Between Action and Inaction in Syria

This is the most damning op-ed I've seen to date regarding President Obama's foreign policy on Syria. The Washington Post editorials have been highly critical of U.S. inaction for some time as you can read on Aug. 16, 2016, and July 2, 2016, and from editorial page editor Fred Hiat who states that the Obama Administration not only failed  to take action in Syria, but "soothed the American people into feeling no responsibility for the tragedy." But the op-ed by Leon Wieseltier is scathing, calling Obama's words "outrageously hypocritical." Wieseltier writes, "The administration creatively pioneered a third option, which it pursued not only in Syria but also in Ukraine and elsewhere: Between action and inaction, it chose inconsequential action (italics mine). There is the Obama doctrine!"

 

It's hard to place blame on the Obama Administration for the tragedy taking place right now in Aleppo. One might instead blame Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, or perhaps Iran and Russia for inflicting hurt and destruction as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Powers did in a speech which has gone viral (to which the Russian ambassador replied, "I don't want to remind these three countries [US, France, UK] about their role in unwinding the Syrian crisis, which led to such difficult consequences, and let terrorists spread in Syria and Iraq). But where questions lie for the next Administration is whether the U.S., as a great power, has a moral responsibility to push harder militarily against the Syrian government an do more to protect civilians.

Obama's critics argue that there are serious costs to inaction. In contrast, proponents have argued that greater U.S. involvement would have only made the conflict worse, with more death and suffering. Can the U.S. to do more to take a stand against al-Assad in which the costs (in lives and treasure) do not exceed the benefits? I can clearly see the administration has been wrestling between a logic of consequence and a logic of appropriateness resulting in such inconsequential inaction.

Amid Scandal, Protests Force South Korean President to Resign

Rarely does one find a case of social movement protest so effective that they bring down the democratically elected leader of a country in a matter of months. Yet that's exactly what happened in South Korea. Following a bizarre scandal of corruption and extortion involving South Korean president Park Geun-Hye exposed in March, President Park announced yesterday that she would resign.

Source: Kim Jong-hi/Reuters

For a blog titled Social Movements and World Politics, and a scholar who writes about South Korean civil society, I've ignored this case for far too long. Rather than wade into the complexities of the scandal and the rise of protests myself, however, I'll take the easy road and link some of the best analysis in English I've found to date.

Deep ties between Choi Soon-sil, the figure at the center of the scandal, and President Park are explained in the blog Ask a Korean!

Stephan Haggard on the Witness to Transformation blog has thus far a 4 part analysis on "Park Geun-hye Unravelling". Part I focuses on her approval rating and decline in popularity. Part II, perhaps the most useful, spells out the players and issues involved in the scandal. Part III focuses on political options for Park, and leading candidates of other political parties should Park step down. Part IV provides text of the prosecutor's statement specifically outlining Park's illegal transgressions including: abuse of authority and coercion against specific companies and individuals; divulgence of state secrets; and attempted fraud.

An Asan Institute brief published on Nov. 21, 2016 provided a list of allegations against Choi Soon-Sil, weekly protest numbers, and approval ratings of political parties and potential presidential political candidates.

Asan Institute: Original sources in footnotes of briefing

Eunjung Lim at SAIS-Johns Hopkins has a short analysis on Park's resignation in historical context. The New York Times' Choe Sang-Hun explains the steps of impeachment, although this is now a moot point. 

To be updated...

Here's a video of the protests last weekend to give you a sense of the size and scope of protest, although I cringe at the misleading analysis of how protests actually mobilize and operate.

 

Update 12/9/16

 

Park was impeached. Here's analysis by Scott Snyder from Forbes, and a piece by Darcie Draudt at JHU (and Scott's former research assistant). And of course, Steph Haggard's post and a video interview with Marcus on the Witness to Transformation blog.

