On August 12, 2012, a 16-year-old girl, incapacitated by alcohol, was sexually assaulted by two high school football players in the city of Steubenville, Ohio, US.

The horrifying events that constitute the Steubenville rape case and the backlash to CNN’s coverage of the case’s sentencing have refocused attention on how the U.S. and Western society define gender roles and performance thereof. Now, more than ever, it has become apparent that society still preaches “don’t get raped” rather than the obvious “do not rape”. Not only does society emphasise women as ‘complicit’ victims to the crime being inflicted upon them, but it also casts men as being unable to control their masculine urges. The West has a rape culture problem. One that has been present for centuries, yet still remains.

Why is it that when two teenage boys rape a girl, document it photographically, and use social media to boast about their crime, the media mourns their football careers? It is because it sees two boys, with names, families and lives that it can identify with. Above all, it sees itself and how easy it would be to become the parent of one of those boys sat in that courtroom. It sees context. It sees context to such an extent that it allows it to surpass the actual heinous crime of rape in importance.

This context seems to be exactly what the West is missing when it looks to other cultures. Whether it is mainstream media or feminist organisations, all too frequently the choice is made to place gender roles and what constitutes gender equality within a decidedly Western culture-centric and liberal framework.

It is human nature to fear that which we cannot understand. Western society cannot begin to understand why rape culture continues to exist because it would be forced to admit its failure and vulnerability. Such an admission should be the first step in an already fraught struggle towards equality. In the Steubenville case, the media chose to relocate this fear, shifting it towards the fear that parents should have of how a rape could destroy futures, even if those are the futures of the rapists. To admit that the social climate in Steubenville was so rotten that these boys felt that their crimes weren’t even crimes is to admit that there’s a problem that we haven’t figured out how to solve. And that’s a terrifying prospect.

This peculiar focus that the media chooses when it comes to such issues is also apparent in its treatment of several recent gang rape cases that have occurred in India. Immediate responses were that India had a rape culture problem and was not a safe space for women to be travelling on their own. More importantly, the subtext read that India was incorrigible:   a third world country, with third world problems that they were unlikely to solve.

Yet what is most poignant is the response to each of these situations. After Steubenville, CNN, Fox News, CBS News and others were vilified for their reporting. But the reality for girls like the Steubenville Jane Doe remained the same, as embodied by the tragic death of Rehtaeh Parsons.  Swiftly after, online hacker group Anonymous placed great pressure on the Canadian government to act or else they themselves would pursue Parson’s rapists.

In India, thousands took to the streets in protest, chanting “enough is enough” and the Indian government has now signed into law stricter anti-rape measures. The political climate around the issue has even escalated to the point where young Indian women under the name “The Red Brigade” are patrolling the streets to make them safer for women like themselves.  Hardly the reaction of an “incorrigible” nation.

When you read the above, did you draw a comparison between the two responses? Chances are you did, because that is exactly what we’ve been taught to do. Western society has decided what equality must look like and transplanted it abroad. Such a comparison is flawed because Northern America is not the same place as India, nor will it ever be. But both suffer from deep-rooted issues of rape culture and distorted views of gender roles. To change these problems, they will require introspection and a fine re-examination of what exactly is going disastrously wrong within their cultures. The solution lies in a culturally sensitive approach. A culturally sensitive approach is something that the broader feminist movement could use a good dose of.

Check Your Privilege

These days, the door to feminist dialogue is clearly labelled “check your privilege”.  In a movement for equality, one must tread lightly not to enforce the oppression of the already oppressed. For a feminist to discriminate against others seems an inherently flawed logic. Fighting for equality while oppressing others seems counteractive. Thus, awareness of one’s privilege (whether it be based on economic standing, ethnic background or religion) is key to understanding why equality is necessary. Issues of privilege and cultural contextualisation are ones that pervade both feminism and feminist discourse in the media and have led to theories of intersectionality. All too frequently we are presented with images of white, Western, women fighting for their equality. This, in itself, is not a problem. It is, however, a problem when these images shift towards those same women fighting for the rights of Muslim women (or any other women for that matter), with total disregard for their opinions.

This is exactly what happened when radical feminist group Femen launched its “Topless Jihad” earlier this year. Initially it was a tribute and show of support for Egyptian blogger Alia Magda Elmahdy, who had posted a nude picture of herself online as an artistic protest against the constraints that she felt Egyptian society was placing on her freedom of expression.  What it became, however, was Femen’s “jihad” to liberate Muslim women from the oppression of their headscarves. The result was a backlash from many of these Muslim Women themselves. They united under the name “Muslimah Pride” and accused Femen of Islamophobia, racism and neo-colonialist views. The struggle for the voice of feminism in this arena had been unleashed.

Although initially Muslimah Pride and Muslim Women Against Femen both provided a much needed check on Femen’s “Topless Jihad”, gradually they fed into a polarisation of the issue of feminism within Islam. The public was forced to choose between two trains of thought – Femen’s “all of Islam is evil and systematically oppresses women” or Muslimah Pride’s “attacking Islam’s anti-feminist aspects isn’t up to white, Western women”. What began as a struggle on the path to abolishing patriarchal oppression soon became a detour to a clamour for the ownership rights to feminism.

The insight that U.S. mainstream media coverage of the Steubenville rape case and the crocodile tears cried for the perpetrators gives us into Western rape culture is a shocking one. It also draws a bizarre parallel between the huge hurdle that feminism must overcome in the West and the ones that feminists are attempting to shatter in Muslim countries.

Fostering a Conversation

Society is based on power, power that has a strong marginalising gaze. If we are unable to see past our own societal constructs, cultural frameworks and norms, we will never achieve equality for all. Femen has succeeded in garnering massive amounts of media attention, but in such a manner that there is no space for discourse. All Muslim women are oppressed, and bare-breasted Western women are donning their capes to save them. That image is one that drips with paternalism, ethnocentrism, and blind cultural insensitivity.

As long as rape culture continues to exist in the West, feminists must seek to examine what the causes thereof are. Without understanding this, yet latching onto an inherently liberal definition of women’s rights and equality, the danger of wreaking havoc abroad looms eerily close.

In Femen’s fight to “liberate” Muslim women from the “oppression” of their headscarves, they have failed to step outside of their Western liberal perception of what exactly oppression is. Yes, there are women who are forced to don a headscarf by their families and by their religion. Yes, Sharia law frequently disadvantages women. No, this does not mean that Islam is an inherently oppressive religion. No, this doesn’t mean that a non-white, non-Western woman automatically needs saving by white feminist crusaders.

If what we seek is equality and a world in which everyone, regardless of gender, race, religion can live their lives free of fear, oppression and discrimination, then we must seek to understand each other. Such goals can only be achieved through inter-cultural communication and exchange of knowledge. Rape culture and oppression should not be defined as normative concepts in order to simplify them, but taken apart as the complex culturally defined phenomena that they are.

The logic of “we know what’s best for you” has failed on countless occasions, and it’s time we learned from our mistakes. Western society and the feminists that have grown from it must come to terms with the flaws that their framework contains. They must seek to overcome these flaws as a means of having a positive impact on gender equality beyond their borders. Feminism should be open to all. To “hijack” it is to fuel division and marginalisation and to regress into the oppression that it seeks to counter. The voice of feminism should be one in which we hear a chorus of all those seeking equality, not simply the solo of those who sing loudest or those easiest to listen to.

By Benjamin Elizabeth.

Part One: Educational Inequality

Introduction

Only those who are wilful in their denial of educational inequality will reject the fact that today some attend excellent schools and many others do not. The difference in schooling will negatively impact on the vast majority of those unfortunate to come from a cocktail of social difficulty.

Here, in part one, I explore the reasons for and the consequential costs of inequality. In part two, should you choose to read on, I will discuss the solution.

Unequal Exam Results

Last year, almost a quarter of England’s sixth forms and colleges failed to produce any pupils with the top A-level grades sought by leading universities. Some 594 (23.4%) of the 2,540 schools teaching A-levels had no pupils with the two As and a B in the subjects recommended for top degree courses. The data also shows that some 215 schools missed the new government target of 40% of pupils obtaining five A*-C GCSEs.

The statistics can be made even simpler to digest. The best schools get 100% of their pupils acheiving five A*-C GCSEs. The worst schools get, wait for it, 6%. Even ignoring those worst results, there are plenty of schools that get between 13% to 20%.

Worse still, the UK is failing on an international scale, with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) highlighting in recent research that although the UK achieves strong academic attainment, it does not do so equally.

I am not saying the schools seeing these terrible results are necessarily to blame. The teaching may often be excellent. Irrespective of that, whether the teaching is excellent or not, the reality isn’t nearly good enough.

Reasons for Educational Inequality

I have written before about the number of challenges met by thousands of young people when compared to the fortunate minority. There are a number of influences preventing a person from reaching their potential. Many of these social burdens are very well publicised and should be at the forefront of anyone’s mind when wondering why there are lots of people out of work and repeatedly finding themselves tangled in the justice system.

I can consider now some of the societal poisons making it hard for the disadvantaged.

Drug and Alcohol Addiction

Many children grow up in environments degraded by drug addiction and alcoholism, often resulting in hostile family homes or youth drug addiction and its associated ills. This problem is hard to deny. The Office of the Children’s Commissioner found in its research that “79,000 babies aged under one in England are living with a parent who is classified as a problematic drinker”.

Government organisations identify that addictions lead to family disintegration, failure in school, domestic violence, and child abuse. Further, addiction causes addiction; parenting can greatly influence the occurrence of drug abuse and addiction in the young person subjected. Unsurprisingly, research suggests young people are more susceptible to the temptations of drug and alcohol consumption due to the pressures incidental in being immature and wanting social validation.

Gang Violence

One would hope that very few are embroiled in the kind of gang culture populating the national news on a regular basis. However, discussion of gangs is an important symbol for the detrimental effects caused by the membership of a socially divisive group, as it doesn’t just have to be stabbing and drug dealing to push someone off the right developmental track. Of course, it is the members of serious criminal gangs that could stand to benefit most from my solution.

The UK government says “Too many young lives are blighted by violent crime”, causing it to commit millions to the problems caused by gangs. A recent Home Office report articulates the situation clearly:

“Violence is a major cause of poor health and wellbeing, and creates a huge cost for health services. However, the right interventions, especially in early childhood can prevent individuals becoming violent and help address violent behaviour in perpetrators. They can also improve educational outcomes, employment prospects, and long-term health outcomes.”

Patrick Regan, the founder of youth engagement charity XLP, comments that “Family breakdown, poverty, poor housing, addiction, educational failure, crime, violence and unemployment create gang members”. Elaborating on how he thinks this problem can be resolved he says that “it is naive to think that tactical enforcement [such as Operation Trident] alone will solve the complex causes of violence and stop young people from leaving school and joining gangs.” He concludes by calling for “alternatives that lead to a long-term, sustainable solution.”

