Time for some new ideas in Pakistan

Theory: India is a threat to Pakistan.

Hypothesis: Creating an Islamic identity in Pakistan will facilitate mobilization against the threat India poses.

Result: Islamic group blows up military headquarters in Pakistan because the Pakistani government is not sufficiently Islamic.

Conclusion: Next time think harder about unintended consequences.

A Snub from One Nobel Prize Winner to Another?

The Nobel Committee said in its press release that it was awarding the Prize to Obama because he promotes a world in which “Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.” Apparently this does not extend to engaging in dialogue with dissidents of an economically powerful country with which the United States wishes to maintain “a very robust bilateral agenda” that includes trade and security.

Obama has received a lot of flack already over the decision not to meet with the Dalai Lama while the Tibetan leader is in DC this week to receive a human rights prize from Congress on Capitol Hill, which was awarded Tuesday. But the decision to award him the Nobel Peace Prize makes the situation almost comedic – the most recent prize winner is refusing to meet with the laureate from 20 years ago over issues regarding peace and human rights because he is afraid of disturbing an increasingly warm relationship with the oppressor.

When South Africa refused a visa to the Dalai Lama in March 2009, the United States did not quite condemn the move, but it did reaffirm that “the Dalai Lama… is a regular visitor to the United States and we do not miss an opportunity to try and have discussions with him.” Except, it would seem, when doing so might put a shadow on upcoming trade talks with China. This is certainly not the first time this administration has played down concerns over human rights violations in China; Secretary Clinton started off the relationship in February by saying she was not going to push the human rights button. So in many ways this represents continuity with the current administration’s stance. But while the Obama government might think that they’re giving up the issue because it will not go anywhere, it is obvious this is not the case. If human rights pressure really was not affecting Chinese policy, why should that country be so touchy about it? Without a watchful and concerned international community, the state of rights inside China could be much worse.

The Dalai Lama has said that he is not offended and does “not want to create inconvenience to anybody,” which is ultimately self-defeating. Leaders not meeting with him may soon become a trend: Australia’s Kevin Rudd decided not to meet with the Dalai Lama in December for similar reasons of not wanting to rock the boat with China. Freedom House has more examples of Chinese pressure winning out over human rights concerns. With declining outside pressure, the Chinese will be free to repress its dissidents, confident that it is too important to be attacked on such trivial matters as domestic human rights concerns. The same is true in other parts of the world, like Egypt, where the United States has failed to show support to advocates of democracy and justice.

While Obama’s policy might be understandable from the standpoint of US economic interests, it is certainly not befitting of the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. I hope that this award gives him a reality check to see just that.

Islam and democracy are compatible. Can we move on now?

It’s time to put an end to the myth that Islam is incompatible with democracy.  It seems like every week there are talks in Washington on this issue. Democracy and Islam are compatible.  Let’s move on to other things.

First, lets look at the data.  The countries with the five largest Muslim populations in descending order are Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria.  These countries account for about 50% of the total global Muslim population.  Notice any interesting patterns?  Well here are a few:

First, the countries with the largest and third largest number of Muslims, Indonesia and India, are democracies.  About 20% of all Muslims live in these two countries.  Moreover, most theories of democracy would predict that these two countries would not be democratic: they are poor, ethnically diverse, and, Indonesia possesses large quantities of extractive resources.  In addition, while Muslims are the vast majority of the population in Indonesia, they are a minority in India.  Thus, the share of Muslims in the population apparently does not matter for whether it can be a democracy, either.

Second, the other three countries in the top five, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria, which account for 27% of all Muslims, are partial democracies and these countries provide very little support for the claim that democracy and Islam are incompatible. In Bangladesh and Nigeria, the problem with securing democratic rule is poor governance and corruption, not Islam.  Moreover, a big part of Pakistan’s problems with Islam are a result of the government’s deliberate efforts to promote it and it’s support of the Taliban in Afghanistan.  It took both of these decisions in order to gain leverage against India.  It is not much of a stretch to say that Pakistan’s problems with radical Islam are a result of the government’s intentional efforts to promote radical Islam.

The astute reader will notice that I have not mentioned anything about the Arab world.  Perhaps it is more accurate to say that Arab countries and democracy are incompatible, rather than Islam and democracy, and some have made this claim.  I do not think this is useful or accurate, either.

First, Arabs only account for about 15% of all Muslims.  Thus, even the claim that Arab countries are not compatible with democracy is far from saying that Islam is not compatible with democracy since Arabs comprise such a small fraction of the total number of Muslims in the world.

Second, the number of Muslims living in Arab countries is slightly larger than the number of Muslims living in Indonesia.  To say that being an Arab Muslim makes you pre-disposed to authoritarian rule thus makes as much sense as saying being an Indonesian Muslim makes you pre-disposed to democratic rule.  While I hear the former often, I have never heard the latter.

Third, most cultural theories about democracy have short shelf lives.  For example, before the 1960s, it was common to claim that Catholic countries could not be democracies because the hierarchy of Catholicism was incompatible with democracy.  Today, the vast majority of Catholics live in democracies and all wealthy countries with sizable Catholic populations are democracies.

