Archive for November, 2006
Such are the depths of corruption and power-abuse in Africa that a Sudanese mobile phone billionaire is offering an annual $5 million prize to a freely elected leader who governs well and hands over power to an elected successor.
He is thus offering positive reinforcement to oversight and other tools.
Skeptics might wonder if $5 million is enough when you can run off with hundreds of millions if you run a successful kleptocracy.
And, writes a commentator in the NYT, Africa needs more — “It needs a permanent source of political pressure from citizens and business groups — not just general disgust, but advocacy for specific reforms.”
The International Crisis Group (ICG) issued a warning on Somalia today. It begins:
The draft resolution the U.S. intends to present to the UN Security Council on 29 November could trigger all-out war in Somalia and destabilise the entire Horn of Africa region by escalating the proxy conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to dangerous new levels.
The resolution would authorize regional intervention on the side of the weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG), to protect it against Somali Islamic forces.
The ICG warns that outright foreign intervention on behalf of the TFG
would likely fracture the parliament beyond repair and reinforce the impression that the TFG is simply a proxy for Ethiopia. The loss of legitimacy in the eyes of the Somali public would be irreversible.
Ethiopian and other states are hostile to the Islamic forces in Somalia because “of its irredentist views, and support for international terrorist elements and cross-border Ethiopian rebel groups.”
US backing for this course of action, and prior support for Somali warlords who opposed the Islamists, also hint that the United States is in danger of repeating a dire mistake of the Cold War.
In places such as Vietnam and Central America, the US tended to misunderstand the relationship of local events to the main contest of the Cold War, and take action without regard for the real strategic stakes or the moral consequences.
Action to oppose the Islamists in Somalia might be warranted by American interests and morally preferable to the alternatives, but it might also be a sign of a kneejerk anti-Islamicism.
In terms of governance, former Soviet Georgia is one of the holes in the world.
What this can mean in practical terms is revealed in this WP article: counterfeit money from the renegade region of South Ossetia is showing up in the United States.
By one measure of government reach compiled by Future Atlas, Georgia scores only a 22 out of 100, placing it 164th out of 202 countries rated.
Russia is bringing more key companies under state influence, the WP reports.
The Russian government portrays this trend as furthering the “creation of powerful companies that can compete in the global economy.”
If this is accurate, it would point further toward an East Asian scenario for Russia, in which the government guides a predominantly capitalist system.
But some have their doubts. Says one opposition politician, “We should differentiate between state capitalism and bureaucratic capitalism; here we have bureaucratic capitalism, groups of state bureaucrats taking control of companies.”
Another notes that the Russian state is employing companies as political tools domestically and abroad, “so economic logic becomes a victim of political interests.”
This could undermine an Asian model for Russia. Guided capitalism has worked, but it depends on the competence and public-spiritedness of those governing. If public purposes and prosperity are subordinated to other goals, then Russia ends up with the standard Third World model, and poor prospects for wealth.
Columnist Fred Hiatt examines Japan’s demographic challenge — “sustained and inexorable population decline” — in the Washington Post.
As a result of this decline, the country’s population is projected to drop from 128 million now to 100 million in 2050. Crucially, the average age will be high and the elderly population large, with some 36 million people 65 and over.
A central issue is that women would like to have more children, but delay or avoid marriage and childbearing because Japanese society in general, and husbands in particular, leave women overburdened and without options.
In essence, Japan has given women too little equality, but enough freedom that they can back away from the system that they feel abuses them.
Hiatt writes:
In fact, robots and other ways to improve productivity are one of four possible routes to economic growth despite an aging population. The others would be making better use of women; immigration, which has increased slightly but remains unpopular in this ethnically cohesive country; and keeping the elderly working longer.
One result will be a continued flow of innovative ideas in robotics from the country.
Hiatt alludes to a fundamental question that Japan will pose: what is the meaning and purpose of economic growth? “What is happiness? Can we be happy without economic growth?” asks a Japanese demographer.
A lot of evidence suggests that growth may not be essential to well-being; income ceases to contribute substantially to happiness when development brings levels to about $10-15,000 thousand dollars a year in per capita income. Japan may test whether a society can remain satisfied without an upward trajectory.
More on the article at Future Uncertain.
A recent LAT article illustrates two interwoven trends:
- China is expanding its presence in diverse ways in Africa and the rest of the Third World.
- This new presence and the power behind it are generating backlash.
In this instance, Zambian workers are feeling abused by Chinese mine owners.
The Chinese model will encounter this kind of difficulty abroad: the lack of human rights and worker rights that makes some aspects of development easier at home will create resentment when implemented elsewhere, further limiting China’s soft power.