Poor Diet

The Guardian claims rising food prices and falling incomes are increasing our consumption of cheaper unhealthy foods, with predictable consequences of ill health and obesity. Those most affected are the poor. The government knows this and the Public Health Minister Anna Soubry has said that ”not everybody who is overweight comes from deprived backgrounds but that’s where the propensity lies”.

The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) elaborates fully on the issue:

“In the UK, the poorer people are, the worse their diet, and the more diet-related diseases they suffer from. This is food poverty…people on low incomes eat more processed foods which are much higher in saturated fats andsalt. They also eat less variety of foods. This isrelated to economies of scale and fear ofpotential waste. People living on state benefits eat less fruit andvegetables, less fish and less high-fibrebreakfast cereals. People in the UK living in households without an earner consume more total calories, andconsiderably more fat, salt and non-milkextrinsic sugars than those living in householdswith one or more earners.”

The FPH goes on to say that as of May 2005 “It is estimated that as many as 10 million people in the UK live in poverty, including nearly three million children”. Perhaps most pertinent to this article is the fact that the FPH also says that “There is also growing evidence to support the link between poor diets and anti-social behaviour.” To the extent the latter is true, we can extrapolate that a poor diet is not conducive to the ideal educational genesis.

Poverty

Poverty can also play a more subtle role in underachievement. People with lots of money might realise that they benefit from certain advantages that cannot be attained by the poor, such as expensive cars, exotic holidays and extravagantly costly schools. However, they might not realise, and this applies to even moderately wealthy people, some of the small things that the most deprived go without. Together these small things can have a cumulative effect of lowering life enjoyment, self-esteem and most worryingly, equal opportunity.

Some won’t have access to books at home and they will miss out on the educational wisdom within. They may not be able to afford study aids like revision guides, something that I believe are wonderful academic second chance opportunities for those who went truant for much of an academic term. There is unlikely to be any music coaching or exam coaching; and thus they lose the profit of extracurricular activities which I discuss below. There won’t be private tennis lessons or the like, further maintaining the sense that some activities are only meant for wealthy people; thus maintaining a psychological limitation on what the disadvantaged person believes to what they are supposed to amount. The young person might always be identifiable by cheap clothes (although that is not to say I think branded clothes should be revered, more an acknowledgement that it can affect people’s self-esteem if they stand out as poor from their peers). They won’t always be able to attend the cinema trip their friends are going on, a situation unlikely to be met with sympathy but that quietly has the effect of that person missing out on positive social experiences; experiences which will be repeated by those who can afford them many times. They might not be able to hold house parties on their birthday for their friends, again missing out on those memories that have a powerful influence on one’s positive self perception. They might not be able to attend school trips abroad when all of their friends can; a loss of social and learning opportunities.

Of course, the state can only help with some of these things. Some of these issues are perhaps more superficial than the ultimate goal of equal opportunity, and it is the most important things that the solution will address.

The Cost of Inequality

I think the problems discussed above provide sufficient moral reason alone to seek out radical solutions. However some want more ‘rational’ reasons than a pure desire to see poverty stricken lives improved. It is for those people that I outline below the financial extortion that neglecting these problems thrusts upon the state and the taxpayer.

Now that we have looked at some of the causes, let’s consider some of the consequences.

The Cost of Criminal Justice, Health Care, Drug Rehabilitation

The Independent says there are “an estimated 330,000 problem drug users in England who cost society more than £15 billion a year in drug-related crime, benefits and health services”. Research carried out using data including Home Office and British Crime Survey figures estimated that the cost of crime in the UK in 2009-10 amounted to £34 billion. In direct response to crime, it emerges that the criminal justice system spent around £6 billion. Older reports by the Home Office actually estimated that the cost of crime is as much as £60 billion. People are not born criminals. It doesn’t matter what the exact figure is; the loss to society of limiting opportunities for young people is clearly astronomical.

Cost of Unemployment

It is well publicised of late the plight of unemployment in the UK. A recent report by O2, the telecommunications company, has identified young men, aged between 16 and 24, who appear to be particularly frustrated and unhopeful about their chances of good jobs or any upward mobility. These are neither the most deprived, who get quite a lot of attention, nor are they affluent enough to be on a conveyor belt to university” says Professor Tony Chapman of Durham University, who has examined the views of 1500 young people.

The costs of unemployment are in fact more tangible than this. For example, aside from the loss of productivity and the cost of welfare, government schemes actively spend to remedy the problem. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg recently announced a £1 billion plan to provide subsidised work and training placements for young people to address the fact that over 1 million young people are out of work. Welfare was said to cost Britain £87 billion this year. Billions of these pounds go towards helping the unemployed.

The unemployment rate will not be helped by other fiscal walls. High childcare costs may make it “impossible” for many UK families to work their way out of poverty. A report by Barnardo’s says some single parents with two pre-school children will “gain nothing” from working longer hours and could “have to pay” to do so. At best, Barnardo’s say that by parents trying to increase their working hours, after having their benefits reduced and starting to pay tax, the combination “will potentially leave some parents with very little money left over”. It adds that “If we want the poorest parents to be genuinely able to work their way out of poverty, then they must be able to afford the costs of childcare. This is why we’re calling on the government to provide more help to the most disadvantaged families.”

Part Two: The Solution to Inequality

Inequality is not a Secret

Educational inequality will not be getting better on its own and the costs discussed in part one will only escalate. A recent report published by the think tank Scotland’s Futures Forum and the Goodison Group ratifies similar concerns, stating that it believes the future (in Scotland) could see a society divided by educational inequality if society does not invest now. The report imagines a possible ‘divided learning society’, accepted as the way things are and will be. Rising crime and social unrest will lead to the creation of ‘gated communities’ where wealth is concentrated. The areas outside will face spiralling deprivation, housing the ‘precariat’, people with poor or transitory job prospects. Sir Andrew Cubie, one of the authors, says “The very nature of this project emphasises the need to look to the long-term.”

If we want international consensus, it is easy to find that this isn’t a problem restricted to the UK’s shores. Andreas Schleicher, special adviser on education at the OECD, says the US is now the only major economy in the world where the younger generation is not going to be better educated than the older. He says “very high degree of adult skills…are the engine of the US economy and the engine is stuttering.”

Sean Coughlan, the BBC News education correspondent, writes that: “It’s easy to overlook the dominance of US higher education in the post-war era – or how closely this was linked to its role as an economic, scientific and military superpower.” Schleicher argues that a deeper problem is rooted in the inequalities of the school system. He adds that the level of social segregation and the excessive link between home background and success in school is“cutting off the supply” between secondary school and university; “If you lose the confidence in the idea that effort and investment in education can change life chances, it’s a really serious issue.”

The economist Miles Corak added to the debate when he took part in a US Senate committee hearing called Helping More Young People Achieve the American Dream. Through his role he concludes that the education system is no longer holding the door open to the brightest and the best, regardless of background. There are already plans to recover lost ground with President Barack Obama promising that the USA will regain its global first place in graduation rates by 2020. Let’s beat the US to it.

The Solution: State Boarding Schools

The answer to the inequalities discussed in part one is to invest in state funded boarding schools.

Early Intervention

As stated previously when discussing gang crime, the Home Office evidently believes that the “right interventions, especially in early childhood can…improve educational outcomes”.

A government spokesman said, particularly of alcohol misuses in the home, that ”The earlier that help is given to vulnerable children and families, the more chance there is of turning lives around and protecting children.” The Office of the Children’s Commissioner said action was needed to prevent more children “losing their childhood.” Therefore there is strong support for imposing my solution on people from a young age.

State Boarding School

The problems discussed in part one are wide ranging and severe. The solution therefore, in my view, needs to be drastic. This drastic solution is the state boarding school. The solution is to give the Eton education to the nation.

Like it is at Eton, school life and education will become all encompassing. Our young will be subjected to the same rigour that is so far often reserved for a wealthy elite. We too, as a society, could have the same ambitions for every young person that a parent who sends their children to Eton does. The school hours would be as long as Eton’s, the teaching quality would be the same, the facilities would be as good and all the extras involved.

Indeed, it will be interesting to look at Eton’s recent project as the sole educational sponsor of Holyport College; a new, non-selective co-educational state secondary school with a Christian ethos, opening in September 2014. The school will be modelled on an independent boarding school with pupils divided into houses and doing homework at school even if they are day pupils. 45% of the pupils will be boarders, who will come from a wide range of backgrounds but with specific provision being made for looked-after children, children on the edge of care and those from armed forces families.

Eton says that it believes in the beneficial, even transformative, influence of good boarding schools and sees Holyport College as a way of sharing its pastoral experience and educational ethos to make a long-term contribution to its local community. Eton’s sponsorship will be undertaken through the provision of staff time and expertise, and sharing educational experience and facilities. Established under the Government’s Free Schools programme, Holyport College will be funded by the Department for Education.

As we can see, one significant part of this ‘super’ education is the respect given to extracurricular activities. As you would expect, Eton says itself that “Every boy will also be encouraged to take part in plenty of other house activities: concerts, plays, musical and debating competitions, and so on”. Some people, myself included, believe that extracurricular activities are vital to an individual’s development and that having or not having access to intense sports, music and/or drama can make the difference. The pride, practical skills, motivation, energy and intellectual creativity acquired teaches people how to apply their academic knowledge in a way that makes them extremely useful to society.

By boarding, our most vulnerable are kept away from damaging home life, from streets where drugs and alcohol are too easily available, from dangerous influences and gang crime. Their diet can be controlled (indeed the FPH suggests diet can be helped by schools), obesity avoided and the exercise regime needed for proper physiological function can be provided. No longer will spare time be spent in the court system, but it will be spent doing the extracurricular activities that reward so heavily. In this system everybody will be told from one day that they can achieve and they will be supported every hour of the day to actualise their ambitions. Additionally, depending on the age this starts, the child care costs concern can be eroded.

State Boarding Already Exists

On a small scale, this idea is not new. State boarding schools are said to be witnessing a surge in popularity, with numbers up to an estimated 5000 children as of September 2011, having risen by a quarter over the past decade, an increase said to be driven in part by family breakdown, which has in effect left some children homeless. As of May 2010, there were 39 state boarding schools in England and one in Wales.

Durand Academy has received £17m of government funding for building work for a new state boarding facility. This school believes that moving children to an environment free from negative influences and offering an extended school day combined with study, music, drama and sport is the right choice. Interestingly, the cost to the state in the future may not be significant, with its running costs coming out of private income the school generates from a swimming pool, gym and block of flats.

One must not get too excited at this point. As the State Boarding Schools’ Association points out, the existence of state fund boarding schools “means that rather than paying £25,000+ a year for an independent boarding school, you would probably be paying less than £10,000 a year at a state boarding school.” Therefore we can see that the problems are hardly solved for the thousands who are financially barred.