Fourth, there is a serious problem with spurious correlation.  It’s hard to see what Arab countries have in common only with each other than language (think Lebanon, Qatar, and Yemen, for example).  Why language should map onto a distinct regime type is not immediately clear.  For example, with the exceptions of Cuba and Equatorial Guinea, every Spanish-speaking country in the world is a democracy or, in the case of poor ones, a partial democracy.  In addition, there are 60 million more people living in Spanish-speaking democracies and partial-democracies than live in the Arab world.  I can see no reason why speaking Spanish would faciliate democracy.  In fact, up until about 30 years ago, none of these countries were democracies.  Like Arabic today, one could have made the argument in 1970 that speaking Spanish hinders democracy.  Such a claim looks foolish today.  Why Arabic ought to be different is unclear.

So why aren’t Arab countries democracies?  I don’t think it’s much of a puzzle, except for a few cases.  To see this, it helps to examine the issue country by country.  First, many Arab countries have lots of oil (Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE), and an abundance of extractable natural resources, like oil, predicts non-democracy even outside the Arab world (e.g., Angola, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo).  Second, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon possess significant ethnic problems that make democracy difficult.  Third, much of the rest of the Arab world is poor (Comoros, Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia, Yemen) and thus unlikely to be democratic because of economic factors.  In addition, Sudan has ethnic problems and is poor.  After accounting for these factors, only four Arab countries are left: Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia.  I accept that these four are outliers, but this is a long, long, long way from the argument that Islam is incompatible with democracy.

Islam is compatible with democracy.  End of conversation.

Sesame Street

Samantha Shapiro has a very good article in today’s New York Times magazine about Sesame Street in Palestine.  While the article focuses a lot of attention on the sort of insane details that makes resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so maddening (such as a fight between Israeli and Palestinian writers over whether hummus was an Israeli or a Palestinian food), the article talked briefly about the show’s efforts to help children cope with difficult social problems in many troubled parts of the world.  Intrigued, I decided to look into their work in more detail.  It blew me away.  Truly, literally, I kid you not, it blew me away.  I am a cynical about most international development projects (derived from personal experience), and thus don’t expect much from these types of programs.  Not in this case.  The folks at Sesame Street are doing some amazing work.

Sesame Workshop (SW), the policy and program development arm of the Sesame Street shows, develops television shows in a number of very difficult environments around the world to help children cope with deep social and political problems.  The work is truly impressive.  First, SW develops programs in a number of harsh conflict and post-conflict countries, such as Kosovo, Northern Ireland, and Palestine.  Not only do their programs teach values such as cooperation, tolerance, and solving problems non-violently, but they also address the anxieties and fears children who live in these countries tend to feel.  Second, SW tailors their shows to the situations relevant in each country.  In Egypt, Alam Simsim stresses the importance of educating girls, an important government priority.  In Palestine, Shara’a Simsim teaches boys to solve problems non-violently.  In South Africa, Takalani Sesame focuses on removing the stigma of having HIV/AIDS.  I watched one of the video clips dealing with this issue and was extremely impressed.  Third, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funds a lot of this work.  I used to work at USAID and still cooperate closely with them.  I never knew they supported Sesame Street programs in other countries.  The work is phenomenal, yet USAID does not go out of its way to publicize their support for it.  This is amazing considering how much abuse USAID takes for being ineffective.  If I ran USAID, I would put Elmo on USAID’s homepage, hire Big Bird as a receptionist, and hang a giant banner of Bert and Ernie outside USAID headquarters.  This is great work.  Promote it shamelessly.

The New G8?

By the way, if you need your daily dose of cynicism, here it is.

Ditherer in Chief?

As a strong Democrat and Obama supporter, it hurts me to write this post.  However, sometimes it’s better to hear the painful truth than pretend it’s not so.  Thomas Ricks’s recent post at Foreign Policy on Obama’s indecisiveness articulates a lot of how I feel about the president’s performance on a range of issues.

This is not a blog about US politics, so I tend to stay away from the subject.  However, since Obama’s indecisiveness directly affects US foreign policy on democracy and governance, I think it is a reasonable topic for the blog.  On foreign policy, the big dither is Afghanistan.  I have nothing to add to this debate, except that I agree with Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s observation that while “the middle ground is often safe political terrain, it can be the riskiest spot on the battlefield.” Some unsolicited advice: it’s time to be the Gambler (e.g., fold or go all in) not the Coward of the County (e.g., commission  another study).

Obligatory picture of Kenny Rogers

Afghanistan is not the only foreign policy dither. 10 months into the Obama Administration, the President still has not appointed an Administrator for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  While I have a lot of friends in the Obama Administration, I keep my relationships on a professional level and therefore do not pump them for insider gossip.  From what I do understand the problem is that some in the administration want USAID to be an independent agency, possibly with cabinet-level status, while others want to place USAID under the State Department.  Fights like this are commonplace in the Federal Government (or any bureaucracy for that matter) and it’s up to the president to make the final call.  The same debate existed when I was at the Treasury Department under President Clinton and USAID under President Bush.  You don’t need 10 months to make the choice.  Be the decider, not the ditherer.

Deciding is hard