But only for a while. And while Romney suggested to drop GM and Chrysler, I heavily doubt any president would have the guts. It sure wouldn’t do him any good in the polls. As for Wall Street, saving behemoth financial institutions with tax payer money can hardly be called called socialist either. For one there weren't any real options here. And second, the government asked nothing in return. No accountability, no caps on bonuses or management wages. The families who lost their homes due to malpractices outside their control could count on far less support...

A MIXED RECORD

Other hot topics Obama-supporters bring up are migration and foreign policy. The DREAM act was a nice gesture. Most Republicans wouldn't dream of coming up with such a proposal. And indeed they complain it will only encourage illegal immigration. This may be, but the Obama administration is also responsible for doubling border patrols. Obama seeks to reduce the influx while dealing with the illegal community already present. Not too shabby, I must concur. The war in Iraq ended. For Afghanistan the end is in sight. No real victory is achieved in my eyes, yet there is nothing any president could do to help. Obama is however not the softy hawkish Republicans think him to be: under his administration more drone strikes were ordered. Also, Guantanamo remains in use and the Patriot Act still stands.

I conclude by pointing out that there is a growing number of disillusioned voters since Clinton. People who care deeply for strong environmental and social policies. They supported Obama before, and he needs them again now. I am not sure if he deserves them though, since on crucial matters - economic and social - there has been no significant difference.

Islam Spelled Backwards: A Lesson In History

The characterization of Islam as backward has a long
history. Yet such representation fails to grasp the
genesis of the backward cultural frame or the direction
of the profits generated by it. Islam is not as such
by definition, it always functions within a context .

Muslim agitation over 'insulting' imagery is nothing new. It is as present in the media as advertisement. I can't turn on my television or pick up a newspaper without bumping into the latest analysis, opinion, or tirade. Chances are that you experience the same. That is why I first decided not to contribute on this issue. Surely, the facts are by now well-known: a distasteful depiction of the Muslim prophet invoked outbreaks around the world. The violence stirred debate on the compatibility of Islam and 'modern' values like freedom of speech. All too often, the friction which exists between Islam and liberal democracy is reduced to a Clash of Civilizations. 'Islam is a backward belief incapable of allowing democracy to flourish', such is the stance. On the other side of the debate, religious extremists eagerly adhere to this logic of collision. They invert the Western insult to a threat. I dealt with this perspective before. Still, mainstream media fail to grasp the real forces at play. They either subscribe to populist name calling or conjure up an image of the 'backyard Muslim'. The latter to remind us that many Muslims are valuable members of the community. What lacks is a coherent framework to combat the superficial clash put forth.

Religion is often used - misused - as a guise for real social conflict. Indeed conflicting interests have been masked by ideological differences throughout history. Today Islam is coupled to backwardness, but during the 16th century this role was allotted to Catholicism. At the dawn of modern Europe, religious conflicts tore apart political units at most levels. The rise of Protestant movements challenged the old order. Protestantism came in many a form, from the rather modest Anglicanism to radical Dutch Remonstrants. After the dust of the Thirty Years War settled, Protestantism had triumphed in those regions that would do most well in economic terms: the Dutch Republic, England, Scotland, and to some extent France which had the Huguenot legacy. Catholicism strengthened its position in Spain, the Italian states and Poland. These more peripheral areas saw a refeudalization as opposed to the forward surge of (proto-)industry in the Protestant nations. My point? If today's rhetoric was to be applied on this historic case, the conclusion would be that Catholicism is backward while Protestantism is not. Such a view has indeed been suggested. Yet, I prefer a vision that takes into account the gameplay behind the curtain of theological discussion.

The 'Breaking of the Images' in the Low
Countries is quite comparable with Muslim
aggression toward idols. Yet one we call
progressive while the other is a sign of
anti-cultural sentiment?

Letting ideological dissent account for different social and economic realities is not a balanced view. On the other hand, one must be aware of deriving all cultural patterns from material conditions. Protestantism might more easily reach concord with progressive ideas than Catholicism, since the later has been a defining factor in a former order. But this only is a function of exactly that former constellation. It guaranteed that Protestantism could ally with socially progressive forces. Or better: that socially progressive forces could ally under the umbrella of Protestantism. New nobility, gentry, commercial entrepreneurs tried to secure their interests by assaulting Church property and the privileges of the old nobility. Another major factor was the buildup of a state machinery and the financial resources needed. The refeudalization, weaker state machineries and primacy of Catholicism in 'backward' Medieval Europe served the further rise of the 'strong states'. Baltic and Central Europe became a grain basket, producing much needed cereals of which the trade was monopolized by the Netherlands. Spain imported bullion from the New World to feed the growing economic activity in the northwest. Local aristocracies and the financial reserves of Italian city-states provided a market for Dutch and English cloth.