There may be a number of practicalities that need resolving. From what age would this start? Does it include every person of school age? Is it right to take people away from their families? These are sensible and difficult questions. However, difficulties do not mean impossibilities. We should not throw away an idea that could establish the UK as an egalitarian economic powerhouse that spent early to save later.

Concluding Remark

As a concluding remark, I must note that many people often say to me that not every child is academic. Therefore they ask why I am so obsessed with trying to get everyone up to the same standard. It may be true that not everyone is naturally gifted at academic studies. However we can see in part one that there are some schools in which every single child gets high academic grades. Are we saying they are genetically superior? I sincerely hope not. Sometimes I feel that there are certain people who are glad many in society believe academic achievement is not really meant for them of their children; it reserves the top jobs for the nepotistic incumbent. I certainly do not hold the fascist view that anyone is genetically weaker and therefore I believe everyone can achieve academically. When they leave this superior education, they will have the same choice as the Etonian as to whether they want to be a mechanic or a foreign ambassador; both of which add value to society.

Recently, a series of telling events occurred in the vast virtual world of cyber space. The first occurred on 21 March when all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) began blocking access to three piracy websites. These included Fenopy, a relatively small site based in Sweden, the ‘leetspeak’ distinguished H33t, and the sprawling piracy giant, Kickass Torrents. Access is no longer possible in the UK to any of these sites through their main web addresses.

Eleven days later, on 1 April, the second in the series of events transpired. This was when the season three premiere of Game of Thrones earned the distinction of being the most rapidly pirated piece of media in Internet history. In the space of 24 hours, it was downloaded over a million times.

Taken separately, the events are not particularly remarkable. The medieval fantasy series, Game of Thrones, has a great deal of nudity and violence, often in conjunction with a lot of plotting in a badly lit room. So what better cocktail to collectively attract the Internet’s most hardened users! After all, this is a show distinguished by the fact that more people pirated it online last year than watched it legally on television.

Meanwhile, the precedent for blocking piracy sites is close to two years old and is therefore equally unsurprising. The legal precedent was set back in 2011 when British Telecom grudgingly complied with a court order demanding it block access to Newzbin2, a piracy indexing site that had lost its legal battle with a coalition of entertainment companies. With the statute in effect, the remaining ISPs necessarily followed suit. It was now a matter of time before other sites came to the same fate. First to go was the Internet’s largest piracy site, The Pirate Bay, which was blocked in mid-2012. The latest casualties appear to be those mentioned above.

What does this all say about piracy and site blocking in the UK? By taking the events together rather than on their own, we can begin to assess the efficacy of the latest round of blocks. This is thanks to the superb piracy blog, TorrentFreak, which has broken down the million-plus multinational downloads of Game of Thrones according to their country and city of origin. For rights holders, the results do not make for enjoyable reading.

THE CAPITAL OF PIRACY

According to the data collated by TorrentFreak, London is currently hosting more Game of Thrones pirates than any other city in the world. During that single day, 1 April, 4.3 percent of total downloads originated in the UK’s capital city. That figure increases to 11.5 percent once the rest of the UK has been factored in, which means that Britain is second only to the US in the extremely rapid piracy of chainmail-laden fantasy drama.

Problematically, and because of the series’ vast Internet following, the question immediately arises as to whether Game of Thrones’ fans are atypical of the population. Arguably, and with an eye to the amount of time many of them seem to spend downloading, they may well have more Internet know-how than the more typical, but less knowledgeable, Ed Sheeran pirate (according to a study in 2012, Ed Sheeran is the most pirated artist in the UK).

Alas, as amusing as this would be, it is not the case. Even when taking in to account the issue of language, six of the top ten countries which downloaded Game of Thrones the most on the 1 April (US, UK, Australia, Canada, France and Spain) also ranked amongst the top ten downloaders of pirated music a year earlier. This study, which was conducted by Musicmetric over a six-month period in 2012, adequately accounts for a different genre of entertainment, and was conducted before the latest round of British ISP blocks. However, what clinches the matter is that the Musicmetric study found the UK second only to the US in [music] piracy. In other words, regardless as to whether the pirated content is medieval or musical, Britain was, and still appears to be, the second largest piracy haven in the world.

Furthermore, the Musicmetric study’s findings are backed by information provided by ISPs in both the UK and the Netherlands. Take, for example, data provided anonymously by an ISP to the BBC last year after the court order block against The Pirate Bay. Though pirate file traffic did initially drop by 11 percent following the block’s implementation, traffic levels had bounced back to normal a week later.

CIRCUMVENTING THE BLOCKADE

How is this the case? The answer lies with the ease by which Internet users can circumvent the blocks. As it happens, the two most popular methods show up quite clearly in Google Trends, an online databank provided by Google which tracks the frequency of all searches, inclusive of geographic location. From this publicly accessible data, it is easy to a notice a sudden and marked uptake in searches for alternate piracy sites at the same time the blocks were coming into effect. This also holds true for third-party proxy sites, which enable a user to circumnavigate the ISP block by connecting indirectly to the desired site. Either way, these methods make the block ineffectual and account for why British piracy levels do not seem to have changed.

However, we should err on the side of caution and note the two respective caveats present in Google Trends and the ISP traffic data mentioned earlier. The former is only indicative of the relative historic performance of a set of specific search parameters. Put alternatively, a spike in search interest with say, “Pirate Bay proxy” does not necessarily correlate with a massive surge in the number of unique internet users executing that search. Instead, it simply means the search is occurring at a higher rate than ever before. As for the ISP data presented to the BBC, this only accounted for file traffic, not the number of individual users responsible for it. In theory then, a smaller number of people could have been downloading more and subsequently making up for a net decline in the pirate population.

If these caveats sound tenuous, it is probably because they are. There is, in short, a great deal of evidence to suggest that the majority of British internet pirates are not yet dissuaded by site blocking, are downloading just as much as they always have, and that the circumvention techniques indicated in Google Trends are commonly used to do as much. Moreover, even if one still firmly believes that Game of Thrones fans are not atypical of the normal population, and argues that the restabilisation of pirate traffic and spike in circumvention tactics is entirely down to their frenzied internet activities, it would be necessary to explain why a new piracy website has replaced the now blocked Kickass Torrents as one of top 100 most visited sites in the UK. Reference to Alexa, which provides web analysis data for over 125 countries, has consistently shown that every time a site is blocked in Britain, another rises to take its place. No wonder then that analysts and pirates alike often compare the blocking of websites to lopping off the head of a hydra, ‘Take one site down, and several new ones will take its place’.

THE FUTURE OF PIRACY

Yet with all this talk of hydras comes a cocksure invincibility on the part of pirates and a lot of laughing at the blocks. Take The Pirate Bay’s colourful announcement on its 2012 move to cloud data storage:

‘Now we’ve gotten rid of the servers. Slowly and steadily we are getting rid of our earthly form and ascending into the next stage, the cloud… If there is data, there is The Pirate Bay… All attempts to attack The Pirate Bay from now on is an attack on everything and nothing…. Adapt or be forever forgotten beneath the veils of maya.’

Putting pseudo-mythology to one side, the inability of governments and corporations to adapt to the virtual world as alluded to in the final sentence of The Pirate Bay’s message is said to be the primary reason why ‘futile’ tactics such as site blocking are pursued. To quote another Internet heavyweight, Kim Dotcom, founder of Megaupload: ‘The Internet scares you… What will Hollywood do when smartphones and tablets can wirelessly transfer a movie file within milliseconds?’

On the part of pirates, this is a severe underestimation of their opponents. In a 2011 speech given by the UK Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, site blocking is clearly understood to be merely an initial step in a far more comprehensive plan designed to make piracy websites increasingly hard not only to access but also to find. Key to the plan is not site blocking per se, but for search engines like Google to modify their algorithms so that sites encouraging piracy appear lower in relevancy, or, ideally, do not appear at all.

And this process has already begun. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, rights holders can ask Google to take down links to sites said to be guilty of copyright infringement. In 2012 alone, Google received a record 51.3 million ‘takedown requests’. In fact, you may have seen them already. This is because some searches, which often have nothing to do with piracy, bring up a notification at the bottom of the search page that reads: ‘In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed [x] result(s) from this page.’ In addition to this, Google has started down ranking pirated sites and is under massive pressure to do much more.

In any case, the consequence is that Google is rapidly building a vast public database of piracy sites. If a State chooses to combine this open access database with either the streamlined blocking process the British government is pushing ISPs to comply with voluntarily (which they are increasingly doing) or the forced delisting of pirate related search results, the ease by which Internet users can access pirated files would be greatly impeded. Internet censorship on such a vast scale is not yet reality, but its relative merits are likely to become an ever more pressing question.

On February 17th 2013 Rafael Correa secured his third term in office as the President of Ecuador. In a short space of time, Correa has managed to boost the country’s economy, initiate nationwide social reforms, and sustain his popularity enough to guarantee another four years of Presidential service.

This article will explore the reforms that have taken place in Ecuador over the last few years, while considering both their domestic and international implications.

Correa first came to power in 2007 after a very turbulent period in Ecuador, when three Presidents were forced out of office between 1997-2005. Throughout the 1990s, Ecuador, as well as many countries throughout Latin America, suffered severe economic depression. This led to the replacement of the Ecuadorian sucre with the US dollar in 2000. At the same time, there had been growing discontent with US hegemony in the region which many thought had only deepened social inequality in Latin America. From the late 1990s onwards there began in varying degrees a series of ‘leftist revolutions’ in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Uruguay, and Ecuador.

Correa saw his chance to appeal to the Ecuadorian people by attacking the policies of neoliberalism. He pushed his alternative mandate forward, focusing on fair wealth distribution and increasing spending on social programmes. This approach, coupled with a vibrant and charismatic campaign, gained him an overwhelming amount of support throughout the country. According to Correa, the initial campaign values are still alive today, when he stated upon his most recent Presidential victory: “The colonial powers are not in charge anymore, you can be sure that in this revolution it’s Ecuadoreans who are in charge.”

During Correa’s time in power he has achieved huge successes. These include: generating enough profits from the sale of oil to double the amount of welfare given to poor families, as well as the amount of money used for individual housing loans; lowering the price of electricity for people who do not use it regularly; and expanding the amount of credit available to small businesses, young people, and women.

In order to sustain these aforementioned social programmes, Correa has turned to Iran and Venezuela to borrow money, having openly rejected institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. He also defaulted on the repayment of interest owed on international loans in 2008. This, coupled with his stance against market-led economics, made Ecuador a risky prospect for foreign investment and has consequently led to international scrutiny. Correa defends these defaults of payment by arguing that some of this debt is immoral, and should therefore be written off. A compromise was eventually reached when Correa was able to negotiate a better deal - one in which the rate of interest due on the loans was greatly decreased.

