Teaching About China's Maritime Dispute

CFR unveiled a snazzy new interactive tool to study China's maritimes disputes. This is a great educational tool for students, complete with discussion and essay questions, and something I'll try to incorporate next semester in my U.S., China, and International Relations of East Asia course. Ironically, however, using such a tool will probably require more, not less time for prep since the instructor has to preview all the material beforehand. Anyway, kudos to CFR.

Update: I removed the map b/c it was taking up a lot of space

Anti-War Protests, Pacificism, and Syria

I've avoided discussion on Syria since there are a million other outlets pontificating on this issue already. However, two articles appeared on my radar, both in reaction to the recent surge in activity from anti-war groups so I'll comment on anti-war protests. Liberal anti-war groups largely supported Obama'd bid for election in 2008. However, Syria provides the first major break between the administration and demonstraters. It's no suprise that activists, who we often assume are principled actors, can too play politics, forming coalitions with lawmakers, disparate groups, and whoever will help them push their short term agenda. Who would have thought conservative libertarians and left-wing pacificists jumping in bed! But this also shows that coalitions are fluid, and their relationship with formal political parties are complex as argued by Michael Heaney and Fabio Rojas here. More related to my own (not-yet-off-the-ground) research is a confirmation about the worldviews and constraints of policymakers and activists. They are socialized into two completely different worldviews such that no permanent coalition could be ever formed in finding a solution to peace.

Source: Nikki Kahn/Washington Post

The second article is an op-ed from documentary filmaker Sebastian Junger titled " When the best chance for peace means war." It's essentially a rebuke of pacifism in the wake of humanitarian disaster as Junger writes, "At some point, pacifism becomes part of the machinery of death." Evoking just means for the use of force, he adds, "Every war I have ever covered — Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Liberia — withstood all diplomatic efforts to end it until Western military action finally forced a resolution." This last point is the tough question for pacfisits. The pacifist reponse is to always look for diplomatic solutions, even when such solutions have been exhausted. At times coercion, or the threat of coercion, are needed to bring about a diplomatic breakthrough.

A Caring Society

Anne Marie-Slaughter has written an inspiring piece about what at first sounded like another call  for bridging the policy-accademic divide, but instead turned into an appeal for greater investment in producing an ethos of "care" in our society and abroad. She writes, "Common purpose creates the trust and empathy that reveal us as individual human beings, not as statistics and stereotypes." Of course, she leaves it up to academics to come up with the great ideas to institute a policy of care and compassion. :)

Social Movements and the Politics of Markets

A compadre of mine in the social movements and IR field, Joshua Busby, has come out with a new book co-authored with Ethan Kapstein on social movements and the politics of markets.  Most of my work linking IR with social movements deals with security issues. But Josh's work reminds us that there's a host of social movement issues related to IPE as well: globalization, global financial institutions, labor markets, development, global inequality and so forth.  I've cross-posted Joshua's entry about his book from the Duck of Minerva blog here.

Civil Society, Civil Nuclear Cooperation, and Nuclear Disarmament

Back in June during the Mansfield Foundation's U.S.-Korea Scholar-Policy program, Charles Ferguson, President of the Federation of American Scientists and Mary Beth Niikitin led an interesting discussion about the 123 Agreement and US-ROK civilian nuclear energy cooperation. I expected a boring talk, but it turned out to be one of the most interesting panels. Civilian nuclear diplomacy seemed to touch on every aspect of IR theory relevant to me: international security, two-level games, foreign policy, transnational activism, civil
society etc..

In a nutshell, Korea wants to expand its civilian nuclear energy capabilities and become a global supplier. However, Korea is prohibited from taking these steps under the U.S.-ROK "123" Agreement (following section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act agreement). As Mark Holt argues, U.S. consent is required for any reprocessing or enrichment activities related to U.S.-supplied materials and technology. Unable to come to an agreement, the U.S. and Korea decided to extend the current terms of the 123 Agreement and return to negotiations in 2014. The issue is complicated because

1. South Korea has growing energy demands and as their deal with the UAE suggests, a lot of money can be made from exporting the technological know-how. 
2. At the international level, the U.S.has to consider non-proliferation norms without appearing as if it carries double-standards. If  Korea is granted permission to expand its civilian nuclear program, why not North Korea? Why not Iran? These were some of the criticisms faced by the Bush Administration over the U.S.-India civilian nuclear agreement in 2005. South Korea must also consider global non-proliferation norms, as well as its alliance partnership with the U.S.
3. At the domestic level, we might see three reactions: a) From the right: This is a matter of national sovereignty, Korea has the right to develop its nukes; b) From the left: nuclear energy is a dangerous option; c) From businesses: nuclear energy export leads to profit.

