Archive for April, 2007
Knowledge@Wharton this week offered a series of articles on Russia’s evolution.
Scholars suggest that Russia is not reverting to old ways, as such, and Russians may broadly find the country’s present course agreeable.
Some commentators interpret nearly all his moves as attempts to restore to the Kremlin, Russia’s executive branch, to the omnipotence that it enjoyed during the Soviet years. That’s a misreading of Russian reality, says Valery Yakubovich, a Wharton management professor and Russian native. For one thing, “Nobody in Russia wants to go back,” he says. For another, Putin doesn’t have the power to push the country backwards, even if he wants to. “Around him there are various cliques, and he’s trying to balance them,” Yakubovich explains. “The government’s not completely under his control or design.”
As for Putin himself, Wharton writes that “he is so popular at home that many Russians would relax the rules to allow him to seek a third term” in the 2008 election.
“I think the Russian people would support Putin staying in power indefinitely,” says Dmitri Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Moscow Center. “If you look at the way people live today compared with when he came to power, they will say that living standards are twice as high. More importantly, there’s a sense of stability that has replaced the chaos of the 1990s. They will also say that Putin has restored some pride and respect for Russia abroad.”
The Post paints a picture of a confused, hesitant, and unrealistic electorate in France as voters select a president. A French analysist summed up voters as wanting “the myth of a job that’s secure for life with full, massive protections, and by some miracle the creation of new jobs.”
The recurrent theme is fear of the future, and “a growing sense of malaise so pronounced that analysts gave it a name: ‘declinism.’”
Some of the problems:
near-record budget and trade deficits, its highest debt in history (65 percent of GDP), and anemic economic growth and employment rates that are among the lowest in the industrialized world. Public spending accounts for about 55 percent of the national income; unemployment has not fallen below 8 percent in 25 years.
On the other hand, writing in the NYT, historian Tony Judt points out that there are reasons for France to be less glum:
French infants have a better chance of survival than American ones. The French live longer than Americans and they live healthier (at far lower cost). They are better educated and have first-rate public transportation. The gap between rich and poor is narrower than in the United States or Britain, and there are fewer poor people.
But France seems more inclined to worry about losing what they have than making changes that allow it to retain what they value.
In 2006, French teens and tweens were asked about the future. Only 42% thought there lives would be more enjoyable in the future, and only 32% believed they would earn more than their parents. The attitudes of France’s voters seem to suggest that the kids are right to worry.
In a further sign that the United States may shift its stance on climate change, a Washington Post poll reveals widespread concern about the phenomenon:
- 70% of Americans want the federal government to do more about global warming, with 49% saying “much more”
- 33% say that global warming is the world’s “single biggest environmental problem,” up from 16% a year ago
- 59% trust the Democrats more than President Bush on the issue
Addressing this post about immigration and the environment, Brishen Hoff comments:
Canada’s environmental integrity is inversely correlated with its population growth. Canada is grossly overpopulated based on what we believe to be a healthy balance between human numbers and biodiversity. Canada’s natural environment is being damaged at an unprecedented rate. Since immigration is main agent of Canada’s population growth, we advocate a complete moratorium on immigration to Canada. We also support an end to: child birthing incentives, natural resource exportation and economic growth.
Curtailing immigration and reducing Canada’s already-low birthrate further will intensify Canada’s future demography-driven problems. However, some of these problems — reduced economic growth, more constrained consumption — Hoff would seemingly view instead as solutions. This is a values-driven question that cannot be resolved rationally, as it depends on the arbitrary weight given to humans or the rest of nature.
Such policies are also at odds with Canadian opinion: most Canadians favor immigration.
An alternative approach might acknowledge that richer countries are better able to protect the environment than poorer ones. Canada is projected to be a great deal wealthier in a few decades: if that were the case, it could dedicate much more money to preserving and restoring the environment while maintaining standards of living.
Russians are far less interested in joining the European Union than they were a few years ago, according to a new poll.