Another major change was the re-writing of Ecuador’s constitution which was approved and ratified in 2008. Correa filled the constituent assembly – the body responsible for drafting the constitution – with people who were keen to implement his reforms. He also appointed people from different indigenous groups, who consequently left their previous political parties to join the constituent assembly, believing this would give them a forum to help effectuate change. Many indigenous groups wanted recognition as nationalities, which would secure them greater say over their territory. The Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE) campaigned for this, and in the final draft of the constitution Ecuador was described as a plurinational state, as opposed to simply a multi-cultural state.

Correa’s outspoken stance against neoliberal policies gave many indigenous groups hope that their rights would be respected by the current government. Among many goals, they sought greater restrictions over mining in order to protect the environment, and to ensure that land would be used for the “common good”. It was finally decided that indigenous communities had the right to be consulted on resource extraction in their area, but their consent is not required in order to go ahead with extraction. Currently, Correa has made plans with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on a project called the Yasuní-ITT initiative, which sets out to protect a large area of the Ecuadorian rainforest.

However the enactment of the controversial Mining Law in 2009 was seen as a step backwards, or more appropriately, a step towards neoliberalism, because it gave global corporations greater independent authority over where they mine. This resulted in many  indigenous communities being left with no say over the invasion and pollution of their land. Correa’s former Communications Minister, Monica Chuji Gualinga, resigned over this Mining Law, stating that it went against the “sustainable living” ideal provided by the constitution. Correa’s steadfast approach against neoliberalism can therefore be called into question, as he embarks on policies which set to give corporations free reign over areas of land in Ecuador.

This Mining code, along with discussions over the privatisation of water, caused great rifts between social movements and Correa. There were a series of protests, and Correa responded by detaining some activists and labelling them terrorists. He defended these actions by arguing that he must stand up to social movements, and that violence will not be tolerated; everything must go through dialogue.

This brings us to another set of reforms – the media in Ecuador. Correa already dominates much of the media stream by securing frequent radio coverage, a substantial amount of free air time, and taking over the newspaper El Telégrapho. In addition to this, throughout the most recent elections there was unequal coverage of other politicians running for office, as compared to Correa.

Correa views freedom of expression as a “function of the state”, and has placed restrictions on the amount of air time private parties can purchase; defending these actions by pointing out that the majority of the media is owned by a few rich families. Journalists from newspapers such as El Comercio and El Universo have been openly criticised by the President. Many have also faced hefty fines in court, and the press freedom group Fundamedios has reported that there have been numerous physical attacks towards journalists. Furthermore, the proposed Communications Bill would give the state greater editorial power over newspaper content.

While the worries over the concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few rich families are legitimate, laws that seek to have a state-controlled media are an extreme measure to take. A free press provides a platform to rebuke inaccurate claims and the judiciary can hold journalists accountable in cases of libel and slander. Correa’s vehement attacks on the media only serve to make him look guilty, thus undermining the positive impact he has had in Ecuador.

For the most part, this appears to be more of an international concern than a domestic one. Sarah Radcliffe, in a recent talk at Canning House, discussed how the people of Ecuador are reluctant to criticise the President, given how he has brought stability to a country that faced almost a decade of turbulent governance. For a long time the main issues concerned levels of poverty and the economy, and in these respects, Correa has implemented some credible changes.

The concern is how these increased restrictions will affect activists and social movements not connected to the elites, but who also speak out negatively about Correa. The President does not deal well with criticism, but the pool of critics is growing and there is an increasing lack of support for him. Correa has stated that he will not give into social movements, and instead proposed the need for dialogue. However as already demonstrated, many changes were not discussed with the groups who would be affected.

While Correa may have succeeded in many respects, most notably by bringing stability to Ecuador, he must consider the longevity of his current approach. His initial achievements are starting to be undermined through policies that disregard the interests of environmentalists and indigenous groups in Ecuador. These are people who Correa rallied support from in his initial campaign to rid Ecuador of control from Western institutions, and has since betrayed them in favour of reforms that give multinational companies too much power. At the same time, he criticises media outlets for being run by the elites, and encourages the Ecuadorian people to fight against these corrupt bodies.

Whether Correa opts for market-led or more state-driven policies is not the only issue here. Also consider the fact that not all the people in Ecuador are being included in the decision making processes that affect them. Correa’s campaign is based on ensuring that it is “Ecuadorean’s who are in charge,” and yet his intolerance of negative media and social movements demonstrate a controlling side to his nature. While his successes to date have kept him relatively popular, this may be short lived if he does not allow for a fairer exchange of dialogue.

On March 22, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a ground-breaking phone call to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the prime minister of Turkey. With U.S. President Barack Obama at his side, Netanyahu apologised for Israel’s actions in the 2010 raid of a Turkish aid flotilla that was attempting to bring aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

The call took place in the last minutes of U.S. President Barack Obama’s very first visit to Israel – indeed, Netanyahu agreed to make the call at Ben-Gurion International Airport, just minutes before Obama boarded his plane to Jordan. The apology has been hailed as a victory in diplomacy for the Obama administration and the U.S. president’s visit, which many criticised as a needless “maintenance trip” with no clear goals, suddenly began to seem more legitimate once the long-awaited phone call took place.

Many media outlets have speculated that a reconciliation between Turkey and Israel will help to restore stability in a politically explosive region. With the two U.S. allies united, many policymakers say that they will be able to place more pressure on Iran and pool their resources to better contain violent spillovers from the worsening conflict in Syria. Indeed, on his Facebook page Netanyahu cited the latter point as the “main consideration” in his decision to apologise.

But while the apology may have opened the door for these changes to occur, it will still take a great deal of time and effort from both the Turkish and the Israeli sides to build true trust rather than a façade of cooperation. This is especially true for these two countries, both of which have long been distrusted by their neighbours. Israel has been caught up in political and religious conflict since the day it was put on the modern world map, and is accustomed to being militantly defensive. Meanwhile, Turkey, with its history built on empire and conquest, has long been at odds with the countries around it. A glance at modern Turkey’s dealings with Armenia, Cyprus and its Kurdish population shows that this is a country where old grudges die-hard. With these stubborn national mentalities at the forefront of negotiations, it is clear that the scars of the Mavi Marmara raid will not fade with a simple apology.

THE EVENTS OF MAY 2010

Israeli-Turkish relations have been steadily deteriorating since the Mavi Marmara incident, which saw nine Turkish activists shot dead and many more injured when Israeli soldiers boarded the ship to prevent it from entering Gaza.

The Mavi Marmara was one of six ships in a flotilla tasked with carrying volunteers and humanitarian supplies to Gaza. The ships were not sent by the Turkish government, but rather as part of a joint project between the Free Gaza Movement (which had already sent several such flotillas) and the Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH). Members of the former have been accused of anti-Semitic behaviour, while the latter is an Islamic charity group that was originally formed to provide aid to Bosnian Muslims in the mid-1990s. It has been labelled an extremist organisation by the Israeli government, which has accused it of supporting Hamas.

THE AFTERMATH

Immediately following the deaths of the activists, Erdoğan withdrew the Turkish ambassador to Israel and cancelled three joint military exercises. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu called on the U.N. Security Council to hold an urgent meeting to discuss Israel’s actions, while Turkish Defence Minister Vecdi Gönül called Ehud Barak, his Israeli counterpart, with a list of demands, including the safe return of surviving Turkish citizens, the repatriation of remains, and treatment of the wounded passengers from the flotilla.

Both Turkish and Israeli media outlets were ablaze with accounts of the event; the former portraying it as a brutal attack by Israeli forces, the latter; an unlawful invasion of Israeli territory by Muslim terrorists. Conspiracy theories also came into play, with some journalists and pundits in Turkey going so far as to link Israel with domestic security issues, such as an attack on a Turkish military base by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Diplomatic ties were further downgraded after the UN released its report of the event in 2011, which legitimised the legality of Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. While the report condemned the actions of the Israeli soldiers as “excessive and unreasonable”, it was also highly critical of the flotilla’s mission, saying the activists had “acted recklessly”, and calling into question the “true nature and objectives” of the flotilla organisers, singling out the IHH in particular. Many Turks were outraged by the report’s findings and criticisms, citing what they believed to be a pro-Israeli bias on the part of the report’s writers.

Relations between the two countries deteriorated yet further, when an incensed Davutoğlu announced on the day of the report’s release that Israel’s ambassador and other senior Israeli officials would be expelled from Turkey.

“The time has come for Israel to pay for a stance that sees it above international laws and disregards human conscience,” he said. “The first and foremost result is that Israel is going to be devoid of Turkey’s friendship … as long as the Israeli government does not take the necessary steps, there will be no turning back.”

Turkey took the accusations a step further in May 2012, when an Istanbul court indicted four senior Israeli Defence Forces officers who had commanded operations taken against the flotilla. A judicial panel approved calls for a combined sentence of 18,000 years in prison – or nine consecutive life terms each – for the IDF officials for “inciting to kill monstrously, and by torturing”. The men were officially put on trial in absentia in November in a symbolic move that was largely met with approval in Turkey and bemusement the rest of the world over.

Israeli officials have drawn attention to the fact that the men are not regarded as criminals by the U.N. or any other international tribunal, with Nizar Amer, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Ankara, calling the trial a “political show with no judicial credibility.”

A UNITED FUTURE?

It cannot be denied that the normalisation of relations between Israel and Turkey will likely be instrumental in establishing regional stability. The pooling of intelligence could yield solutions to crucial matters: preventing the strengthening of and flow of arms to Hezbollah and other extremist groups; facilitating the downfall of the Assad regime; and putting further pressure on Iran to halt the development of its nuclear facilities.

It is also important to note that in spite of political tensions, trade between the two countries has remained robust, reaching $4.4bn in 2011, up from $2.6bn in 2009. With the removal of political barriers, economic ties could strengthen further still – there is already speculation that numerous Turkish infrastructure projects set to be rolled out in the coming years will attract Israeli investors. The Turkish hospitality industry, meanwhile, is eagerly awaiting a massive increase in Israeli tourist arrivals, which dropped from 500,000 a year before 2009 to 80,000 a year after 2010. From the Israeli side, renewed economic ties with Turkey – particularly in an anticipated post-Assad world in which Turkey re-establishes its trade dominance in northern Syria and continues to enter into fruitful deals in Northern Iraq – will be nothing but beneficial.

With politicians and diplomats battling it out on high, the dispute between Israel and Turkey has often seemed to be a battle of wills between world leaders. Now that an apology has been issued and Netanyahu has seemingly bent to Erdoğan’s demands, it seems easy to declare this problem “solved” – but the battle to win over the citizens of both countries is only just beginning.