 

Update 12/19/16

 

Some guidance on what happens next. Most importantly, power is transferred to the Prime Minister

 

Update 12/22/16

 

Here's an EAI opinion brief from SNU sociologist Seokho Kim that places the recent anti-Park protests within the broader context of (the failure of ) South Korean civil society the past decade. Basically, civil society had been defunct since the 2008 anti-U.S. beef protests, and only with the sinking of the Sewol did we begin to see its revival. As the EAI summary states:

Seokho Kim of Seoul National University explores whether popular opinion that led to the protests against Park Geun-hye is a sure sign that civic space is undergoing a revival in South Korea. Kim emphasizes that these protests are not spontaneous outburst of anger, but rather a culmination of the condensed anger and frustration of the citizens fuelled by social inequality, intensified polarization, and declining opportunities for social mobility. In order for the protests in 2016 to not end up as a one-time eruption, Kim urges that the civil society must expand its outreach to the citizens

 

 

Advice on Edited Volumes

One of my co-editors sent me this link about the pitfalls of participating in edited volumes. Since I'm currently in the middle of editing a volume, and organizing a conference to produce another volume, I found this article dreadfully amusing. Here's an excerpt of what Joseph Weiler, President of EUI writes:

The routine is well-known and well-practised. You receive an invitation to present a paper at some conference. You accept (see below). You may adapt something you have already written or something that you are working on which is in some way connected. It is often not exactly what the conveners had asked for or had in mind, but perhaps close enough so as not to have to reject the invitation. The conveners are often accomplices in this little approximation. They are committed to the conference; it is often part of some grant they have received. Almost always you are pressed for time – after all it is not as if these invitations arrive when you are sitting back, twiddling your thumbs and looking for things to do. In general they are disruptive of your flow of work. So the result is not as good as it might have been... 

You attend the conference. It shows. The papers presented are of very variable quality and relevance. There is the usual conference overload so that the habitual 10-15 minute ‘commentator’ input may be interesting but of limited value to your paper... 

...The book is then published with an enticing title and on occasion wonderful artwork. More often there is ‘programmatic artwork’: flags, a globe, whatever. The publishers assess the captive market and act accordingly. The print runs are small, the price typically exorbitant and in any event unattractive for individual purchase. It is common that the conveners have budgeted a subsidy to the publishers. An expensive cemetery – rightly so. If you are lucky, the book may be reviewed. And if you are even luckier, the review will be more than, well, a rehashed version of the ‘Introduction’ and road map.

Part of our group at a conference at Deakin University
(Melbourne) in June 2015. We already replaced someone
from this group which attests to some of the challenges of  pursuing
edited volumes, but also our commitment to ensuring quality.
Photo Credit: Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation 

I pretty much agree with everything above and the entire blog post. But based on my limited experience (n=2) organizing collaborative projects, I still believe there is much intellectual and professional merit in putting together such volumes. To give the concrete example of our work on North Korean human rights (NKHR) discourse and advocacy, I have learned much about this issue from our collaboration. I do believe our understanding of NKHR discourse and advocacy networks is poorly understand, and that collectively we have something to say on this matter which is new and different, and hopefully useful.

The volume is not simply a check box to satisfy our funders. There is no way my co-editor and I would spend countless hours, at times neglecting family duties. to do this project if we didn't believe there was some intellectual and practical value behind our efforts. Admittedly, the hardest part has been getting our collaborators to get on board and push them in the direction we'd like. But I'm confident our upcoming conference and follow-up book workshop will motivate us to put together something coherent and meaningful. That's the challenge ahead of us as we approach our big event in a few weeks!

Faith, Political Parties, and Elections

This comes more out of my personal than professional academic thinking, but The Atlantic laid out a good piece for how hard it is to align faith with politics, particularly when it comes to supporting a particular political party. This is why we advocate the separation of church and state, even though in reality our political culture is shaped by religion (and vice-versa). To quote the opening paragraph

There are lots of ways to be a Catholic public leader in the United States. But the only path that’s impossible, it seems, is to advocate policies that fully follow the Church’s teachings on Jesus. Politicians of both parties have to pick and choose their theology, sticking to party lines that defy the United States Conference on Catholic Bishops’ guide to faithful citizenship. For their part, lay Catholics have largely blended into the general electorate. Far from taking positions that are distinctive to their faith, many hold views that reflect their partisan allegiances.