We have to view the position of the Islam in a similar logic. If the countries of the Middle East and Northern Africa are backward, it is not due to some primordial nature of Islam. Religion at best delivers an arsenal of symbols and values through which social and political forces act. Not so long ago the countries in those regions were ruled by an elite which promised modernity and progress. In reality people were oppressed, kept backward while a ruling few grew rich in serving foreign interests - the interests of the strong states. The Arab Spring was a reaction against this broken promise. And current uproar, all in the name of Islam, is in fact an internal struggle following regime collapse. Part of the old elite tries to reinvent itself, renew its promise. Islamist forces combat them by combatting their example, the Western liberal democracies. Does this make Political Islam a force of progress? I doubt it. Surely its current form is anti-Western, an enemy of the current installment of imperial privileges. The rise of Islamist regimes eats away at the hegemony of the West and brings the world further in touch with a growing multipolar reality. It will however not free the majority of the Muslim population, nor bring them material progress.

Press Freedom on the African Continent

A free press is considered crucial in building a strong democracy. If journalists are not allowed to collect and present opinions freely, how can true discussion ever come about? A critical press driven by debate is a cornerstone of emancipation. While in most African countries there is a broad selection of papers and radio stations to choose from, governments pressure journalists and press owners to shape the content. Working independently as a journalist can get you arrested, tortured and even killed. Underneath is a map of the Africa Liberal Network, a major advocate for liberal freedoms on the continent; it shows the situation as of 2012. On their website you can find an interactive copy showing rank and score of each country.

Amnesty International, the world's biggest advocate of human rights, listed the major crackdowns on African journalism in Amnesty In Actie ('Amnesty In Action') - the magazine for their Belgian members. A short but shocking selection:

Gambia : Ebrima Manneh, journalist for the Daily Observer, was arrested in 2006. He has been missing ever since. Court ruled recently that he was to be released and his family to be compensated. This ruling has been ignored by the authorities. That various papers had their websites hacked or have been closed down doesn't give much hope either.

Somalia : In 2011, three prominent figures of independent press have been assassinated. Among them was Abukar Hasan Mohamud Kadaf, former director of the independent radio station Somaliweyn. Since 2006 already 27 reporters have been killed. So far, none of these murders came before court.

Malawi : A new law gives the Minister of Information (oh yes, definitely need one of those) the power to forbid a publication if it should be 'in conflict with the common good'. Of course this law is used mainly to silence critical voices.

The list is in fact pretty long. I will leave it at these ones. If you want to partake in one of Amnesty's fine writing or mailing actions, visit their website. Now while as a whole Africa does terrible, the worst place for a journalist is not situated in Africa. The deadliest country is in fact Pakistan (SOURCE). Followed by Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil and Russia.

The Decline of US Power: An Eagle Crash Landing?

Columbia, as personification of the United States, carries
civilization westward. This image represents the 'manifest
destiny' of America as well as its expansionist tendency.

The 09/11 attacks were an eye-opener, a moment of revelation. Not so much as a defining moment, but rather as part of a lengthy historic trajectory which entails the decline of US hegemony. The majority of American policy makers, however, responded with denial and anger. They remain attached to the idea of American exceptionalism. To them the American dream is a guiding light for individuals around the world, Americans have a manifest destiny. While these underlying values present useful insights, they are not an exact representation of reality. To understand the world we need to look beyond our dreams; we need to look at the history of the United States and its place in the world. This post seeks to do just that. What do we see when we trace this superpower? How is it that the terrorist attacks and the American response, a 'War on Terror', fit in this pattern?

The truth is that by the turn of the millennium the States already lost their shine. A lone superpower that lacks true might. A leader everybody stopped following. Drifting dangerously amidst a chaos it cannot control.

In the nineties the US economy seemed to do well. Productivity was high, the stock market boomed, both unemployment and inflation were low. The resulting surplus made possible the liquidation of government debt. Many Americans believed this to be an affirmation of the vision and the economic policy of their leaders. What at first seemed to be success turned out to be a bubble. But even bubbles and downturns are deceiving: the world-economy has been in relative stagnation ever since the seventies!¹ For three consecutive decades, the powerful economic loci have tried to shift the losses to each other. Western Europe did well in the seventies, then Japan had its decade, and the States had their share in the nineties. Globally, however, success was dim. The global economic slowdown parallels the decline of American hegemony. Indeed this is no coincidence. And it is all but certain that the US will outshine its competitors in a resolution. An under-the-surface fear is already today shaping American policy.

Central, though not crucial, in both economic and political decline was the Vietnam War. This costly conflict exhausted the American gold reserves at a moment when both Western Europe and Japan experienced an economic upswing. With the abandonment of fixed exchange rates, US pre-eminence in the global economy came to an end. Vietnam was perhaps even more devastating in another way: it was a rejection of the status quo as established by the winning powers of WWII at Yalta. A rejection by Third World nations which wanted to pursue their own way. The social upheaval of 1968 drew upon this. Just like the people of Vietnam, protesting youth contested the collusion of the two superpowers. While the direct political consequences of this 'revolution' were minimal, its intellectual and geopolitical implications were irrevocable. Centrist liberalism, binding conservatives and radicals alike since 1848, fell of its throne. Ideological choices presented themselves as conservatives became again conservative and radicals, radical.