The main Turkish opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has already expressed concern over the apology, dismissing it as insincere. At a press conference in late March, CHP Deputy Chair Faruk Loğoğlu called into question the true motives of Erdoğan and the Israeli government, implying that the sudden apology might simply be a means to enabling joint military operations. Likewise, Netanyahu has many critics in Israel who feel he was strong-armed into submission by Turkey and the US.

Both the Erdoğan and Netanyahu administrations will have to take into account that rebuilding positive relations will be a slow and delicate process. Turks and Israelis alike continue to feel slighted by the Mavi Marmara incident, and for many the apology seems to be no more than a strategic move in a broader game of foreign policy. While trade and political cooperation may be quick to pick back up, widespread distrust will be slow to fade.

It is obvious that the security situation in East Asia has worsened over the last few years. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have reached a new climax in the past few weeks, with relations deteriorating following the latest nuclear weapon test in February and the United Nations Security Council’s subsequent reaction. Pyongyang’s recent moves have been to threaten the US and South Korea with “preemptive nuclear attacks”. Threatening gestures from North Korea are hardly anything new, but the bellicose rhetoric in recent threats has caused significant anxiety. With this in mind, this article assesses other potential conflict hot spots in East Asia.

The conflict between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands flared up again last year and led to Japanese businesses in China being ransacked. The fronts on both sides have now hardened and the new nationalism which has arisen in both countries due to the conflict is reducing the ability of politicians to back down and find a peaceful settlement without losing face and the support of their people.

Furthermore, the tensions are fuelled by a long and bloody history of conflict: Japan never came to terms with its war crimes during the Second World War and this makes the issue of the islands’ sovereignty a powder keg. Unhelpfully in this context, the newly-elected Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made several visits to a shrine which honours Japanese war heroes, some of whom were in charge of massacres in China, including the horrible Nanjing Massacres, in which approximately 250.000-300.000 people were killed.

It seems like both sides are trapped in the conflict. Christopher Hughes, professor for International Politics and Japanese Studies at the University of Warwick, makes a dark prediction. In his view, the antagonists have developed such absolutist positions about the sovereignty of the islands and the surrounding waters that the conflict can never be resolved. Furthermore, he sees no chance that either Japan or China will approve any kind of international arbitration.

The situation in the South China Sea is also getting tenser due to China’s on-going quarrels with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam over the Spratly and Paracel Islands. Some commentators suggest that the South China Sea dispute will become the most dangerous conflict of the 21st century.

China, as the most powerful protagonist in this dispute, is claiming authority over the whole South China Sea due to historical and cultural reasons. Last year, a hardening of both China’s rhetoric and actions, intended to reinforce this claim, provoked a naval standoff with the Philippines. Furthermore, China created precedents by offering licenses to explore and develop oil and gas blocks in disputed waters. However, it does not seem likely that China will be able to scare off countries with rival claims, especially since the US underwent a pivot towards Asia to rebalance against China. The latest sign of the US’s new Asian focus is its new military cooperation with the Philippines, which includes the deployment of US forces on the Philippines. With the US now committed to the region, the stakes involved in these territorial tensions inevitably become greater.

Hope for a settlement in the near future is marginal since territorial claims in the South China Sea are very complicated. Even if cultural arguments are left out, the legal situation is already ambiguous. Every state with a sea shore is entitled by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to a 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), but in the South China Sea the boundaries of the EEZs of all the competing countries overlap. This makes the conflict hard to settle, even if China were to give up its complete claim over all the islands and surrounding waters.

Another dispute which remains unsettled is the continued independence of Taiwan. Tensions between Taiwan (the Republic of China) and Mainland China (the People’s Republic of China) have calmed in recent years and it seems that China is willing to begrudgingly accept the status quo for now. But the Chinese government still demands that Taiwan must reunify with China at some point in the future. As such, the situation could escalate again as soon as one side decides to take the initiative in the reunification/independence struggle and wants to make progress in one direction.

All these disputes are already very serious by themselves, but what they all have in common is that if one conflict turns hot it could trigger off all the other disputes due to the alliances and defence pacts which define the very unstable East Asian security architecture. Crucially, the US guarantees the safety of South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Furthermore, America maintains military partnerships and cooperation with several Southeast Asian countries.

If, for example, a new war on the Korean peninsula does indeed breakout, the USA would join the South Korean forces and Japan would be compelled to support its US ally. As a result, there is a small chance that Japan may head for a confrontation with China. Whether the US would try to stay neutral or join forces in other East Asian conflicts is hard to predict, but the pressure to show some kind of loyalty would be immense. As one can see from this, the security situation in East Asia very fragile and could in very short time evolve into a massive regional conflict.

Europe has little influence on these situations. It may be argued that this is a good thing, since those conflicts are an issue between independent and autonomous states in which Europe is not involved.  An intervention from the outside would violate the sovereignties of the competing countries and the principle of neutrality. Besides, Europe suffers from a lack of credibility and trust in East Asia because of its colonial past. Some statesman would interpret European involvement as a new attempt to exert power over East Asia. So maybe it is a good idea for Europe to remain on the sidelines.

Of course, if a conflict were to develop in East Asia, its consequences would inevitably have tremendous effects on Europe. East Asia is the largest trading partner of the European Union, accounting for 38.2% of EU exports and 33.4% of its imports. Also, a large proportion of European investments go to East Asia. A major conflict in East Asia would therefore have devastating consequences for economic relations.

Nowadays, global supply and demand chains are at the heart of the world economy and an increasing amount of products are produced through an international division of labour. European firms outsource many parts of their production cycle and are thereby dependent on supplies; especially from East Asia. Electronic components are one of the most important imports from East Asia and they are part of a growing number of goods.

The tsunami disaster in Japan in 2011 illustrates very well how dependent and vulnerable European companies are. The tsunami, which only hit the northern coastal regions of Japan, led to the destruction and damage of enough production centres to bring European firms short of supplies. As a result of the devastation, up to 230 parts required to make a standard car were not available at all or very limited in the month after the Tsunami; most of them electronic components. An almost amusing example of the total breakup of a supply chain is that of sparkling car colours. One necessary ingredient of sparkling colours is a pigment called Xirllic, which was only produced in one factory of the German chemical company Merck in the Fukushima area. In the aftermath of the Tsunami and the reactor meltdown in the atomic plant Fukushima, Daiichi Merck was unable to deliver the pigment which had the consequence that costumers were limited to an up to 20% smaller selection of colours for months.

It may not be the end of the world to have less car colour varieties. However, if the temporary shutdown of only a proportion of one national economy in East Asia had such extensive consequences, it is not hard to anticipate the global impacts that would result if production in larger parts of the region were negatively affected. Furthermore, just-in-time production, which is based on very small inventories in order to cut costs, has become very popular among European firms. This business strategy is increasing businesses’ dependence on continuous deliveries.

In the case of a major armed conflict, many East Asian suppliers would not be able to maintain their normal operations. In addition, the most important trading route between East Asia and Europe passes through the contested South China Sea. Additionally, the Taiwan strait  is very highly frequented by cargo vessels. Therefore, normal trade relationships could not be maintained in the case of a region-wide conflict – production in many European companies would come to a standstill, with sectors like the car and computer industries being most affected.

The USA has already realised that a stabile security situation in East Asia is in its own clear interest. The American pivot towards Asia is therefore a well-conceived move. To flank and support American economic interests in East Asia with an active foreign policy is a sustainable and responsible strategy. Europe, even though its economic interests may even outreach US interests, is doing nothing of the sort.

At the moment Europe has only marginal influence in East Asia and is a mere observer in regional organisations. And it is not as if particularly export-active countries with many ties towards Asia like Germany, France or the UK have strong foreign policy strategies for East Asia to support their economic interests. No single European state is even represented at any regional organisation or conference. Only a strong and coherent European Union can help to stabilise the security architecture in East Asia and support its interests. Europe, as a prime example of peaceful regional development, could do a lot for the nonviolent settlement of regional conflicts. Moreover, Europe has the possibility to act as an honest broker because of its military absence in East Asia.

European involvement in East Asia must be unbiased and respectful to ensure trust is built with local governments and to avoid colonial resentments. This should be possible for Europe because it does not have the same special alliances with certain countries in the region that the US does, but instead maintains fairly equal relations with most of the countries. To get involved on this basis would be a responsible European strategy which could help East Asia become a more stable region as well as preserve prosperous economic relations and therefore the wealth and prosperity of Europe and East Asia.

As 2015 approaches, the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will soon reach their final milestone. A new development framework will need to take shape to build on the successes of the previous one while understanding and adapting the failures.

The current consensus among experts and monitors is that the MDGs have been uneven in their measures of success. On the one hand, various UN reports, such as the United Nations Development Programme’s annual report, show a surprisingly strong growth in human development and economic gains for the most vulnerable nations. For instance, over the past fifteen years, an estimated 600 million people moved from below the poverty line to more equitable wealth. Millions more now have access to essential health and primary education services. And over 2.4 billion people are now connected to the rest of the globe through expanded internet access, mostly in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Although most of this success can be attributed largely to the BRICS and Eastern European states, it is worth noting that LDCs saw significant gains in many development indices. In sub-Saharan Africa, the growth of an economically-engaged middle class has blown away expectations. Roughly 313 million people - or 34% of the continent – now belong to this new economically-engaged class of citizens. That’s more than in India. And by some measures, South-South trade – or trade between the developing world countries – is set to exceed the entire trade value of the OECD countries.

But the extent to which the world’s poorest nations are still severely underdeveloped cannot be understated, and nor can the extreme levels of poverty, disease, starvation, and lack of access to basic health essentials, which dominate the lives of an estimated 1.3 billion people, be discounted. When over 20% of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, it is difficult to say with confidence that the MDGs were an overall success.

Hence the 2015 consultations are held on an almost daily basis at the UN and other development organisations examining the factors that will constitute the new development framework.

A recent consultation of experts, diplomats, and development professionals came to the insightful conclusion that the new development framework must build on the successes of the MDGs while fixing the failures. A not-so groundbreaking conclusion, readers might remark, but as this is the UN, and not a corporate board meeting, such admission of failure is a significant step forward towards creating a new framework that explicitly acknowledges the limitations of the old model.

And as these experts have noted, limitations abound.  Everything from civil society’s [lack of] engagement, to the ineffectiveness of government aid, to the inability of OECD countries to follow up on promised charitable donations, are being scrutinised under the microscope of post-2015 policy formulation. Despite these limitations, the overall talks are a positive step forward in the perpetual effort to normalise the development agenda into one that reflects genuine human development and remove it from an ideologically-focused or economistic approach that may exclude social or cultural factors. In other words, gone are the days in which the ‘Washington Consensus’ was king.