Intro to IR Roundup: Nukes, Migration, Syria and IR Research

Today is the first day of fall 2016-17 classes. I usually teach Intro to International Relations in the fall, but am out of my routine due to a conference I'm organizing. However, I thought I'd post several good sound bytes which I would have offered to students had I been kicking off class with a dose of current events and international crises.

Syria: Why is the war so damn long and bloody. It's gets more violent by the day. Drawing on IR

 AFP/Getty Images

research, Max Fisher of the New York Times provides a run-down of some of the factors contributing to the ugly nature of the Syrian war. The usual suspects like multiparty factions and ethnic/sectarian divisions. But a big culprit appears to be foreign sponsorship/intervention. As Fisher writes:

"Foreign interventions that were intended to end the war ...have instead entrenched it in a stalemate in which violence is self-reinforcing and the normal avenues for peace are all closed...Whenever one side loses ground, its foreign backers increase their involvement, sending supplies or air support to prevent their favored player’s defeat. Then that side begins winning, which tends to prompt the other’s foreign backers to up their ante as well. Each escalation is a bit stronger than what came before, accelerating the killing without ever changing the war’s fundamental balance."

Intervention: Recent interventions (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) have left us pondering the costs of such intervention.  Anne Applebaum asks what the costs of non-intervention have been in Syria in terms of total deaths, the refugee crisis, the destabilization of the region, and security threats in Europe . Of course, intervention could have made all of this even worse. Fareed Zakaria earlier argued that it was probably best for the U.S. not to intervene, but it could/should have done much more on humanitarian assistance, even if it rightfully chooses not to pursue humanitarian intervention. Part of the problem may be the politicization of aid.

Nuclear Weapons: Obama is toying with the idea of changing U.S. strategic doctrine by declaring a no first use nuclear weapons policy. Some pros and cons of a first no use policy are outlined by the WSJ.  While reducing nukes sounds good in theory, Stephen Sestanovich of CFR pushes back against this change.

Migration: Want to know the difference between migrants and refugees. A CFR video and backgrounder explains here.

Russia, Turkey, and IR Paradigms

In a nod to ideological alliances, Anne Applebaum argues that dictators will choose other dictators at the end of the day and cites Turkish President Recep Erodgan's recent meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin as an example. Despite Turkey's membership in NATO, Edrogan has used the military coup to crackdown on even the slightest potential for opposition.  As Applebaum writes:

(Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press)

Geostrategic, military and even historical calculations should make Turkey and Russia antagonists. But their meeting illustrates something that many Western politicians and “realist” thinkers find difficult to understand: that ideas and ideology sooner or later trump “interests.” If Turkey were still a democracy, Erdogan would be looking to his Western allies to help him push back against Russia. But contact with the West also means contact with Western ideas. Dependence on the West means dependence on states that believe in the legal norms which Erdogan wants to repress, states that might support the people Erdogan wants to lock up.

Victory for constructivists? Does this really mean ideas trump interests? Well, Turkey's move does indicate the power of ideas. But ideas too reflect particular interests. What's important here (for IR students) is the relationship between ideas and interests and whether in the case of Turkey and Russia, ideas are defining actors' interests.

What Psychology Tells Us About Dispelling Worldviews

Apparently it's difficult. This piece by David Ignatius on why facts don't seem to matter for Trump supporters is apt for my own research on contrasting views between peace activists and policymakers. In fact, trying to persuade the other and convincing them why they're wrong (or you're right) seems particularly onerous if the research of this 1979 study, "Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence" stands correct. It appears that attempts to debunk myths even has the potential opposite effect of reinforcing myths.

So applied to the politics of peace, activists are socialized at an early stage to hold particular views about nukes, bases, drones etc...As they interact with policymakers, who themselves are socialized into viewing peace through a different lens (i.e. realist, liberal international etc...), neither side cedes ground in trying to understand the facts. The result is polarization of views.

I'm going to need to find some collaborators in psychology and sociology to help me out here.