Cartoon depicting US imperialism in the Pacific and the
Americas. Military-driven maintenance of 'empire' denies
the waning hegemony and in fact strengthens this trend.

Conservative tendencies took the steering wheel under the flag of neoliberalism. With the onset of economic stagnation in the seventies, ‘developmentalist’ policies were abandoned. As a political complement violence and rejection became more widespread in the Global South. The US had to rely increasingly on brute force, in itself a sign of growing weakness. Military failures came about in Lebanon (1983) and Somalia (1992), where American troops were effectively pushed out. Success existed mainly against countries without troops, like Grenada and Panama. While the US wasn’t  paying attention, the Soviet Union collapsed. A cause of the liquidation of the Yalta agreements and internal liberalisation. In spite of all Western victory and end of ideology, the collapse of Communism meant in effect a collapse of liberalism. The Soviet threat was the only justification of American leadership over ‘the free world’. Of course the illusion of supremacy persisted, as it does in many ways up till today. As an arbiter in the Middle East the US kicked Iraq’s but in the Gulf War. Yet all the superpower could demand from a medium strength regional player was status quo. An intervention stopped the worst atrocities in Yugoslavia. But the ethnification went on and was indeed legitimized.

09/11 too proved the waning American power. It is not so much that a band of rogue fanatics with relatively little resources managed to scar the number one military power. It is the response that speaks: invading Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the attacks, without much international consultation. This only spread anti-American sentiments, even among allies. Different voices are heard in how to deal with this reality. On the one hand there is the isolationist tendency, preaching a withdrawal into Fortress America. On the other hand there is the ‘hawkish’ macho-militarism. Both expressions of American nationalism, they share the same attitude toward others: one of fear and disdain, a belief in the superiority of the own way of life. Involvement in the quarrels of others is only permitted if we can impose our ways. Without a real possibility to bend the downward trajectory, however, the United States have chosen to ignore the trend. A policy prevailing from Vietnam till today that only hastens the decline.

¹ World-economy is a term borrowed from world-systems analysis. For our usage here it can be equated to the global economy. When we say this global economy is in relative stagnation we mean that it is not expanding at as fast a rate as before, hence the 'relative'. For a general introduction to the underlying mechanism and the supposed consequences, see World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction.

Ten Years of 9/11: Rethinking The Middle East

So by now it has been eleven years, not ten. I wrote this as a guest blog for a good friend of mine. In fact that has been my first post ever to appear on Blogger. Its message is significant enough to be stressed once again. A repost is also interesting since my next contribution, due for 09/11, will place the same Middle East policy in a long term perspective. (Damn, I said no deadlines). Enjoy!

Day to day it has been ten years since Al-Qaeda struck the United States in its heart. 9/11 was certainly one of the most dramatic events of the past two decades. I do however disagree with the common view that it was one of the most significant ones. Without wanting to palliate the cruelty of the terrorist attack, I do feel its impact on world politics is not as direct as generally accepted. The effect of 9/11 was, I argue, mostly indirect and of a subjective nature. In the course of events taking place after the towers of the World Trade Center came down, America reacted with drastic measures. Washington increased its efforts in securing the safety of its citizens, sometimes by harassing those very citizens, and started a costly war on terror. It is exactly the road taken right after the attacks that would shape world politics for the next ten years. When it comes to significance for policy makers, the heavy costs of war and often problematic progress in rebuilding ‘freed’ nations like Afghanistan outweigh the September sting.

My opinion is not that 9/11 was completely irrelevant, but I do feel its impact is one constructed in the minds of both policy makers and the public at large. The terrorist act itself was sanctified as a symbol of fundamentalist hatred towards the innocent West while it was only a minority’s brutal response to America’s actions in the Middle East. This emotional misinterpretation fed and strengthened an image of  ‘us against them’. The public opinion shifted. A vision was created in which the Middle East was believed to be full of backward terrorists plotting to bring about the end of western democracy. Of course the number of oppressing regimes we supported far surpassed Islamist states, another fact gently neglected. In turn this mistaken paradigm contributed to the American answer to the attacks: war abroad and security at home. When the American people were confronted with persisting Taliban sympathies in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan they saw their idea that the average Muslim is a warmongering fundamentalist confirmed.