This essay focuses on one of the presumptive key pillars of a new agenda: labour – or, more specifically, the recognition that labour issues and workers’ rights must constitute a significant part of any poverty-reduction growth model. While the inclusion of labour issues is without a doubt an excellent step in the right direction, this essay urges caution in any premature applause for the world’s organised labour movements – history shows us that the idea of global solidarity is given lip-service only. Previous attempts to integrate developing world workers into the global trade union strategy have been uneven, and sometimes entirely detrimental to the world’s poorest. Thus, this essay will explain why labour is making a big bang about worker-centric development goals and how it may only offer a whimper.

Labour Emerges

It is worth noting that labour has been implicitly recognised in past development frameworks, including the Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs made provisional arrangements for work and employment to be part of the broader poverty-reduction strategy. Goal number 1.B aimed to “achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people”. The thematic document supporting this finding acknowledged the critical relationship between poverty-reduction and employment. However, there was no mention of the role that organised labour must play in helping meet this goal. Moreover, it neglected to understand the complexity of engaging in a global employment agenda without the input from workers organisations. The International Labour Organization (ILO) released a guideline for how regional trade unions can intensify their efforts to help the developing world meet each of the eight goals using a pro-labour growth strategy. Among the conclusions, the report acknowledged that:

“Whether the present MDG targets are simply kept after 2015, or whether additional targets are added to the current MDG targets, or even a brand new framework is developed after 2015, unions must be ready to engage in the debate to define the future global compact on development.”

Tellingly, it then listed key areas where unions could have a notable impact, such as linking human rights to broader workers’ rights; developing new models to measure poverty reduction away from economic growth; creating a universal social protection floor; and promoting quality public services. That these very basic and very important measures were not included in the original MDGs shows how labour unions and their expansive organisational power were marginalised in the development of the poverty-reduction agenda.

Furthermore, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) has described in various documents the changing nature of global solidarity vis-a-vis globalisation. They now explicitly acknowledge that social protections and economic progress for American workers is predicated on a stronger working class around the world. In a report titled Democratizing the Global Economy: Empowering Workers, Building Democracy, Achieving Shared Prosperity, the federal union authority’s Executive Council stated their intention to help the UN realise its MDG agenda:

“We will, in coordination with the global trade union movement, support the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We believe decent work is fundamental to alleviating poverty and must be included in all action to achieve these goals. We join the global labour movement in supporting the Global Call to Action Against Poverty that works to achieve major progress on the MDGs.”

Again, we see how the trade unions are seen supporting the existing framework, without having contributed in any meaningful way to its initial development. It is conceivable – though not certain – to argue that were Northern trade unions compelled to contribute to the pre-MDG dialogues, there may have been significant additions to workers’ rights, social protections, and democratisation of economic activity in the development agenda.

Ironically, while there may have been subtle trepidation over the MDGs and their shortcomings among trade union activists, it took a global financial crisis to finally compel global union organisations to pursue “fundamental shifts” in the policy approach. The Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD announced in late 2010 that the financial crisis was undermining the ability for unions to protect global workers’ rights even more than before. Thus, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Sharan Burrow led the call to have all participating nations support the ILO Global Jobs Pact, and to redefine the approaches to understanding what constitutes “development”. Once again, we see how this task, while admirable, was undertaken over halfway through the MDG timeframe, and would realistically have very little chance of galvanising support among leaders for a fundamental change in the development framework.

Thus we can consider the post-2015 development agenda as a potential renewal of interest into labour unions, their concern for workers’ rights, and the link between poverty reduction and economic equity. Most significant are the articles in the Outcome Document of the Rio+20 Conference held last June, titled “The Future We Want”. Specifically, Article 51 of the document mentions:

“We stress the importance of the participation of workers and trade unions in the promotion of sustainable development. As the representatives of working people, trade unions are important partners in facilitating the achievement of sustainable development, in particular the social dimension. Information, education and training on sustainability at all levels, including in the workplace, are key to strengthening the capacity of workers and trade unions to support sustainable development.”

The Rio+20 Outcome established nine major groups who would have a critical input into the post-2015 development agenda. Workers and trade unions constitute one of those nine.

Similarly, in a series of high-level thematic consultations with civil society organisations and marginalised groups, growth and employment factors have taken focus, and it is here that labour activism inevitably manifests itself (among the other consultation topics, such as inequality, governance, health, and education, labour certainly has a significant role to play, though not nearly as explicitly as in employment policies). More importantly, the growth and employment report contains a significant addition to the language that will likely be proposed to the future development framework. It notes on page 7 that:

“Major efforts need to be made for genuine participation of people – civil society, social movements, trade unions, workers and private sector – in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of the new agenda so that it is informed by reality.”

In both cases we see explicit mention of the inclusion of workers’ groups – including trade unions – into the development framework. If this latter report becomes a guideline for the post-2015 framework, as the authors surely hope for it to be, then it necessarily means that the various groups associated with trade unions will have an enhanced ability to affect transformational change to global development through the prism of labour.

Building on this concept, we already see nominal attention to the post-2015 development framework within the many labour-related groups associated with the UN. For instance, the ILO has taken a more proactive role in representing workers’ rights in the consultations. Their call for the inclusion of a Global Jobs Pact and a minimum Social Protection Floor represent important avenues for poverty reduction policies vis-a-vis globally accepted labour rights.

Concurrently the ITUC has also engaged in additional panel discussions both inside and outside the UN’s framework as a way to broaden the labour union involvement in development policies. Briefing papers on social protection and decent work in the post-2015 agenda indicate proactive engagement between OECD unions and the workers in the developing world, both organised and non-organised.

When added together, one can see a clear motivation and movement-wide advocacy for stronger representation of labour issues in the new development framework. And while the onset of this advocacy is somewhat new, the coordination of interests remains fragmented. Several sources have privately indicated that there is an absence of work to unite these groups to create a solid bloc of interests when lobbying the UN consultation process. This lack of cohesive coordination is lamentable, however, it is unclear if such a strategy would create additional successes anyway – arguably, fragmentation creates more voices with common goals, instead of one voice representing many.

Limitations to Full Engagement

A global concern centered on workers’ rights and driven by organised labour is a welcome addition to the development agenda. If it pans out as currently witnessed, the opportunities for transformative economic change and changes to the relationship between workers and the global market are enormous. However, I suspect that, much like most UN development frameworks, it will be all bark and very little bite.

There is the classic argument about the limitations of the labour market. In any economics textbook there is surely to be a pithy argument that labour is static: territorially-bound, inflexible, and subject to generational changes. Capital, meanwhile, is highly fluid, flexible, and transnational. For this reason alone, organised labour has had difficulty uniting across national borders fast enough to meet the speed at which capital flees. Similarly, political barriers prevent cohesive unification of labour groups. Labour unions in most of the developed world are so intrinsically tied to state institutions that it is nearly impossible for them to transnationalise their operations without creating domestic disturbances that alienate a majority of their workforce. Finally, the historical relationship between organised labour in the global North and workers in the global South has been murky. For decades, the AFL-CIO worked in partnership with the State Department, the CIA, and other institutions of American foreign policy to deter – and in some cases even lethally – popular worker uprisings, due to a fear of communism spreading globally.

These are all highly significant reasons for why labour unions are not as globally organised as, say, bankers or financiers. It also explains why labour must be incorporated into an international development agenda headed by the UN in order to effect change instead of organising outside the confines of public organisations.

But an overlooked concern for labour in the post-2015 development agenda is the implications for its manifestation into a political institution of global governance.  Unsurprisingly, there is a degree of scepticism among activists towards any attempt to turn labour unions and their public institutions of power into mechanisms for enforcing global governance norms. Some criticism stems from a fear that the ILO or ITUC are susceptible to capture by pro-market, pro-capital experts – the same who are associated with the World Bank and IMF. Given the negative reputation of the latter two organisations among union activists, it is understandable that the ILO’s elevation to a development institution on par with the IMF should be met with opposition. After all, if the ILO and ITUC’s message of advancing workers’ rights must be subject to review by other development organisations, there is a possibility that their aims for transformative change in the workplace environment will be subverted to the global agenda of transnational capitalism without regard for substantial labour protections.

There is also criticism by developing world workers who view the “globalisation of solidarity” through a prism of neocolonialism. It would not be the first time that Northern trade unions used foreign policy and development as a way to protect their own parochial national interests, or the interests of the state to which they belong. The AFL-CIO is most notorious for this behavior, given their record of interference in pro-communist forces in Latin America during the Cold War. Or, as is probably more recent, the guise of global solidarity may be used to build barriers to international trade – trade that would create jobs and conditions of employment for workers in the developing world, but likely result in job losses in the developed world. Again we see restrictions placed by the AFL-CIO in free trade agreements with East Asia and Latin America, due largely to the risk of US jobs moving abroad.

And perhaps the most simplistic limitation of all is, once again, the economy (stupid). A sluggish US labour market; ominous projections of economic malaise in the EU; slower-than-expected growth in China and India; and a general fear of commodity price volitility in sub-Saharan Africa all contribute to a scenario where long-term social transformations are seen as too risky, and quick-easy political fixes are seen as sufficient to address poverty-related issues. Labour, like environmental work, may be confined to the backseat as institutions like the IMF and World Bank utilise the post-2015 development agenda as a way to create political reforms that support markets. “The rising tide lifting all boats” is a moniker that probably best characterises the Millennium Development Goals because, in many ways, increases in economic wealth have led to improvements in development indices. But correlation does not imply causation. The risk for organised labour is falling behind in its effort to transform worker-market relations through strong and robust treaties that provide minimum global social protections, or legalise a standard of decent work to accompany any international trade deals.

What Would Labour as an Institution of Governance Ideally Look Like?

Limitations aside, it’s worth maintaining an optimistic view of labour in the post-2015 development agenda. After all, optimism is what drives UN policy, really.

While it’s unlikely that the ILO will become an elevated institution on par with Wall Street, the World Bank, or IMF in its ability to determine global economic policy, it is certainly possible for it to steer conversations towards the acceptance of minimum conditions of fairness and decency in agreements between states. It also has the institutional capacity to lobby for legal changes in governments that are unnecessarily restrictive of the workers’ right to organise peacefully. The ITUC already documents and supports prosecution of violations of human rights pertaining to workers around the world. It is therefore not inconceivable that the ILO, as an international institution with government support, can take such cases to a court of some kind.

There may also be increased potential for cross-border organising. A company like Ikea may find itself in an uncomfortable position when, upon moving a factory away from the higher-cost organised labour states, workers in the new location decide to fight against low-wage pay or exploitative work conditions by joining an international trade union. Or more radically, when Wal-Mart struggles to get product on its shelves due to sympathy strikes organised by their logistics teams around the world on behalf of the underpaid and overworked retail staff. These scenarios are not so unbelievable or utopian; the slow progress in the past is partially due to a failure to create global conditions for workers to organise. Under the umbrella of a post-2015 agenda that holds labour rights and workers’ equity at its heart, organised labour has the legal and political framework to incorporate its key goals into the global economy. It also has an effective tool to foster solidarity between Northern and Southern workers.