The issue of civilian nuclear cooperation can get technical very quickly, but it does seem like a great case for political scientists to explore, especially those who are into two-level games type research.

And although not related to civil nuclear cooperation, the role of civil society and nuclear disarmament has again come to my attention. The research conducted by the Nautilus Institute reminds me that it is not just left-wing peace activists who support disarmament, but those in the policy world as well. Another link on transnational civil society and disarmament is here.

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Mobile Phones, Collective Action, and Social Capital

In my last post, I mentioned ownership and use of cell phones as a means for examining social capital. According to the World Bank study I cited, the idea was that rural areas with high cell phone ownership would produce a type of social network facilitating communication. I thought of tagging a study in the APSR which also used mobile phone onto the previous post, but decided it was worth creating a new post.
In the May 2013 issue of APSR, Jan Pierskalla and Florian Hollenbach find that:

The availability of cell phones as a communication technology allows political groups to overcome collective action problems more easily and improve in-group cooperation, and coordination. Utilizing novel, spatially disaggregated data on cell phone coverage and the location of organized violent events in Africa, we are able to show that the availability of cell phone coverage significantly and substantially increases the probability of violent conflict.

The authors argue that cell phones helps facilitate in-group organization and the coordination of insurgent attacks. Hence cell phone coverage should be correlated with increased political violence. I haven't read the entire article, but their insights provide a counterpoint to many of the positive stories attached to technology, social media, and mobilization (i.e. Arab Spring, Occupy Movements, Candlelight Vigils in South Korea). It also takes us back to basic questions about social capital and what it's used for. Does social capital have to promote larger social (and not just private) benefits? The classic example are mafia groups and organized crime. Lots of social capital in those organizations. But towards what purpose?

Studying Civil Society in North Korea

CFR recently published my report on South Korean civil society and the U.S.-ROK alliance.

Civil Society North Korean-style :)

But my attention this week has turned to civil society in North Korea. Civil society in North Korea?!? Well no, its probably non-existent. But  a map of DPRK which locates where market activity is taking place and where humanitarian organizations operate exists. I wonder if the map might help researchers a) locate where one could go to look for potential early signs of things like trust, social capital, or civil society at the local level and b) compare this to other comparable regions in DPRK without the presence of market activity, aid agencies, etc..... it would be a natural or field experiment of sorts to see whether market activity or foreign presence has helped create social networks outside of government control. One could test basic concepts such as the relationship between market activity and social capital (i.e. whether market exchanges facilitate social capital and trust). My wife tells me economists think the relationship is reverse: social capital helps facilitate market exchanges. The larger point, however, is whether market activity or long term foreign presence helps create pockets of civil society in North Korea. Such a study might also lead us to examine the degree of  internal support for the regime as well as issues related to governance in a post-unification, post-transition scenario. 

Obviously the obstacles to such a study are enormous without real access into North Korea. It's not like I could handout survey questions. But there might be other ways of studying social capital. The World Bank has some practical suggestions. And there seem to be plenty of books and articles on measuring and finding social capital. For instance, one study linked cell phone ownership and social capital in Africa...something which might be plausible to examine in North Korea's future with two million cell phone subscribers (mostly in Pyongyang) through Koryolink - an Egyptian venture into the DPRK telecom industry. Rumors have it that there might be a second company entering the market. According to a Nautilus Report, DPRK's IT sector is growing with the mobile industry having "crossed the Rubicon."

One thought was the idea of using market activity as a proxy for civil society. It may be possible that in the unofficial markets, trust between the sellers and customers is the core of what enables market to run. It's hard to make transactions that could potentially throw you in jail if you don't trust your counterpart who might report you to authorities for engaging in illicit trade. On the other hand, I've heard some horror stories about market activity promoting rent-seeking behavior, corruption, and greed in DPRK and in pockets of China (the exact opposite of social capital!).

Finally, it's possible that social capital may take on an entirely (North Korean) bent which may not be easily observed. Would the concept of social capital in North Korea exist in the same way it does in other parts of the world? My discussions with defectors and NGO workers is that North Koreans have a hard time trusting anyone after having lived under a watchful regime where even family members become informants. Marc Howard's Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe raises some of these challenges for Eastern Europe (the article length version in Journal of Democracy is here). But living under decades of juche (self-reliant) ideology may present a whole different set of challenges for the growth of civil society in North Korea.