Both the American answer to Muslim extremism and the distorted public opinion it partially draws upon are flawed for at least two reasons:

(1) First of all the actual causes for religious fanaticism in the Middle East are not recognized. The belief that Islam and indeed the Middle East itself is a monolith does not correspond with reality. Not  all –  not even most – Muslims agree to violence or the oppression of women. We don’t need to support militarist dictators in order to avert the rise of Islamist terrorists. An example is the young middle class that lives in Karachi, the biggest and most liberal city in Pakistan. The youth there likes to party and engage in performing arts. They proof that there exists something like a modern and self-conscious Muslim living in the Middle East. What most of us fail to see is that religious fundamentalists, such as the Taliban, gain their support by exploiting poverty. The real causes are indeed socio-economic in nature: hunger, corruption, lack of proper education, etc. Which is exactly why their support for the fundamentalists is all the bigger in underdeveloped mountainous regions.

Failing to endorse the role of socio-economic causes can have disastrous results. Take for instance the 2010 floods in Pakistan. An enlightened take on the Middle East would stress the importance of economic certainty and food supply. Because of the distorted public opinion in the West, however, the influx of financial support was substandard, worsening our credibility with a needy population. After all who wants to aid a terrorist? Another even more painful example of how counterproductive this mistake might be, has to do with the 9/11 attacks themselves: no-one dared to inquire what the motives for the attacks were. Not even the official report of the 9/11 Commission mentioned the only rational question ‘why’. Why not? Because they didn’t want to acknowledge that Al-Qaeda itself defined its terrorism as a response against US foreign policy. We don’t want people to question our policy, now do we? And so by bringing more war and destruction to the Middle East, NATO became an instrument for spreading hatred towards the West. Think of it as Newton’s third law of motion: For every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

(2) A second major issue is that the policy toward the Middle East has since long been dominated by a certain degree of hypocrisy. When colonization in Northern Africa and the Near East came to an end, the new nations were either ‘westernized’ or ‘Sovietized’. Experiments along the line of non-alignment were not appreciated by either Cold War camp. The resulting polarization cast its shadow over the Arab World. The US-Soviet dualism dominated conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli conflict or the internal politics of countries like Syria or Turkey. The ground shaking Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 breached this ideological dualism and marked the rise of political Islam. Military powers in the West however remained caught in their two-party paradigm. The US in particular failed to recognize the demise of the bipolar world order and the erosion of its own status as a superpower. (As a side note I’d like to add that the Soviet regime didn’t recognize these evolutions either, but they had quite an effective eye-opener about ten years later.) Because the US government failed to look beyond the two-party structure, it trained and funded Islamists to combat the Soviets in Afghanistan. Those very same freedom fighters used their CIA training to erase numerous innocent lives on September 11, 2001.

Ever since World War II ended, the democratic West has been supporting not so democratic regimes around the globe, first to combat ‘Communism’ and now to hold off the Islamist threat. I hope my argumentation above provided insight in how seemingly isolated events are actually part of more encompassing structures. The time is right for a new paradigm in dealing with the Middle East, one that corresponds with reality. As shown in the example concerning ‘liberal’ Karachi, Islam and modernity are compatible. In the revolutions of the Arab Spring people called for social justice, free elections and an end to corruption. These protests are directed against regimes our governments supported and thus they are directed against how we treated the Middle East in the past. It is my deepest wish that news coverage of the protests in Egypt, Libya and Syria can guide the public opinion in another direction. With a public belief in the people of the Middle East our leaders might tune foreign policy accordingly, upholding fair economic relations and stressing social advancement.

Hi there, dear readers!

It has been a long time since I wrote for this blog. For like half a year or so Swings & Roundabouts was kind off on hold. I guess it officially still is, since an update can hardly be called a post. The past few weeks I have been reading some material in preparation for the upcoming academic term. And sure, once again I felt the urge to structure some thoughts on a piece of paper.

So... is he going to cook up some blog posts from those, you want know? There definitely is some fine material piling up on my desk. And with a whole new season of exciting courses and activities, that pile can only grow. However, the more interesting material I get my hands on the less time there remains for writing.

I suppose I will give it another try, and without doubt I will drop out of this commitment during a more stressful time. Again. We'll see what comes of it. The posts I make will be written with as much vigor and enthusiasm as before. I won't be giving myself deadlines and quota anymore, though. First up: a repost of a guest blog I write for a good friend.

Keep those gears grinding because I have two fresh new posts in the making!

The American Voter: US Political Culture Explored

I worked really hard on this post and wondered if I would finish it by the US presidential elections of 2012. Luckily for me it is done well before. So here it is: some reflections on the American voter, backed with numbers and fancy sources. This post is not so much on ordeal, rather it functions as a set of ideas that frame the upcoming elections. Feel free to feel inspired and please share any thoughts! :p

Political culture is hard to define, yet it offers an attractive explanation for national differences concerning political behavior such as voting. 'The French are such', 'Americans do not think that way', etc. I am confident you have heard some like those before. There are indeed a lot of differences, but they are in my opinion not given. First of all political culture is dynamic: it can change over time (see the graph below). This is evident from the declining trust in political institutions with Americans. Second, the creation of and changes in political culture are the result of historical development. The trust is influenced by education levels, economic climate and central figures with their vigor or scandal.