In any case, most of this is speculation. The negotiations are ongoing. It is also obligatory to mention that the UN has a tendency to water down agreements in order to please all parties – in global development, this includes governments; civil society; corporations; financial markets; international institutions; and the most stubborn party of all: reality. But the foundation for historical changes began with robust attempts to bring all these elements of development policy to the same table; to draft changes; to seek consensus; and to build a future that pleases as many as possible.

The conflict in Mali is no different from other civil wars taking place around the world. An article published in Foreign Policy last month pointed out how instability in Mali has been ignored by the international community for almost a year, taking the Security Council over half a year to put the issue on its agenda which led to the arrival of French troops at the beginning of this year in Operation Serval. In the meanwhile, Malian destabilisation started as thousands of Tuareg fighters returned from Libya where they worked for the Gaddafi regime, bringing with them experience on the battlefield as well as weapons. While theories of civil conflict and terrorism account for the evident behaviours of neighbouring countries, the problem at hand in Mali does not relate to the geographical spread of the Arab Spring to Western Africa, but rather highlights the inability of the state to assimilate the newly-returned fighters into society.

Tuaregs—Nomadic and Left Out

The Tuaregs are a minority group in Mali among many other ethnic groups such as the Maure and Bambara. At their origins, both the Tuareg and the Maure groups were nomadic tribes, with the former being present in regions of Africa, including modern day Mali, as early as the fifth century. Ever since Mali’s independence from the French in 1960, the Islamic Tuareg minority has constantly fought to establish an independent, sovereign state. Mali’s independence brought with it ethnic and religious tensions that have commonly been associated with the post-colonial world. There have been three Tuareg rebellions that have taken place between 1960 and 2006.

Historical accounts of the Tuaregs in Mali support theories of why civil wars take place to begin with. These theories contend that when weak governance structures lose control over an entire area of the country, separatist movements are more likely to form. Further, if violent opposition is met by high levels of state repression the costs of continuing the revolt increase but nevertheless frustrations remain, along with the possibility of future violence. Finally, a strong opposition creates the conditions needed for a civil war or revolt to successfully take place.

The three Malian revolts provide a vivid example of how civil conflict theory works. In the first revolt, after Mali gained independence, government policies sparked the revolt by promoting agrarian modernisation, while marginalising the Northern regions of Mali where Tuareg predominately lived, evidenced by the lack of investment in the infrastructure of the region. While the resulting revolt was suppressed by the government, it only succeeded in further alienating the Tuaregs. It was these alienated elements that led the second ethnic revolt, despite the country being in the process of democratisation. In response to this revolt, the Tamanrasset Accords were signed to give the Northern Tuareg region more administrative power. Yet, while this was step in the right direction, the arrangement failed to encompasses all ethnic factions.

Today’s conflict (the third rebellion) is more complex than the previous two, as the historical underpinning call for autonomy and economical development coincides with emergence of the Arabic Front of Azawad, and the rise of terrorism and radical Islamism. Under these conditions, the history of the Tuaregs within Mali merely emphasises scholarly opinion, that minority groups are more likely to engage in fighting when they are economically disadvantaged relative to the rest of the population and when they are concentrated in a certain area of the country.

Africa’s Afghanistan?

Against this turbulent background, fears have stirred that last year’s violent clashes between the Tuareg and the Malian military, coupled with the religious underlying character of the demands made by the ethnic group and their affiliation with the Al Qaeda network, implied that Mali would follow in the steps of Afghanistan, in terms of the length of intervention.

While the previous rebellions saw a degree of disorganisation among the rebel groups, the opposition today is more organised in either liberation groups: the first includes, the National Group for the Liberation of Azawad, and the National Front for the Liberation of Azawad, and the second encompasses those with religious demands, such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar al-Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa. Nevertheless, the lines between the two types of groups have blurred and often the former becomes associated with the latter to some degree, raising concerns over the potential transformation of Mali into a terrorist state, in the international arena. As a result of overwhelming connections to extremist religious groups, the demands have changed as today’s conflict is fought not just for the independence of the Azawad state, but also the imposition of strict forms of sharia law.

The UN Security Council resolution passed towards the end of last year suggests a multidimensional approach to tackling the problem of Islamist militants, welcoming both international and regional intervention and help alongside the need to include Tuareg minorities in the political process. While France’s recent involvement is therefore legitimate, worries should arise over statements such as those made by the French President, Françoise Hollande, that the troops will remain in the country for as long as required to get rid of fanatical jihadists. While secular Tuaregs have tried to distance themselves from the extremists and cooperate with government forces, the determination exhibited by France, ECOWAS forces, and the international community to save Mali from the jihadists is both reassuring and worrying; reassuring as it proves that the country will not be taken over by terrorist groups, yet worrying as indefinite intervention can do more damage to a society, as is evident in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, media reports on the matter emphasise the fact that African politics has always been of minimal interest to US foreign policy concerns, and as such the Malian case is unlikely to become an African Afghanistan as France, despite their best intentions, have limited capabilities to sustain the Malian intervention to the same extent that the US did in Afghanistan.

What Next?

While international interest concerning Mali is still fairly recent, the issues underlying the conflict are decades old and the tensions themselves have persisted for almost a year. Ironically, a report by the International Crisis Group advocates a political and society-level solution to Mali’s predicament, as opposed to the military approach the international community has resorted to. The report further points out the difficult situation faced by the country, whose weak governance structure has made it susceptible to opportunistic terrorist groups, in the aftermath of the coup. Admittedly, conflict resolution in ethnically divided societies should come with sustained efforts to create an inclusive political system which can bring with it benefits to all members of society.

One of the main obstacles to achieving political consensus and inclusion is the fact that transitional authorities who emerged in the aftermath of the coup have not yet garnered the credibility needed from the Northern groups in order to solve the underlying causes of the conflict. Therefore, while military intervention is a real necessity at this point in time in order to address the issue of extremist Islamism, third-party mediation is equally necessary in order to ensure that the demands of the legitimate population of the north are also addressed. So far, mediation efforts have come mostly from ECOWAS countries, such as Algeria and Burkina Faso, both of whom are directly influenced by the developments in Mali and have Tuareg minorities within their borders. Hence, current avenues for mediation could be improved by ensuring that a neutral party conducts these talks, a factor which is acknowledged in conflict resolution literature as very important. When such a mediator emerges, credibility of both sides can be improved, increasing the possibility of achieving cooperation on the political realm and solving the conflict, at least partially.

Consequently, the situation faced by the international community in Mali is highly complex and no simple solution exists. While the implementation of an inclusive political structure could have averted the current crisis by taking seriously the demands of the Tuaregs, at present such efforts are insufficient. Military action is certainly needed, although caution should be exercised to avoid a protracted civil war that would continue to destabilise the region. Equally important, the resolution to the current crisis faced by Mali should not permit the secession of the North. For while the demands of the Northern ethnic groups are, as stated previously, pivotal to resolving the conflict, allowing the North to secede could prove disastrous in the longer-term due to the extremism that has been historically embedded in the region. Despite best efforts at mediation, a two-state solution in the case of Mali could lead to a situation similar to that of Palestine – unrecognised at the international level due to the overwhelming presence of Hamas – and therefore decentralisation and inclusion through reconciliation could prove to be a more successful approach for building a prosperous Mali.

On Tuesday 26^th February it emerged that the Italian elections had resulted in a hung parliament. Pier Luigi Bersani’s centre-left alliance won the lower chamber but failed to win a majority in the Senate. Even with the support of Mario Monti’s bloc, Bersani’s alliance would not be able to command a majority in the upper house and is not likely to find support from Berlusconi’s centre-right bloc or the Five Star Movement, the protest party led by Beppe Grillo. The upshot, analysts predict, is a another election soon.

The political ramifications of such a stalemate have long been clear. Italian democracy since the Second World War has been marked with unstable, multi-party coalition politics which has often resulted in slow, inefficient government. However in this election it is the economic ramifications of the result that has generated European, if not global, interest. In response to the election result, the FTSE 100 dropped 88.3 points, the Italian MIB index saw a 4 per cent fall in value and Germany and French indexes fell by 2 per cent. The Euro also fell in value relative to the pound and, most worryingly, Italy’s borrowing costs increased, the interest rate on its 10-year bond rising to 4.7 per cent.

The short-term effects of the election are likely to be increased uncertainty about Italy’s position in the Eurozone, fear of spiraling borrowing costs for the heavily indebted sovereign and renewed questions about the prospects for future growth in the country. However, at this juncture it may also be pertinent to ask whether or not the Italian political system has had any appreciably long-term effects upon the nation’s economy?

As the Economist observed a year ago: ‘only Zimbabwe and Haiti had lower GDP growth than Italy in the decade to 2010’. This is a worrying fact for a country with a large national debt and relatively persistent (although not that large) deficits. However it is more worrying for the current generation of young Italians, who, if current trends continue, are likely to experience a lower standard of living than their parents. Could the tumultuous nature of Italian politics have played a part in this poor economic performance?

There is a significant amount of literature that links economic growth, and causes of economic growth, to institutions. Dani Rodrik, Arvind Subramanian and Francesco Trebbi produce significant evidence that institutions are the primary determinants of economic growth. They find that an increase in their institutional quality index of one standard deviation (broadly equivalent to the difference between the institutions of Bolivia and South Korea) produces a 6.4-fold difference in the level of income of a country. Their sample includes both developing and more developed countries, and they argue that institutions have a greater effect on growth than trade or geography.

Similar work on the importance of institutions relates to foreign direct investment (FDI). Nathan Jensen examines the relationship between democratic quality and FDI. Although some scholars have argued that, for developing countries, FDI may be negatively related with democracy as autocratic regimes can provide more propitious investment climates for firms, Jensen finds that the opposite is true. His results suggest that if a country one standard deviation below the mean level of democratic quality moved to the highest level it would witness an increase in FDI of 1 to 2 per cent of GDP.

The problem with this literature is that, although the authors include developed countries such as Italy in their samples, democratic quality seems more important for developing countries when it comes to encouraging economic activity. Running counter to this is the fact that in some respects Italy has been succeeding economically (albeit with little growth over the last decade) despite its political institutions. According to the World Bank, between 2003 and 2011 Italy witnessed a net inflow of foreign direct investment of $171 billion. Although it lagged behind France, Britain and Germany, this seems to suggest that Jensen’s argument about the importance of democracy loses strength the more developed a country is.