In 2003, 73% thought Russia should join the bloc. Now only about a third (36%) feel this way.
At some level this fluctuation hardly matters: it will be decades before Europe’s limping eastern giant is a realistic candidate for membership in the grouping.
Military interest in security implications of climate change is growing, the Post reported yesterday.
As part of this interest, the Center for Naval Analyses has commissioned a report on the topic. According to the Post, the report says that:
- “global warming could destabilize vulnerable states in Africa and Asia and drive a flood of migrants to richer countries”
- “climate change ‘can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world,’ in part by causing water shortages and damaging food production”
- “‘Many developing nations do not have the government and social infrastructures in place to cope with the type of stressors that could be brought about by global climate change.’”
The generals responsible for the report also told the Post that “changing climatic conditions will make it harder for weak nation-states to address their citizens’ basic needs.”
In other words, climate change could intensify pressure on states already in danger of failing.
The Post offers credible evidence of an increasing split between Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The local insurgents have tactical, strategic, and even moral issues with the al-Qaeda approach, and clashes between the groups have grown.
This suggests increased likelihood for two outcomes:
- By peeling off the Islamist and global goals of al-Qaeda, it leaves the insurgents more focused on one goal: getting the US to leave. That makes it more possible to end the war with an American departure.
- It lowers the stakes for the US: some level of insurgent success — for instance, Sunni Arabs in charge of some or most of Iraq — is less likely to go hand in hand with al-Qaeda success, and result in a safe haven for Islamic terrorism. An insurgent leader in the article expressly blames al-Qaeda for provoking the occupation of Iraq via September 11th; his concern is clearly his own nation and people, not Caliphatist fantasies.
However, the insurgents are highly fragmented, and a Sunni politician notes that this reduces their ability to counter al-Qaeda. He warns, “If they do not unite, they will be weakened. Then al-Qaeda will manage to make their Islamic state in Iraq, and it will be a sad day for the country and the world.”
Der Spiegel adds more detail to the Islamizing trend in Indonesia.
An Indonesian editor asserts that “We are on the brink of a comprehensive Islamicization of Indonesia.” That is not yet clear, but Islamic parties continue to press for an “anti-pornography” law that would actually restrict many freedoms, and impose new limits on dress, movies, and the arts.
Meanwhile, conservative Islam continues to spread in Indonesian society, inspiring more women to wear headscarves and clearing alcohol from more supermarkets. Says an Indonesian activitist, “The religious agenda is shaping more and more areas of daily life.”
The article also makes it clear that this is another example of the cultural power of Saudi Arabia, successfully using its wealth to export its version of fundamentalist Islam. Representatives of one of the fundamentalist parties sometimes speak Arabic in parliamentary committees.
As Future Atlas has noted in the past, the consequences of Islamization could be severe.
Politics continues to spread to virtual spaces. The Washington Post reported last week on happenings in Second Life, including campaign activities by American and French politicians.
An unusual confrontation erupted after French right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen opened an office in Second Life. Protesters teleported onto the scene, and a melee broke out:
Le Pen security forces responded with push guns, whimsical digital weapons that tossed bodies through the air “like rag dolls,” according to one witness. Protesters fought back with pig grenades, firing fat pink porkers that exploded in neon pink splatters. When the shooting ended, Le Pen’s headquarters lay in ruins, deserted by staff and guards.
This is another indicator of several likely developments:
- More politics of all kinds will appear in virtual worlds.
- More international and global issues will be played out in such spaces.
- With millions of people living, playing, and working in virtual lands, they will create their own politics, and virtual political issues could take on real-world significance.
- This could reach the level of international diplomatic significance. Thousands of interactions could open new kinds of communications between peoples. But they could also create new tensions, over new issues. Last year Koreans massacred Chinese players in the game Lineage, as they felt the Chinese were logging onto Korean servers due to the higher levels of wealth to be had there.