Now how unique is the American political culture? Ronald Inglehart, famous amongst political scientists, was a driving force behind thinking about post-materialism: a value pattern focussing on self-realization relative to self-preservation. By adding traditionalism/secularism as a second dimension, Inglehart identified different cultures. He found an Anglo-Saxon value pattern which scores very high on self-realization and moderate on the second dimension. This is expressed in various features of American political culture: the perceived exceptionalism, the belief in popular judgement and the typical conception of freedom. All these elements are rooted in the history of the American state and society: fleeing religious or political persecution, resistance against the English crown, the autonomy of the states, etc.

(It needs to be said that the dominant political culture in the United States is perhaps more of an imposed value pattern rooted in the Anglo-Saxon and Protestant inheritance. Values differ along various lines, of which ethnicity might well be one. In how far the political culture is shared by say Afro-Americans or Latinos is hard to say. Even more difficult is it to draw conclusions as to how 'American' American political culture is.)

'American' political culture: a combination of influences or
the dominance of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant values?

The above should enable us to situate the American political culture and place it in its historical context. On to the voter now, as the upcoming election is the essence of this article. United States politics is largely spared from the increasing fragmentation that has Europe in its grip. Even in the UK they need to form coalitions now, despite the majoritarian mode of voting. This does however not mean that voting behavior didn't change in the States. Like everywhere in the West, identification of the voters with a single party has been diminishing. The electorate is increasingly motivated by what is called 'retrospective voting': casting your ballot based on specific issues, the image of parties/leaders and the economic climate.

Studies from the sixties up till now show that only up to a fifth of the American population is motivated by ideological reasons when casting the vote; about 40% defines politics in terms of group interests (classes, ethnicity, etc.) and 25% rewards or punishes the establishment based on the general tendency of the economy and society as a whole. The others are, sadly, apathetic: they don't give a ----. Furthermore, an overwhelming eight out of ten voters show no temporal stability in their ideological preferences. However in times of crisis and change the electorate becomes more ideological in its thought than its leaders, pushing for extremes. If these results don't seem to tell you anything, read this paragraph over once again whilst thinking about Obama's success in 2008. Now repeat that exercise with the possible Republican nominees for this year in mind.

Sources:

Converse, P.E. (1964). The nature of belief systems in mass publics. In D.E. Apter (Ed.), Ideology and discontent (pp. 206-261). New York: Free Press.

Hague, R. & Harrop, M. (2010). Elections and voters. In Comparative government and politics: An introduction (pp. 179-202). Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Hague, R. & Harrop, M. (2010). Political culture. In Comparative government and politics: An introduction (pp. 121-137). Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization: Cultural, economic and social change in 43 countries. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Inglehart, R. (1999). Postmodernization erodes respect for authority, but increases support for democracy. In P. Norris (Ed.), Critical citizens: Global support for democratic governance (pp. 359-392). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Putnam, R. (2002). Democracies in flux: The evolution of social capital in contemporary society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sears, D.O. & Funk, C.L. (1990). The role of self-interest in social and political attitudes, Advances in experimental social psychology, 24, pp. 1-91.

The WTO: A Brave New World?

Often mentioned in my posts is the World Trade Organization, WTO for short. Mostly it is in a complaint about the negative side-effects of its policies and actions. The WTO was established in 1995 as the successor to the GATT-negotiations. Its goal was to realize global free trade. I noticed however that more and more the organization is used as a battleground for the resolution of national interest conflicts. The big trading blocs - United States, European Union and China - are pursuing their economic self-interest, disguising it as concerns of free trade, ecology or fair trade.

One of the first big clashes was between Europe and the Cairns Group. The latter attacked the agricultural policy of the Union. Of course this was a genuine case of protectionism versus free trade. But when Europe masked its subsidies as support for environmental development, things got really nasty. The WTO was expected to decide on the legitimacy of environmental and other 'progressive' arguments, something it had no mandate for. Indeed the WTO assesses mostly in favor of free trade. Two clear-cut cases are the Banana War and the dispute about Europe's unilateral guarantee of free trade to its poorest trading partners. In both cases Europe had nothing to gain financially itself, but the WTO ruled that such practices are 'against the spirit of freeing up world trade'. I wonder what will become of the Union's aircraft carbon tax...

With its one-sided focus on free trade the WTO can
only serve capital. There is no attention for legitimate
concerns regarding the environment or free trade...

The WTO was created in a moment that everyone believed capitalism had triumphed. A brave new world dawned, a world in which free trade was good trade, best trade. In this spirit the rules of good practice were enshrined in legislation that could only be changed by unanimous vote of the WTO members. This gave rise to what political scientist Stephen Gill calls the new constitutionalism of disciplinary neoliberalism: governments across the world have to abide the rules regardless of their orientation, resisting or retreating equals economic suicide. Truly globalization at its best here, or should I perhaps say at its worst?