What then can one say about the effect of Italy’s political system on its economic development? It is often argued that Italy has witnessed an unstable political system since democratic governance emerged after the Second World War. There have been over 60 governments since the end of those hostilities. Despite periodic attempts to reform the system and clean up politics, since the creation of the Second Republic governments have still been subject to high turnover. What about economic performance? According to World Bank data, economic growth remained above an average of 4% per annum until the 1980s, when it began to slow, averaging 2.5% in the 1980s, 1.4% in the 1990s and 0.6% in the 2000s. Although some scholars argue that post-war Italian politics was less fragmented and chaotic than popularly perceived it is difficult to argue that economic growth and stable government are strongly correlated. While relatively unstable government seems to be a constant, economic growth varied.

Does this suggest that politics has little effect on economic growth, at least for relatively developed countries? Despite some cursory support for this conclusion the answer, I feel, must be no. One way of interpreting the academic evidence linking institutional quality to economic growth for developing countries, and also account for Italy’s recent economic malaise, is to understand the differing ways in which politics affects the economy at different stages in a country’s economic development.

Developing and middle-income countries need to ensure a certain degree of stability to encourage investment. Quite often this is achieved through a democratic system that enshrines and defends property rights. Supporting such a conclusion is the work of Quan and Resnick, who find evidence that once you control for the presence of property rights the importance of democracy for attracting FDI diminishes. In relation to Italy this could indicate that after the Second World War the country did not achieve a high degree of political stability but enough to ensure that domestic and international investors felt confident.

At this point, achieving a high degree of political stability was not important, however political stability and efficiency increased in importance as Italy developed. At a certain stage of economic development, the ‘low-hanging fruit’ has all been picked and countries must develop more sophisticated industries based on knowledge; either advanced manufacturing or a more developed service sector. At this point a relatively effective political system is required to ensure that the majority of the population is well-educated and that people’s entrepreneurial zeal can be effectively channeled.

However, in terms of education and the ease of starting and carrying out business, Italy has not been successful in creating fertile grounds for economic development. Italy came 23^rd in the OECD’s PISA educational rankings in the last study in 2009. Even more concerning is the fact that the country came 73^rd in the World Bank’s 2012 ‘Doing Business’ study, below the Kyrgyz Republic, Romania and Azerbaijan. Add to this the country’s ‘civil-justice system, poor universities, a lack of competition in public and private services, a two-tier labour market with protected insiders and exposed outsiders and too few big firms’, criticisms voiced by Mario Draghi in his farewell speech as governor of the Bank of Italy, and the picture becomes bleaker.

How far are Italian politicians and the Italian political system to blame for this? It is difficult to offer a quantifiable answer to this question but a useful thought-experiment may help – if it is not the politicians’ job to solve many of these problems then whose is it? The majority of issues outlined above relate to public goods, such as education and the regulatory and justice systems. It is the job of the government to provide these goods, or create the laws which guide private provision of such goods as the market will only under-supply these things.

Italy’s anemic growth can sometimes appear somewhat of a puzzle. Although far from offering a conclusive answer to this puzzle, hopefully this article has suggested some reasons why it is defensible to believe that the state of Italian politics has had an effect on the country’s economic growth over the past few decades. The negative effect of an inefficient political system were masked by the achievements of the post-war regime in creating the basic level of stability necessary to encourage investment during the post-war boom. However as this growth spurt has run out of steam, more efficient governance has been required. Unfortunately this has not been forthcoming and Tuesday’s result suggests that it will not be forthcoming any time soon.

]]> http://pinpointpolitics.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=3988 0 http://pinpointpolitics.co.uk/?p=3979 http://pinpointpolitics.co.uk/?p=3979#comments Fri, 08 Mar 2013 20:08:19 +0000 Editor http://pinpointpolitics.co.uk/?p=3979 By Armando Ortega.

Venezuelans will, almost undoubtedly, identify themselves as either chavistas or anti-chavistas for the years to come. Hugo Chávez remains, particularly after his death, a polarising and divisive public figure. For some, he was a social-democratic hero, a rescuer of the poor and forgotten; for others, an awful president who was beginning to extend his mandate for too long.

In any case, we must ourselves be careful not to fall easily toward either extreme: it would be too easy for those who disagreed with his politics to dismiss him as a worthless populist and remain complacent in their world view or for those who he inspired to blow his achievements out of proportion. What seems undeniable, so far, is his enduring appeal. Latin America has witnessed merely a few of these charismatic leaders: Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, Juan Perón and Luis Inázio Lula da Silva are names that will not be forgotten any time soon. Chávez would want to be remembered alongside them and probably did everything he could to achieve this – at a great price.

Chavismo after Chávez

Chávez left, in the opinion of many, his country an economic and social wreck. During his presidency, Venezuela’s GDP returned to levels last seen fifty years ago and the fiscal deficit reached 15% of GDP. However, despite this economic mismanagement, he managed, even after becoming seriously ill with cancer, to secure a fourth mandate. Key to this continuing democratic success was the support he enjoyed among the lower classes. He managed to significantly reduce extreme poverty, which went down from 23.4% of the population n 1999 to 8.5% in 2012. One of his most celebrated successes was that he “placed the poor at the center of the national conversation”, as Naím puts it, but he did so at a great cost. Contrary to Lula in Brazil, he was keener on direct transfers and populist programs, rather than fighting poverty by providing the structural conditions for long-term growth, investment, and economic stability (inflation is almost at 30%). Since 1998, the Bolivar has lost much of its value (90%) through three major devaluations (five in total) and the imposition of capital controls, foreign currency controls, and other measures which have led to an unstable economic climate. Venezuelans, for instance, can hardly buy dollars, unless they go to the black market. This affects those seeking to go abroad and also severely limits the capacity of citizens to import basic goods, leaving many to face unnecessary scarcity. Additionally, Venezuela’s murder rate has almost doubled and corruption has increased dramatically. Venezuela occupies the last place (144^th) in the Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013, which assesses public institutions, domestic competition and the rules and regulations currently in place that deter FDI.

Even if Chávez can’t be blamed for all ills, he contributed decisively to create the conditions for such a fragile state of affairs. Many of his policies, both inside Venezuela and for allied countries in the continent, were unsustainable. Take for example the price of oil: $1 a tank. Direct transfers provide a decisive support for less privileged sectors of the population but only in the short-run; petrodollars fuelled the illusion of progress and millions might still believe that their redemption is yet to come. Their saviour is gone, leaving behind what Krauze refers as possibly “the greatest waste of public wealth” in the history of Latin America.

According to recent statistics, in the 14 years that Chávez spent in power, oil revenues amounted to almost $1 trillion dollars. This allowed him to sustain a number of policies that will hardly survive after him. Of the 2.4 million barrels of oil produced per day, 100.000 went directly to Cuba at a preferential price, constituting a direct subsidy of between 3 and 4 billion dollars per year and resembling very closely what the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. A further 300.000 barrels were allocated to Chávez ‘s additional allies in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and in the Caribbean. Haiti, for instance, made around $400 million a year by reselling part of this oil; Nicaragua received nearly $500 million in subsidies. In any case, Chávez not only provided economical support through direct transfers to like-minded countries, he also attempted to make viable an alternative regional model to those promulgated by the United States and centrist countries. What seems straightforward is the fact that many of his allies, including the Castro brothers and Evo Morales, are wondering if Venezuelan aid is going to continue, both in the economic and political spheres.

His legacy for Latin America depends very much of where one stands. For Lula (NY Times op-ed), Chávez was instrumental in establishing the Union of South American countries in 2008, “a 12-member intergovernmental organization that might someday move the continent toward the model of the European Union”. Lula recognised Chávez’s “deep belief in the potential for the integration of the nations of Latin America”. Indeed, Chávez was extremely keen to foster Latin American political forums, such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, which excluded the United States and Canada. In this regard, he aimed to create, at least in the discourse, an alternative regional project that went only as far as Mexico (and barely that) to the North. From the “opposite” stand-point, Chávez was an obstacle to regional efforts by contributing to fragmentation, and creating divisions by “curtailing Washington’s influence in Latin America”. In his absence, President Obama may find less manifest obstacles in building a constructive relationship with Latin America, were he to desire it. Chávez’s firm opposition to the U.S. presence might endure through his successors or allies but none of them seems, for now, to be as charismatic as he was. For this reason and many others, one of the more worrying legacies left by Chávez, both nationally and regionally, is the uncertainty he leaves behind

Hoping for an election

Ever since the Comandante’s absence after the October election of last year, all eyes have been on Nicolas Maduro, his political heir. Maduro has long had close relationship with Chávez, but was only designated as the official successor very recently. In this regard, Maduro hasn’t had much time to rally support for his candidacy from two important sectors: the Venezuelan Army and the radical sectors of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Most importantly, the support of the army is crucial, now that the country faces an uncertain future. Political analysts in Venezuela and beyond have written about the dangers of a division inside the country’s army; in Chávez’s absence, an internal struggle for power wouldn’t be unprecedented in the resulting power vacuum. The role that Diosdado Cabello, the National Assembly President, plays will be instrumental. He not only is one of the most important military men in the country, but also one of the richest and most respected allies of Chávez. According to the Venezuela’s constitution, execute power should temporarily pass to Cabello and he should call for elections in a month, but worryingly, he has decided to step down in favour of Maduro. In fact, Maduro will assume his (hopefully) temporary role after the funeral of Chávez. This move can be easily interpreted as a way to increase Maduro’s chances and public exposure, in order to secure a ‘continuity’ of chavismo.

Whatever happens, Maduro has to call for elections as soon as the constitution provides it. Henrique Capriles will most certainly be the opposing candidate, as he was able to rally a considerable amount of support for his cause in the last presidential election. He will undoubtedly be in a lesser position to compete: Maduro will, like Chávez, enjoy the fortune of being both president and candidate. The chavista project stands to face another electoral test, only this time without its beloved leader. Whoever inherits the country’s leadership will have tough decisions to make. The world will be closely watching the transition of power in Venezuela, hoping that whoever succeeds Chávez will do it democratically and peacefully. The worst thing that could happen in an already fragile Venezuela would be the outbreak of internal conflict. In this regard, the co-operation and support of the army, as well as other Latin American countries such as Brazil, will be essential in overseeing a peaceful transition. Obama would do well in restraining from intervening in any way (such as in blatantly supporting the opposition). This transition will be a test of the Venezuelan institutions left by Chávez and, in case they were to fail, a test of the capacity of the region to govern itself – as Chávez would have wanted it – without the intrusion of the United States. We must wait and accept whatever outcome the people of Venezuela choose for themselves.

In the end, it is too soon to know if Chávez will be, as Fidel once said of himself, absolved by history; for now, he will remain one of the most important figures to have influenced the Latin American political landscape. Chávez will, as he always wanted, be remembered for the years to come, and maybe not for the best reasons, once the nature of his legacy becomes apparent.