Nations sometimes win, sometimes they lose. The real winner in this game is capital: it enjoys the freedom to exploit without the hinderance of border, it is free to set up governments against each other. Who gives the biggest tax cut? Who provides the juiciest subsidies? Who doesn't care that the world dies tomorrow if we can feast today? The one-sided stress of free trade is the real tragedy of the WTO. When we have global exchange we need global regulation. Not the kind of night-watchman authority the WTO provides. Perhaps the resolution lies in the blockage the organization is currently in: being stuck halfway between painful fines and equally painful import taxes can only cause irritation with the WTO's members.

What lies beneath: Implicit attitudes and emancipation

In the previous post I addressed the issue of traditional gender roles. Inspired by a publication of the Belgian Institute for the Equality of Woman and Man, I argued that gender roles are constraining to the personal freedom. Here I want to illustrate this point more thoroughly: Gender roles are a mostly social phenomenon, while it is often portrayed as a natural order. This makes that any deviant behavior is considered abnormal, even when superficially tolerated. There always exists implicit psychological pressure to adjust to the norm, regardless of whether explicit social pressure accompanies it. The psychological bias is deeply ingrained within our minds, as I will show. I can however not do this without first mentioning the illicit nature of this pressure and thus of the constraints. We are not sufficiently aware of how indoctrinated we truly are. And, as stated in the previous post, it is in this subtlety that lies the real danger.

On to the proof now, as big declarations about brainwashing make me sound more like a lunatic than I am comfortable with. A key notion in need of understanding is that the human brain is the ultimate instrument of deceit: we succeed to fool ourselves with the most powerful illusions time and time again. People can say that they oppose traditional gender roles, even believe that they do, while subconsciously they have a positive attitude toward them. As long is this conflict does not surface the person in question doesn't notice. A quick example: people can speak noble of tolerance toward homosexuality until their son 'needs to say something'. Same so with multiculturalism and the daughter introducing her new boyfriend Ali.

That people are not aware of implicit attitudes is widely accepted in social psychology. An instrument has been designed to measure such attitudes, the implicit association test (IAT). The test was created by Harvard psychologists in 1998 and caused a real revolt in methodology. I suggest not to find out how it works untill you have taken one yourself. It is a solid instrument though and some stunning results have been discovered using it:

The above image illustrates the preference of whites over blacks (left) and the attitude toward traditional gender roles (right). Both measured once by self-observation trough a list of questions (explicit) and once using IAT (implicit). Apparently women are not as emancipated as they themselves claim to be. Sure they are free, they have made their own choices, etc. Subconsciously they are still compelled to follow the gender roles though. Socialization at its best here. I included the example of blacks and whites in the United States because it shows that even blacks have a more positive attitude toward whites than toward their in-group. Seemingly the black community is based on a contrast with whites, a socially produced (!) contrast that places blacks at the bottom end of the comparison. A contrasts blacks too agree upon, albeit without being aware of it.

IAT research strengthens my view that there is a merit in stressing the harm done by the less visible or even invisible dynamics. We must acknowledge that the continuous portrayal of socially produced inequality as natural blocks the way to true emancipation. We must expose the triggers of mental oppression and fight them openly. To end this post I wish to thank J.J. Ekins for his comments on the previous post. They were a genuine stimulus for me to build upon. To all other readers: feel free to engage, to formulate your own thoughts, etc. A little polemic makes my blog more than an exercise in writing.

Gender equality in Belgium: The IGVM report

A few days ago the Belgian Institute For the Equality of Woman and Man (IGVM) published its second report on gender statistics. The report is an instrument that lists numerous indicators of inequality between genders. The first gender statistics report was published in 2006. Since that time a lot of progress has been made in my little country. Especially at the indicators of education and academic careers the emancipation is really visible. A lot of problems still remain though. The hardest conclusion to digest - also the one the press covered most intensely - is that for every houseman there still are 32 housewives. Classic gender roles are indeed more firmly embedded in our open societies than you might imagine. The group of men who are participating in the household is growing, albeit at a slow rate. In the end the combination of a working job with tasks around the household still falls mainly on women. Housemen are a marginal group both within the population of men and the population of house cats. This is a trend that persists even in younger generations.

In Belgium we have a great system of time credit formulas: social security arrangements that allow working people to do less hours or even take a few months off to raise the children, care for an ill family member, etc. It is a sad reflection though that mainly women make use of these formulas. I understand that an instinct for caring might be more characteristic of woman, but not to such statistic extremes. There is no denying that a cultural pattern is at work here. And this is a real pity since the IGVM explicitly states in its report that "a more equal distribution of (caring) tasks within the household is a necessary condition for greater equality in other domains" (IGVM, 2012a).

To conclude I wish to point out that the inequality evident from the numbers has two main reasons. One is the ongoing enforcement of gender stereotypes onto children. Examples are all too evident: girls between 12 and 18 engage significantly more in household activities than boys of the same age, sports are still considered a boy's thing while we buy girls a doll for their birthday, etc. The IGVM report confirms the role of such practices which are to me no less than indoctrinating, limiting the free choice of children. I dare to say indoctrinating because how else would you call the natural representation of a constructed social order? The second problem links up to this in a direct fashion: most people see no problem. Most Belgian citizens do not recognize gender roles as a severe limitation to either freedom or emancipation. Gender roles may  not be as rigid as they once where, the danger lies exactly in their subtlety. What remains slumbering under the surface is hard to contest, but it can spread its poison nonetheless.

Sources:

IGVM (2012a). Press release 'Females and males in Belgium: Equal in 2012?' (Dutch). Consulted on February 22, 2012 (http://igvm-iefh.belgium.be/nl/binaries/Persbericht%2021feb2012_tcm336-163732.pdf).

IGVM (2012b). Females and males in Belgium. Gender statistics and indicators (Dutch). Consulted on February 22, 2012 (http://igvm-iefh.belgium.be/nl/binaries/GenderStat_N_Hfdst1-8_tcm336-161101.pdf).

Policy approaches on abusive substances

This post is going to be a real practical one: there isn't a single adult out there who isn't involved. I am going to talk about what policy society ought to pursue when facing abusive substances. The trigger to write this was a family discussion on the legalization of soft drugs. The post will however encompass a wider variety of abusive substances. Including tobacco and - the emotionally even more sensitive - alcohol. Feel free to comment on the reasoning below or share your own views with us!

Before going to dictate the state what laws it should adopt I have to say a word or two on social control of abusive substance usage in general. What a person ingests, inhales or injects is often portrayed as a private matter. Users claim the right to abuse their own body. Yet reality shows that personal abuse is not at all a personal issue. Users create costs for others, directly trough exposure and indirectly by the impact on health care costs and economic productivity. A drunk is not a valuable asset to society, to state it bluntly. But the costs to society don't stop at this one generation. The current image and status of usage influences future usage too. I am sensitive for the idea that 'it is still my body' but there is no good in denying several millennia of social evolution. You do live with other people and that should count for something.

So what strategies are available to our respective governments? A first extreme is to come down hard on usage. But prohibition will only shift the demand to a black market. This causes society to miss possible revenue from taxes and having a harder time reaching out to users. Criminalizing by law also causes prices to mount (due to a less accessible supply) and triggers a rise in criminal activity. At the other end of the prohibition-tolerance spectrum we find complete legalization of whatever you feel like getting high on today. As stated above that would bring social costs. It also lowers the threshold to even more wicked substances. In my eyes such a policy gives the completely wrong signal by freeing the personal needs from all social boundaries.

Tackling the image of alcohol and other
abusive substances might be the way.

It should be clear by now that I am not in for freeing the egotist genie from its social constraints. But just as legalization, prohibition ignores social reality. That is why I want social control to be a force for the better without being all totalitarian/bitch-like. So what does an effective middle road approach look like? One element is taxation. The main idea behind a surplus tax for abusive substances is that it should discourage usage. It also raises money to recover some of the social costs. At once it becomes clear that taxation is an incomplete instrument if no directives for spending the tax money are laid out. The argument that cigarettes are a milk cow for the state is too often misused, but this is a legitimate concern. After all, the burden of such taxes tend to fall on the more vulnerable groups within a society. The idea of good practice directives should be extended to the suppliers of such products. Labeling needs to provide clear information, certain limits are imposed, etc. The European Union is in fact working on a proposal for the sale of tobacco products: the goal is to let them all come in dull-looking packages and put them somewhere out of sight.

I think it ideal to exercise strong pressure on the image of abusive substances. All by all easy to get, but hard to engage into the activity morally. A moral criminalization so to say. This guilt-approach makes people think about their behavior and, in time, change will occur. From this point of view Europe is on the right track concerning tobacco. Not so much for soft drugs though and not at all for alcohol. (Of note: I don't use any of the aforementioned substances, nor any that could at this time be reasonably considered abusive. Without a doubt this reflects in my views, though I am confident that it provides me a unique position to see things too.)

Capitalism and the global environment

As I explained at the beginning of my previous post I am spending all my free time on doing research for my paper. It came to me that if I wrote something on that, I would be able to maintain focus and keep you readers well-supplied for the next couple of days. What follows is a slimmed down summary of what I've been reading the past few months. It accounts of the exploitation of the South, its environment and the evil ways of capitalism. Enjoy!

In the West we still are under the impression that we ought to learn people in the South how to live in a sustainable way. This is evident from our leader's attitudes at international conferences and the various 'plant a three in the South'-like campaigns that are put forth as a solution to ecological crisis. As if environmental degradation in the South is the result of ignorance rather than poverty. As if we are setting a good example...

This is exactly the attitude that needs tackling: the whole idea that the North has the most progressive environmental policies is misleading. Sure, such statement holds when we are talking about quality standards of rivers and the like. But what about international trade? "Now what has trade got to do with it", you ask? Economic policy is not isolated from environmental concerns, just like the world economy is not isolated from the global ecosystem. The North consumes a majority of the natural resources that are extracted from this planet, yet most degradation that accompanies this extraction is experienced in the South. Rich countries use their purchasing power to shift the burden to the South. We cut down African rain forests in stead of American temperate woods. Now isn't it strange that third world countries suffer from deforestation while we don't see that many IKEA-closets in Kinshasa?

We can maintain both our welfare and natural richness by externalizing the environmental costs associated with production processes. We are still exploiting the South when enjoying our Starbucks coffee or blogging from our HP laptop. Not that we should be surprised at such a conclusion. Exploitation is the very mechanism that makes money go round. From its very start, the capitalist mode of production was grounded in keeping certain costs external to the one who was producing for the market. The market value in other words should not reflect the full cost of production upon society. An example: Starbucks doesn't make you pay for the biodiversity that got lost while clearing tropical forest for a coffee plantation.

"But doesn't the market tend to evolve toward some kind of balance, a correct price?" If only economists would use a little more of their time researching why the optimum is so hard to achieve, you wouldn't need to ask that question. (Economists tend to chatter along about an optimum hardly ever achieved...). If prices where to reflect the real social and environmental costs inflicted, there wouldn't be any surplus gain. The notion that under perfect competition no surplus profits are made is central to economic theory. Yet a lot of free market champions don't seem to understand that you can't get anything for free.

This is why a fair and sustainable society can never be achieved under capitalism. In a system based on the exploitation of both labor and nature, wealth can only be generated for a few at the expense of the many. If we would force our firms to internalize the full cost, the system would start to sputter. Our mode of production is one of production for sale; market value prevails over use value. Change needs to occur at the most fundamental level. Capitalism, with its insatiable hunger for more, functions as a treadmill of destruction. It must be stopped before it collapses under the gravity of its own consequences.

"We, The People"

My activity is on a downward slope, so it seems. My paper has me really occupied so all I can present you for now is this exciting piece of text on language and populism. It looks dull though, no links or color images involved. I promise more eye candy in the next one. Cross my heart and hope to write more soon.

See if you recognize the following reasoning: "Intellectuals look down on the common man and are estranged from reality as it is experienced by the people. They use a language infused with technobabble that conceals reality and thus gives a distorted view." Sounds familiar? It is called a populist discourse which aggressively downplays the role of theory and language. A defensive reflex against theory can be found anywhere in the political spectrum: populism is a matter of left and right, of progressive and conservative. Yet it is naive and above all it is dangerous too. By bashing intellectuals and glorifying everyday speech, populists endanger actual emancipation.

"Society is an amalgam of groups constructed along fluid identities."

First of all, the populist critique against class, gender, race, etc. can be turned against the catch-all categories like 'common man' or 'the people'. These are ideological constructs themselves and there is no reason to assume a priori that they more accurately describe reality! Indeed the populist discourse is dangerous because whoever claims 'the common man' claims a majority. This constructed majority is based on a patchwork of stereotypes: the common man is a caucasian male with limited schooling who works hard, pays his taxes, loves his family, watches popular media and thinks that all politicians are crooks. This cliché can be expanded in any direction at will to gain the favor of other identities. Quite a few things are ignored by populists which become obvious when we introduce a wider geographical area or certain historical developments into our analysis: we have high schooling degrees, deprivation is largest with immigrants/non-whites, gender is not a given thing, etc. Society is an amalgam of groups constructed along fluid identities. This fluidity should not be mistaken for a common identity or even common interests. The boundaries of classes are vague and sometimes they overlap, but the cores of classes still remain.

Populists reject any such analysis. For them the world is a simple place in which the struggle is one between elites - either misguided or malevolent - and the people. Populism therefore is in general a struggle about discourse; a struggle that encompasses more than just 'the people' versus 'classes'. That the attacks of populists are not justified can be seen in their selectiveness: they oppose theory, abstractions, terminology, etc. only when it concerns social and political phenomena. Never they oppose terms as inflation, appeal, cardiological or fusion-reactor. Why not? Because the associated fields of theory do not pose a threat to them. Nothing more dangerous to a populist than describing social reality. After all, you might get people emancipated...

Overcomplicating things is never a good thing. Explaining social phenomena in a understandable way is a must for the advantaged. The real evil lies however in the opposite of oversimplification. When you keep them stupid, you can keep them down. So do as Bob Marley sang and emancipate yourselves of mental slavery. Dare to deconstruct your language, but always with a constructive attitude.